[Mark Lawrence]

amphibian, on 01 September 2012 - 03:51 AM, said:

amphibian, on 31 August 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

I have King of Thorns in my possession. Now going outside to read it after work and before my nightly hills/stair run (training for a grappling tournament).

Ok, no run tonight. Finished the book.

It is a constant series of "HE DID WHAT NOW?!?!?" combined with genuinely moving moments and overarching plot ravens coming home to roost on freshly killed corpses.

Jorg is a better/worse Caine. Bravo.

That's a very nice way of putting it! I'd totally have that on the back of book 3 (Ace put a bunch of blogger quotes on the back of King, which I think's a great way to acknowledge the role book bloggers have had in the trilogy's success.

Many thanks & hope you grapple the hell out of your opponents!

[Mark Lawrence]

Briar King, on 02 September 2012 - 12:31 AM, said:

Just placed the order for both of them. I'm quite excited to try them out.

Ed: is that map in the HC for bk 1?

The Prince of Thorns map is in all PoT copies as far as I know, definitely in the HC. The King of Thorns map is also in all KoT copies (AFAIK) - I've not got any e-copy/reader so I'm going on faith here!

Hope they go down well!

[Macros]

just got the epub from borders/bookworld and its does indeed have the map.
starting this tonight after being thoroughly disapointed by the darkness that comes before

[Macros]

Finished it last night.
Great book, I slightly preferred Prince better though.

I can't quite put my finger on it, maybe rereading the two in a while will change my perspective. I think maybe first time reading Prince was just "holy shit he's a cold blooded bastard" so I was expecting that this time, and as such the wow factor was gone.
I'm not entirely sure. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the expanding cast after Princes brutal culling.
some of the elements in building suspense and explaining how things were lost is fantastic to say the least, but I think there was almost too much of it, its one thing for the clever man to set plans in motion, I think the final show down in the highlands had one too many surprises or something.

Absolutely loved the finish of it and I'll admit it shouldnt have caught me by surprise when he took of his helmet, because the second he did, a lot of fragments and scraps of the previous pages fell into place.
I think from a written perspective its a little more polished and foreshadowing is done incredibly well, in fact I can't articulate a proper criticism, I think it was just because I'd met Jorg and co before I wasn't as holy lord impressed with them.
Its close behind Prince in the Macros book list, very close.

Looking forward to see where the series goes from here

[amphibian]

We might as well ask an admin to retitle this thread Prince/King of Thorns. Suspect the next will be Emperor.

I thought this was much better than Prince of Thorns. To make this call, I read KoT, then read PoT and then re-read KoT with an eye towards pacing, callbacks and overall impact. KoT has by far the most touching moments and Lawrence really brought the two different plotlines together at the end (although a first time reader may be hesitant and the combination does end with lingering questions).

My blurb for the series: Mark Lawrence is surprisingly good at making it touching to see a young prince motivated by revenge tear his way in the world by flame and death.

Ok, going spoilers here.

Spoiler

I really am a big fan of Lawrence's writing, so I re-read both PoT and KoT within the last couple weeks. He's surprisingly good at constantly shifting Jorg's motives a little bit at a time, so the transitions from "I am Inigo Montoya..." to "I want to show you what I can do, Father" to "I want you, Really Attractive Woman" to "Arrow? No. Emperor Jorg." make sense as they happen. What keeps this working is that Jorg somehow stays relatable and the violence doesn't get staid or lose its brutal freshness. A few tasty plot threads have been left dangling or were perhaps resolved off-screen.

What happened to Count Renar? At the end of PoT, Jorg says he has him in a dungeon and periodically goes down to torture him. Yet three or four months later, when he leaves for the Gog/Mountain trip, there's no mention of Renar. Is this a Chekhov's Gun or did Jorg tire of the torture and finally off his uncle?

In the 4 years later timeline, when Jorg is married and fighting the Arrow troops, Sageous mentions several of the "magical people" like him who push events in the world. He says some very curious things in that passage. He mentions Ferrakind - who Jorg had apparently killed under the mountain four years prior - and "Kelem, still preserved in his salt mines". Either Sageous has limited information about the other players and doesn't know Ferrakind is dead - or Ferrakind may still live. Jorg talks about Ferrakind late in the book when he talks of the "pulls" the Dead King and Ferrakind are exerting on him and talks as if they're more abstract forces than people. I really don't know what to make of Ferrakind at this point. He killed Gog. That makes me want him dead - Really Dead. Kelem is interesting because this might be something Jorg did in the years between the return from the Horse Coast (perhaps a year after he'd left Renar).

Also, Jorg mentions the Convocation taking place - a gathering of the leading figures in the Broken Empire to elect a possible Emperor. One Convocation took place in the period between the Gog/Mountain and the Wedding Day. Another is supposed to happen roughly two years from the point the book ends. It is odd that Lawrence/Jorg skips all mention of the last gathering, as that'd probably be amazing politicking. Olidan and the Prince of Arrow probably feature heavily in that. The Two Ancraths prophecy is kinda cool in terms of what it suggest for the next book (EoT?).

The Dead King coming has been teased all along. It feels at times like Jorg is somehow the Dead King himself, but I don't think this is so. Jorg blew up the necromancers' nest in Gelleth and that nest may have been a colony of the Dead King's or perhaps his home zone that he stepped away from to go conquer the former British Islands.

Also... is Katherine dead? Did she walk away like Sageous used to do before Jorg literally tore his head off? That whole plotline through the scraps was wildly entertaining and showcased that incredible determination isn't only in the possession of Jorg. The Prince of Arrow had it and Katherine too.

Did Coddin survive? He had a doctor and people headed to get him at the end of the battle. It was also a cool touch that his possible relative Maery was the one who sang the lament at the funeral of Jorg's brother. Olidan may have a Coddin too.

Finally, I really think it's cool how Jorg doesn't retain any of his stored up necromancy or pyromancy after the Wedding Day. If I may use a Dresden analogy, it's like switching from the Changes Dresden to the Ghost Story Changes - the depowering forces the smarts to come to the forefront once more. His ability to take on those magics and use them himself suggests that he's somehow tapping into the "want/what is" quantum foam stuff the AI spoke of on his own.

Ok, that's enough for now.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 09 September 2012 - 11:15 PM

[Macros]

@amph
Re: count renar.
Remember jorg says he's not proudof how he learned to control the killing of.nerve endings.
I figured that he used renar to find out

[RodeoRanch]

Just finished "King." I really enjoyed it. Look forward to "Emperor!"

[amphibian]

Macros, on 09 September 2012 - 07:34 AM, said:

@amph
Re: count renar.
Remember jorg says he's not proudof how he learned to control the killing of.nerve endings.
I figured that he used renar to find out

Ah, yes, I was wondering where that came from. I didn't connect it to Renar as you did, but that makes a good deal of sense. He's probably the only person besides the Moors in the Horse Coast that Jorg really had the time to experiment with the torturing.

I do wonder how he broke the Moors, but it's not super-important.

[Mark Lawrence]

amphibian, on 09 September 2012 - 04:27 AM, said:

We might as well ask an admin to retitle this thread Prince/King of Thorns. Suspect the next will be Emperor.

I thought this was much better than Prince of Thorns. To make this call, I read KoT, then read PoT and then re-read KoT with an eye towards pacing, callbacks and overall impact. KoT has by far the most touching moments and Lawrence really brought the two different plotlines together at the end (although a first time reader may be hesitant and the combination does end with lingering questions).

There's a poll here on Prince or King. 50 votes so far, 70% think King was the better book.

http://www.twiigs.co...rtainment/98323

The final book in the trilogy will fill in some of the blanks between the two threads in King, as well as progress past the second thread.

This post has been edited by Mark Lawrence: 10 September 2012 - 07:15 AM

[RodeoRanch]

I changed the thread title. You may now bask in my achievement. Bask!

[Macros]

There will be no basking.
Not one fucking bit.
Also, rodeo, start training your liver for April 2013






Training hard

[Mark Lawrence]

Briar King, on 13 September 2012 - 11:26 PM, said:

Got my HC edi of Prince in mail today and Im so aggrevated...Its all bent on the edges, the dust jacket is rumpled, and there is a sharpie mark on the bottom. WTF...It was listed as brand new!

Well that's disappointing. Where did you buy it from?

[Baco Xtath]

Briar King, on 13 September 2012 - 11:26 PM, said:

Got my HC edi of Prince in mail today and Im so aggrevated...Its all bent on the edges, the dust jacket is rumpled, and there is a sharpie mark on the bottom. WTF...It was listed as brand new!

You outta go on Amazon and give it one star because of this. Just kidding. I've actually seen numerous one star reviews because of stuff like this. Bunch of dumb shits. Daniel Abraham's The Price of Spring has a one star rank from some dumbass for similar reasons.

On topic - Finished King last week. Fucking loved it. Can't wait for Emperor.

[Eddie Dean]

Macros, on 02 September 2012 - 08:30 AM, said:

thoroughly disapointed by the darkness that comes before

Thank goodness. I thought I was the only one around who thought that book was disappointing.

I'll be getting the Thorn books a shot now after reading these reviews. Thanks guys.

[Mark Lawrence]

Baco Xtath, on 15 September 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

Briar King, on 13 September 2012 - 11:26 PM, said:

Got my HC edi of Prince in mail today and Im so aggrevated...Its all bent on the edges, the dust jacket is rumpled, and there is a sharpie mark on the bottom. WTF...It was listed as brand new!

You outta go on Amazon and give it one star because of this. Just kidding. I've actually seen numerous one star reviews because of stuff like this. Bunch of dumb shits. Daniel Abraham's The Price of Spring has a one star rank from some dumbass for similar reasons.

On topic - Finished King last week. Fucking loved it. Can't wait for Emperor.

Well ... since you mentioned Amazon ratings and 1*s and that you loved the book... you could check out King of Thorns' only 1* on Amazon http://www.amazon.co...howViewpoints=1 and maybe state your own opinion

[polishgenius]

This book was wicked good. Mr. Lawrence proves that pure crystal prose is really fucking sharp if you decide to stab people in the guts with it. I love the combination of beauty and brutality this has going on.

Funnily, it seems that English speakers in Berlin must really love this series, since every bookshop I've been in in my stay thus far with an English language section has being carrying both Prince and King. Though which bright spark in one of them decided Prince (though not King, somehow) belonged in the children's section, I'm not sure.

[Baco Xtath]

Mark Lawrence, on 15 September 2012 - 05:31 PM, said:

Baco Xtath, on 15 September 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

Briar King, on 13 September 2012 - 11:26 PM, said:

Got my HC edi of Prince in mail today and Im so aggrevated...Its all bent on the edges, the dust jacket is rumpled, and there is a sharpie mark on the bottom. WTF...It was listed as brand new!

You outta go on Amazon and give it one star because of this. Just kidding. I've actually seen numerous one star reviews because of stuff like this. Bunch of dumb shits. Daniel Abraham's The Price of Spring has a one star rank from some dumbass for similar reasons.

On topic - Finished King last week. Fucking loved it. Can't wait for Emperor.

Well ... since you mentioned Amazon ratings and 1*s and that you loved the book... you could check out King of Thorns' only 1* on Amazon http://www.amazon.co...howViewpoints=1 and maybe state your own opinion

That's fucking bullshit! What a douche! And yeah I'll definitely go on there and throw a five star to King, it deserves it.

[Use Of Weapons]

Just finished book 1. Slightly underwhelmed given the rave reviews you guys have been giving it. Still enjoyed it, but I really wanted Jorg to be what he was presented as, rather than the backtrack we got at the end. There were some very frantically handwaved moments plotwise, too. Prose, though, was excellent, and dialogue also. But I fail to be convinced that a 13-year-old boy would be capable of the kinds of physical feats Jorg managed -- that felt really like wish-fulfilment, and there was a part of me that read it with one eyebrow permanently raised.

I'll wait for the MPB to read the 2nd, I think.

[Otataral Toblakai]

I still await completion of the series.

[Mark Lawrence]

Otataral Toblakai, on 23 September 2012 - 06:46 AM, said:

I still await completion of the series.

That'll be on August 1st then! The trilogy was written before the first book hit the shelves.

The cover is coming on nicely: http://mark---lawren...-cover-iii.html