Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire #1) (edition 2011)

A powerful and emotional tale with suprising depth hidden between the lines. This is character-driven fantast at its finest. The literary and cultural references leave you in no doubt that this is fantasy written for an adult audience and a sophisticated one at that. ( )

Hmmm... most of the reviews say this is a particularly "dark and violent" story. I guess I'm desensitized. Yeah, sure, it's violent but was the violence excessive, given the situation the world is in? No, not really. Perhaps the big hiccup on it is because the main character is only a child. Well, a child in our world, not so much in his own.

But, anyway, if the main character was 30, we'd not even bat an eye at the violence. I didn't even find it particularly gory violence... just sorta random. But it wasn't even really random if you accept the world Jorg lives in - the only way to rule is to kill anyone who doesn't obey. Simple. And was he a psychopath/sociopath, really? Or was he being controlled by outside forces to behave this way? Exactly...

I liked the book better than I expected. My library has it filed under YA, so I expected it to be a YA novel. It is not. It is as mature as any dark fantasy I've read, though perhaps a bit more straight-forwardly written than many. There is some foul language, but not really that much, considering the context.

If you liked this book, and want to read books that are not even remotely YA, you could try Joe Abercrombie's stuff... it is as dark, more violent, and much more "politically" complex. ( )

This "hero" is a sociopath. I get that. But though his general psychopathic violence is disturbing enough, when he refers to rape almost as an aside, I get particularly angry. Our society is already inured enough to violence which is awful. Do we need to look at rape as akin to burning a house down or killing livestock? I know which I would never choose.

I've read the passage from the book which occurs in the first chapter and you can, too:

Brother Rike does enjoy his simple pleasures,” Makin said.
He did. Rike had a hunger for it. Hungry like the fire.
The flames fair ate up Mabberton. I put the torch to the thatched inn, and the fire chased us out, just one more bloody day in the years’ long death throes of our broken empire.
Makin wiped at his sweat, smearing himself all over with sootstripes. He had a talent for getting dirty, did Makin. “You weren’t above those simple pleasures yourself, Brother Jorg.”
I couldn’t argue there. “how old are you?” that fat farmer had wanted to know. Old enough to pay a call on his daughters. The fat girl had a lot to say, just like her father. Screeched like a barn owl: hurt my ears with it. I liked the older one better. She was quiet enough. So quiet you’d give a twist here or a there just to check she hadn’t died of fright. Though I don’t suppose either of them was quiet when the fire reached them…

(Thanks, Liz, for typing that in for me.)

And another passage showing the whole misogyny of the character:

“The combination of a woman and time on my hands wasn’t one I’d tried before. I found the mix to my liking. There’s a lot to be said for not being in a queue, or not having to finish up before the flames take hold of the building. And the willingness! That was new too.” [p 173]

I have a very hard time with being in the head of a hero who glorifies in violence but at least its indiscriminate. I cannot be in the head of a man who rapes and who, I'm to understand, never feels remorse over this. I'd feel the same way if the character took extra care to torture Hispanics or Jews or homosexuals (and perhaps he does this too). This is a different level of hate in my mind.

That's not an antihero to me. An antihero is someone you can still feel empathy for or understand personally in some way. Someone you both hate and love. A sociopath isn't an antihero. Dr. Jekyll is an antihero. Lady MacBeth us an antihero. Mad Max, Dexter, Cartman, and Jack Bauer are antiheroes. Lizbeth Salander is an antihero. Iago, Gatsby, Artemus Fowl and Snape are all antiheroes. From the reviews I've read, both positive and negative, this guy sounds just plain evil. I could even tolerate evil if the character was part of a groundbreaking social commentary like A Clockwork Orange Alex is not an antihero--he, too, is a psychopath. But Anthony Burgess was looking at a future society based on where he thought ours might be going in order to illustrate societal ills As far as I can tell, this book is just entertainment and I do not find value in that.

This may be a very well written story, enjoyable for some, but it is definitely not for me.

[To would-be trolls: I'm entitled to my opinion and I am not in any way denigrating those who enjoyed the book. ]

This "hero" is a sociopath. I get that. But though his general psychopathic violence is disturbing enough, when he refers to rape almost as an aside, I get particularly angry. Our society is already inured enough to violence which is awful. Do we need to look at rape as akin to burning a house down or killing livestock? I know which I would never choose.

I've read the passage from the book which occurs in the first chapter and you can, too:

Brother Rike does enjoy his simple pleasures,” Makin said.
He did. Rike had a hunger for it. Hungry like the fire.
The flames fair ate up Mabberton. I put the torch to the thatched inn, and the fire chased us out, just one more bloody day in the years’ long death throes of our broken empire.
Makin wiped at his sweat, smearing himself all over with sootstripes. He had a talent for getting dirty, did Makin. “You weren’t above those simple pleasures yourself, Brother Jorg.”
I couldn’t argue there. “how old are you?” that fat farmer had wanted to know. Old enough to pay a call on his daughters. The fat girl had a lot to say, just like her father. Screeched like a barn owl: hurt my ears with it. I liked the older one better. She was quiet enough. So quiet you’d give a twist here or a there just to check she hadn’t died of fright. Though I don’t suppose either of them was quiet when the fire reached them…

(Thanks, Liz, for typing that in for me.)

And another passage showing the whole misogyny of the character:

“The combination of a woman and time on my hands wasn’t one I’d tried before. I found the mix to my liking. There’s a lot to be said for not being in a queue, or not having to finish up before the flames take hold of the building. And the willingness! That was new too.” [p 173]

I have a very hard time with being in the head of a hero who glorifies in violence but at least its indiscriminate. I cannot be in the head of a man who rapes and who, I'm to understand, never feels remorse over this. I'd feel the same way if the character took extra care to torture Hispanics or Jews or homosexuals (and perhaps he does this too). This is a different level of hate in my mind.

That's not an antihero to me. An antihero is someone you can still feel empathy for or understand personally in some way. Someone you both hate and love. A sociopath isn't an antihero. Dr. Jekyll is an antihero. Lady MacBeth us an antihero. Mad Max, Dexter, Cartman, and Jack Bauer are antiheroes. Lizbeth Salander is an antihero. Iago, Gatsby, Artemus Fowl and Snape are all antiheroes. From the reviews I've read, both positive and negative, this guy sounds just plain evil. I could even tolerate evil if the character was part of a groundbreaking social commentary like A Clockwork Orange Alex is not an antihero--he, too, is a psychopath. But Anthony Burgess was looking at a future society based on where he thought ours might be going in order to illustrate societal ills As far as I can tell, this book is just entertainment and I do not find value in that.

This may be a very well written story, enjoyable for some, but it is definitely not for me.

[To would-be trolls: I'm entitled to my opinion and I am not in any way denigrating those who enjoyed the book. ]

Despite being somewhat of a literature snob, I am determined to read fantasy. I like the escapism and the strangeness. No cell phones, no offices, etc. That said, I don't finish most of the fantasies I start. I find them boring, cliched, too damn self-indulgent in description, too carefully/obviously plotted, too determined to be 700 pages long. I have started The Name of the Wind ( I know, it's great)three times. Do I have to know everything that happened in Kvothe's boyhood before a story develops? Ditto for Game of Thrones. I do not care for "novels" that intend to create 137 different story lines and eventually weave them together into something with the hope that one of the characters will be memorable. Just my opinion (not that anyone reads my reviews anyhow). And I strongly prefer first-person narrative and some moral ambiguity.

The Prince of Thorns is a gritty, fast-moving, thoughtful, well-written fantasy. The anti-hero narrator is very complex, introspective, and emotionally involving. Five stars for the narrative voice. There are a handful of other interesting characters and some nice plot twists. Yes, there is a lot of violence and gore, but I think it serves the story well. I took one star off because at times it seems like a role-playing game and makes heavy use of standard genre characters, evil mages, necromancers, etc, and doesn't quite achieve the sense of wonder I enjoy, but I think most (non-snobby) readers will find that okay, even good. I will probably read The King of Thorns at some point.

If anybody actually reads this and can recommend some (highly literary) fantasy, preferably in first-person or close third-person, I would be grateful. Thanks.

( )