Friday, June 28, 2013

Prince of Thorns - Mark Lawrence



This is the first novel of the trilogy "Broken Empire", and if I'm not wrong, the first publish novel by Mark Lawrence.
It's the coming of age story of a runaway prince that bands with a group of thieves and killers.
The book is dark and cynic. The protagonist is just a boy but speaks like a weathered and mirthless old man.   His little regard for life is only exceeded by his fondness of violence, and his limited self control.
I, personally, had a hard time emphasizing with the protagonist, being pulled more toward those around him; something not easy when the book is written in first person, and everything is coming out of the protagonist's mind. But, the character is interesting, and I found myself hating him, yet wanting to find out why he behaved in such a why.
The other factor that kept me interested was the world itself. In fantasy literature, the world can be one more character, so this is not new, but this world has some very interesting secrets. But I will not spoil them for you.
All in all, this book was enjoyable, but not great. However, I have seen that reviews for the next book in the trilogy agree in qualifying it as much better than the first. So I'm willing to give it a chance and find out if it's true. If not, it was still entertaining, so there is no loss there; but I always have my hopes up for a good novel.

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