A review by bunnieslikediamonds
Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
4.0
Judging by the reviews most people either loved or hated this one. I guess I can see why. This is gritty, violent fantasy completely lacking in ethereal elves and such. There is no discernible good versus evil here. Everyone's either evil, crazy or both. The female characters are mostly stereotypes and don't get to do much of anything, so it's hard to tell what kind of people they are. Which, by the way, always baffles me in this genre. If you're creating a fantasy world, why not challenge gender roles (as you're not bound by historical facts) and include some women with personality and agency, rather than just The Whore, The Maiden and The Witch? I mean really, you can imagine necromancers and monsters and magic, but women depicted as individuals rather than male fantasies is too out there? Steven Erikson does this so well in his Malazan series.
Malazan this is not, but jolly good fun all the same, if you like blood and entrails and general mayhem. It's a little disconcerting to find yourself rooting for a murderer and rapist, but what else are you going to do when it's all told through his wicked point of view? Jorg, the fourteen-year old evil wunderkind, does have a sense of humor and manages to casually quip between slayings without coming across as insufferable. Well, not counting the killing and raping (which Erikson by the way also does much better).
I didn't love it, but I read it in one sitting and laughed out loud a few times and that's something.
Malazan this is not, but jolly good fun all the same, if you like blood and entrails and general mayhem. It's a little disconcerting to find yourself rooting for a murderer and rapist, but what else are you going to do when it's all told through his wicked point of view? Jorg, the fourteen-year old evil wunderkind, does have a sense of humor and manages to casually quip between slayings without coming across as insufferable. Well, not counting the killing and raping (which Erikson by the way also does much better).
I didn't love it, but I read it in one sitting and laughed out loud a few times and that's something.