Prince of
Thorns by Mark Lawrence, The Broken Empire #1
From being a privileged royal child, raised
by a loving mother, Jorg Ancrath has become the Prince of Thorns, a charming,
immoral boy leading a grim band of outlaws in a series of raids and atrocities.
The world is in chaos: violence is rife, nightmares everywhere. Jorg has the
ability to master the living and the dead, but there is still one thing that
puts a chill in him. Returning to his father’s castle Jorg must confront
horrors from his childhood and carve himself a future with all hands turned
against him.
Prince of
Thorns is Mark Lawrence’s debut book and the first in The Broken Empire series.
This book has been high on my to read list ever since it was first released but
just hadn’t come around to read it. Prince of Thorns has received several
outstanding reviews as was very eager to get to it. If you haven’t read this
book yet (yes I was once shame on me), give into you inner epic fantasy demon,
it knows you want to read this book!
Prince of Thorns starts of with following the main protagonist Jorg. Who is just in his teen years, 14 years old and already leads a band of outlaws. The first thing that really falls to notice in Jorg character is the hatred that he carries within himself. How he came to hold that much hatred and his desire to exact his revenge soon become clear. His mother and his younger brother were brutally murdered by his uncle while Jorg was watching. Hanging helplessly in a briar thorn bush. These events have scarred him for life, and haunt him daily. In the beginning of the book there is great change of perspectives as there is the main storyline that focuses on Jorg present state and a second one that reflects on several events that occurred 4 year previously which were closely linked with how Jorg was shaped into what he is now. Vengeful, brutal and without remorse. I was very impressed with how Jorg’s character was shown all throughout the book. Jorg is not your typical heroic Prince; he is the dark, gritty and “twisted” version of it. He is quite young, turning 15 years old halfway through the book, but he is already so developed, or at least has a lot of smart acquired with his time on the road. Jorg isn’t some one who will falter easily and already gives charge to his band of outlaw brothers, though he is the youngest of them all. He doesn’t come over like a royal born child but more the medieval psychopath with a goal for only one thing. Revenge. Jorg really carries a kind of dark twisted humor within himself that during his conversing and his actions gave me goosebumps. Jorg isn’t a character that you want to get on the wrong side of you. Mark Lawrence has created a very, very strong main protagonist in Jorg, that I reckon will develop more and might turn out two ways… especially with the goal that he sets in the end of the book.
Prince of
Thorns is being told from Jorg’s persepectives in a first narration. So the
other characters aren’t discussed in that much detail but some of the friends
of Jorg, Maken and his former tutor Lundist are some of the more revisiting
characters. Though they remain more on the background, they all do add more
flavour to the story of Prince of Thorns. Maken is an dear friend to Jorg and I
think that Jorg had a lot of support to him. Lundist you get to learn about
more during the revisits of Jorg to what happened 4 years earlier. Lundist
tried to shape Jorg to become something, but having read the story, Lundist
attempt didn’t quite pay-off. Next to these two there are a lot of other
brothers from the band that Jorg leads that you get to learn more on the go,
but also in between several chapters there are mentionings of what each of
these brothers do best, giving a clear picture of each of them. Then there is
also the Royal court with Jorg’s father and his stepmother. Now this was quite
something. You can definitely see where Jorg got some of his traits. His father
is maybe not as brutal as Jorg but he reigns with an iron fist. The first
encounter that you read about between Jorg and his father and his stepmother
felt so energetic and lively that it felt like something had to give, the
tension was captured in a perfect moment. Neither of the parties giving in. It
is mentioned that Jorg wants to reclaim his heritage with the throne, but on
one level I do also think that Jorg desperately want to be acknowledge by his
father and proof that his is the rightful heir. Its by this large secondary
cast that there is a nice completeness to the story with all those small
details.
The world
that this all takes place in is also quite something. Looking at the map in the
front of the book it does vaguely look like Europe, that Mark Lawrence
re-imagined more to his liking and what also falls to notice are the references
in the book towards some of scholars of our time and their works. It’s hard to
describe but for me it just gave that little extra nudge to the storyline and
even more so was the part when Jorg was confronted by the locked door and there
was the mentioning of “External sensors malfunctioning. Biometrics offline”.
Are we looking at fantasy/sci-fi mash-up? This door gave for me quite so wild
thoughts with where and when this story might be taking place especially taken
together with the map upfront. It’s fun to speculate about this, since most of the
story does take place in a more medieval setting, I’m curious whether I can
find more hints about this richly imagined world. It did remind me on one level
to Stephen King’s Mid-World in The Dark Tower.
Just lastly
I want to say something about the action in Prince of Thorns. There are quite a
few battle scenes both with multiple opponents and with single hand to hand.
The focus in this book isn’t necessarily on those scenes but they do add a nice
acceleration of all the events that unfolded before and start to unfold after
them. One in particular really stood out
for me, well they all did actually (the rest you have to find out for
yourself), and that was when Jorg has his encounter with his father. Its over
in a hard-beat. The battle itself only covered a 2pages tops, but man what
happens in those few word left a definite impression on me. Battle scenes don’t
need to take dozens of pages to be cool. Jorg dirty fighting only needs a dozen
of sentences to become engaging and make you grip the book that much tighter
out of excitement.
Even now
when I just wanted to wrap up my review of Prince of Thorns one other
element spring to mind and that is the magic part of Prince of Thorns. It’s in
between the lines that you learn more about the possible fate of Jorg and what
he might be able to do. There are court magicians that can influence people of
which Jorg hadn’t any thought of and other hadn’t as well. Next to this there
are also the Necromancers to which you are introduced too. What was so great to
read about the magical element in the book is that is remains obscure in the
beginning and only after a while you learn more and more about this but it is
never fully revealed. Even now I’m still guessing how this all might unfold in
Jorg’s favour and what he will do with it in the books to come.
Prince of
Thorns left me in an ecstatic state of mind. Prince of Thorns is so much more
that a fantasy story. I haven’t come across such an epic fantasy story in quite
some while and it really deserves all the praise it can get. Mark Lawrence
wrote this story in a brilliant way. It isn’t your typical Epic Fantasy. Mark
Lawrence turned that concept into a dark and twisted tale of a young man seeking
vengeance for what was done to his family, getting his heritage back and maybe
even above this all, getting acknowledgement from his father. It’s not only a
viscous story of Jorg navigating his way to exact it revenge. Underneath it all
there is beauty in this story as well.
I can’t wait
to read King of Thorns and Emperor of Thorns. My final words can only be: this
is a must read, you will be awed.
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On another
note, Emperor
of Thorns will be published by Harper Voyager UK on the 1st of August 2013, that is 01-08-2013! Write that down and don’t
forget to order it in advance!