The first 25% really put me off. I tried to read this book a few times before I got past it. And I'm glad I did. This book isn't what you think it is, and Jorg isn't who you think he is.

This was an interesting book. I first started reading it quite a while ago, but I didn't get overly far in it. I then started reading it again earlier this year and got 3/4 of the way through. I decided to start trying to finish books that I'm about half-way through so that I can get my number of books read up.

About the book: I don't really know. It was okay, and there were some interesting parts to it, but everything felt inevitable. I saw most of what was going to happen and there were other times where it just wasn't interesting. I might end up reading the later books, but who knows?

Sure, this book contained some uncomfortable and unbelievable situations - rape, violence, and the unlikely scenario of hardened criminals following a young boy on his quest to take over the world - but I'm okay with that. Not everything can be rainbows and butterflies... the real world is not a pretty place, there's no reason to expect fantasy to be that way either.

I think the journey that Jorg is on, all of the violence and terror, really solidifies why he ends up where he does at the end of the book, and I feel that it is only going to continue to make him grow in the coming books.

Thankfully, there was quite a bit of levity in the book to balance the dark side of humanity... enough that I ended up waking my fiancee up with my laughing.

Anyway... if you don't mind the heavy side of humanity, I'd definitely recommend this book. I haven't hit the sequels yet, but I can't wait :)

Jorg Ancrath is a really interesting character to read about but unfortunately, he hasn't had much character growth and for most of the book seemed to suffer from a split personality: It was later explained properly and satisfactorily why he seemed to have two minds but for most of the book, it was a point of irritation. He is a very flawed character in that he is selfish, dishonest, reckless, rash and ruthless but all of this is why he makes a curiously wonderful departure from traditional protagonists. I look forward to seeing how his character develops during the next two books. However, I disliked that almost all his success resulted from either pure luck or an enchanted crossbow.

Pushes the boundaries in terms of what we can expect from the fantasy anti-hero, even by modern standards.

The post-apocalyptic setting adds a nice sub-plot to the story.

This is a difficult book for me to review, I'm not completely sure if I like or dislike this book.

The first problem I had was the writing style. Lawrence tries to emulate an almost Shakespearean style of writing, but it clearly falls far short of his aspirations.

The second problem was the grittiness. I like a dark book as much as the next fantasy fan, but this was a bit to much. Jorg was just going from one decapitation to the next, destroying whole villages, countries, castles etc. Raping, pillaging, plundering and disembowelling anyone who disagrees with him. At one point it becomes less like a fantasy book and more like a slasher movie. You get desensitised by all the violence.

The third major problem I have with the book is the main character. Jorg, albeit he did have a crappy life, is one evil little bugger. This guy has all the telltale signs of a genuine psychopath. That being said, I could live with Jorgs evilness, what I could not live with was Jorg really weird decisions at crucial moments. First I tried to explain this away as failings of the young mind, and then the book tried to explain it away in a deus ex machina style which I will not spoil here, but it kept bugging me.

Now on to the weird thing. I kept reading it. Even though I didn't like the writing, the plot or the evil S.O.B. who is the main character. The world is really interesting. It reminded me of playing the Witcher III in a certain way. The world is dark and grim, but oddly enticing. In the end you even want the worlds most deranged teenager to succeed in his quest.

In the end I will keep reading this series, just to see that sociopath meet his maker in the end (god I do hope he gets killed, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed).

Fun review time, people! Today it's a.....

*drumroll*

RECIPE!

Disappointed? Well I was too, given all the good stuff I'd heard about Prince of Thorns. In all honesty, it's not a bad book. It's got good writing, a decent plot, a different premise and a really strange world. I just wasn't interested in the main character. He didn't really shock me (though maybe his..err...stamina did, considering his age; he's 14) and I didn't care what happened to him. So let's move on to the recipe, you'll probably understand my feelings better.

INGREDIENTS:

20 kilograms of beefy dudes
A bagful of powdered nettle/briar
5 cups of dirt
5 cups of grease
A hospital's worth of blood (coloured corn syrup will also do)
3 feminists and someone's granny
2.5 philosophical tomes
1500 kilograms of steel
1 gullible Labrador

HOW TO COOK THIS BOOK:

Firstly, take this



and this



and a bit of this:



and put it all in the blender. After a minute or so, add half of the nettle powder and blend again, until you get a nice poisonous mixture. Set this in the refrigerator to chill. This will be the base of your hero.

Then, take the beefy dudes, along with the grease, dirt and blood and whisk them all together in a bowl. Add steel shavings slowly while mixing so that the batter doesn't too foamy. We want hard boiled killers.

After the batter has reached a nice, thick, idiotic consistency, heat the furnace (no, not oven) to something over a 1000 degrees Celsius and shove the batter in. Bake for a long time. 3-4 years is ideal.

While the main dish is baking, take the hero out of the fridge. Pull out every destructive tool you have - meat tenderiser, mallet, cleaver, screwdriver - and use it on the protagonist. This stands for the emotional devastation of the hero, so the more damage you do, the more delightfully vengeful he will be.

Note: Sometimes you may notice a certain heaviness in the upper left of the hero. This is common with characters that been left to stew too long. If it it becomes heart-shaped, immediately pull it out with a sharp implement and some antibiotic, you'll be fine.

After brutalising the hero, shred the philosophy books into a million pieces. They should look something like this when properly torn:

"You soon learn there’s no elegance or dignity in death if you spend time in the castle kitchens. You learn how ugly it is, and how good it tastes.”

“There’s something brittle in me that will break before it bends.”

“Strange how deeper the hole the stronger it draws a man. The fascination that lives on the keenest edge, and sparkles on the sharpest point, also gathers in depths of a fall.”

Fold this into the hero-dough. If the dough is hard, congratulations, you're doing it right.

Note: The folding part is difficult, what with the non-malleabilty of the protagonist and the tiny bits of paper. I never said this recipe was easy.

When the main dish is about to finish baking (you forgot about it, didn't you?), it's time to make the sauce. For that, first crush the feminists. Your own views on women and equality are not important. The idea is to not provide a single positive female character.

To the now powdered suffragettes, add the dried up granny, for a satisfying crunchy texture. A generous dose of cream and that blood will create the sauce. You can boil this on sporadic bursts of heat. The hero's age has nothing to do with anything, remember.

Now quickly, using industrial grade gloves, take out that thing in the oven. Hazmat suits recommended. You will see a cracked, bubbling lava cake sort of thing. That is the world building. I call it a thing because it defies standard understanding. The concocted cake will be a mysterious object. It will look like a post-apocalyptic dessert (or desert) at one time, a medieval fantasy trifle at others. That is part of the charm.

Set the moulded hero in the centre of this. Pour the sauce all over the dish with a flourish. Sprinkle Xanatos Speed Chess over the protagonist for taste and to fool people into thinking the hero is a strategist. In reality, spray some deus-ex-machina-in-a-bottle all over the cake.

Voila! Serve it to whoever can stomach it.

Best served cold with a cannibalism dip. The trusting Labrador is a stand in for Makin, who follows Jorg (the hero) everywhere despite his increasing abuse of him.

P.S. Despite the awful recipe, the book is not horrible. I repeat, the book is not to be burned. i just didn't find anything convincing and found everything a little too convenient. This is strongly a book that depends on the reader for appreciation. Death of the author and all that. If you can get behind the hero, you will most likely enjoy this a great deal. Bewarned, this book has a scene that made me green. And I have a higher than average tolerance for gruesomeness.

Many authors have tried this whole anti-hero 'thing'. Anti-heroes are not perfect, they are dark and flawed but they achieve greatness in spite of themselves and you end up falling in love with them. I end up hating these characters.

However Mark Lawrence has created Jorg who is a murderer and all round asshole. He kills and pillaged from the innocent. But I end up liking him. He is fourteen and aim to be king by fifteen. As you continue reading you gain an understanding of who he is and why he acts the way he does.

Too dark for me - couldn't build sympathy for the main character, but it's very well written.

For a long time, fantasy was one of my favorite categories of books. I still read them sometimes, but now I frequently find myself two chapters into the book and thinking "oh, they all go exactly like this."

"Prince of Thorns" does not go like that.

Yes, it's a fantasy world with some of the elements you'd expect and want in your fantasy book. But in this one, everything has been painted black. And then kicked in the throat.

The Empire is broken. The Prince comes from the thorns. These are weak words to describe the scene.

Quick: think of a fantasy novel hero. He or she is usually a thinker who has been drawn into action, reluctantly. He or she is struggling on the side of good in a world that has been sliding into decay, but has hopes of improving the world by righteous struggle against long odds. That's my gut reaction, anyway.

The "hero" of "Prince of Thorns" is vicious. He is nowhere near as cuddly as a grinch or a grouch. His sins are legion. His creativity is both fecund and fetid. He acts swiftly and from the gut... right from the grease of the liver itself. "Good" wouldn't stop by his house to reason with him over tea and cookies; "good" would firebomb him from a distance.

The lesser of two evils? That "lesser" part happens only rarely within these pages.

This isn't your childhood fantasy novel. This is not a black versus white world. This is a novel of anti-escapism. This is a novel with the entire wide spectrum of black. Well, maybe a little bit of really really dark gray here and there. Usually under rocks.

Yeah, and I really need to read the next book in this series, too.