Let’s talk about maps for a moment. A fantasy staple since the year dot, the map at the front of the book is perhaps the most evocative element of a given genre epic. Your humble correspondent used to draw fantasy maps in high school (no, I wasn’t exactly knocking ’em dead with the ladies, why do you ask?). Granted, not every fantasy epic comes with a handy map. I can think of a few authors off the top of my head (Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie, Richard Morgan) who eschew the concept. But they are very much the exception.
I’m the sort of reader that flips to the map at the front of the book at least every 20 pages or so, especially for a globe-hopping narrative. If nothing else, a map helps give the reader context: the Shire is way up here, Mordor is way down there, there’s a ton of crap in between, and Frodo is going to have himself a long-ass walk before he gets to Mount Doom. At their best, maps help the reader fill in the blanks, imagine the spaces between cities, learn about more than just the basic topography of the world.
Mark Lawrence’s Prince of Thorns, first book of a trilogy, does indeed have a map. If we’re going to judge the book simply by the map, then, well, I rather regret having bought it off Amazon, as I most likely would have put the book back on the bookstore shelf had I inspected it prior to purchase (and would have generally benefitted from the decision, as my review will make abundantly clear). The map appears to be badly mimeographed, its aesthetics are generic, and it conveys precious little information, save for the fact that it looks an awful lot like fucking France. Which, you know, is a thing. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that the action takes place in some future postapocalyptic Europe, which would be cool if it wasn’t clumsily executed.
Actually, “clumsily executed” is a pretty good way to describe the book (Lawrence’s first) as a whole. The supporting characters are bad sketches, the language clunky, the setting drab, the pacing erratic. The fight scenes are muddled and meaningless, and the magic system is irrational. Of particular negative merit are the frequent dreams and visions, which are as subtle as a mailed fist to the jaw and about as welcome. I could go on and on. But the crowning touch, the element that moves Prince of Thorns from run-of-the-mill bad to almost endearingly terrible is the protagonist.
Fantasy is rife with arch-bastards in leading roles. No one is ever going to mistake the Black Company for the Fellowship of the Ring, Jaime Lannister took three books to begin to approximate a human being, and Karsa Orlong is frankly terrifying. And these are great characters, with their own (often dubious) moral codes and worldviews, and they offer enough to keep the reader interested in their travails. Not so for Jorg, teenage highwayman and secret heir to the throne of Ancrath, who’s empty and heartless and sadistic and frankly quite dull. He’s also a complete fucking psychopath: as the book opens he and his band of outlaws are in the process of butchering, raping, and burning the residents of a small village. Most of the truly vile stuff happens offscreen, but Jorg’s approval of and participation in the proceedings puts him in such a hole at the beginning of the book that it would take a truly skilled author to bring Jorg back to a place where he can function as a plausible protagonist. Lawrence, sadly, is not a skilled author. You see, Jorg is a complete fucking psychopath because four years earlier he had to watch as his mother and younger brother were murdered by a rival nobleman. Granted, totally awful thing that would obviously scar a person. But awful things happen to people all the time in fiction, and I’m going to go way out on a limb and say that slaughtering farmers and violating their daughters and incinerating their homes is a poor way to handle one’s grief. If there really were a Jasper Fforde like place where all the characters in fiction lived and interacted, I imagine Luke Skywalker, Arya Stark, and Batman would like to have a word with young Jorg. Straighten him out. Maybe beat seven shades of shit out of him for making everyone else look bad. Now THAT book, I would read and enjoy.
Anyway, there’s some question as to whether Jorg is entirely responsible for his actions, but that question is properly raised far too late to save the book. Antiheroes work when they’re charming or badass or (preferably) both. Some kind of moral code is helpful but not necessarily required. Fiction abounds with rogues and thieves and assassins and even psychopaths who nevertheless win over the audience. The problem here is, Jorg is about as charming as the Hanta virus, nor is he particularly badass (save for the preposterous and poorly-paced climax, in which his plan boils down to “Imma be super cool and deadly then boy I hope I get really lucky,” in fact the best thing that can be said about the climax is that it’s mercifully brief), and Lawrence’s occasional attempts to convince the audience to at least sympathize with his protagonist are unsuccessful.
I almost certainly wouldn’t have finished the book were it not for the chance CBR gives me to gleefully eviscerate it on the internet. And I most certainly will not be reading the other books in the trilogy. Prince of Thorns reads like a really unkind parody of gritty fantasy, which I rather doubt was the author’s intent. There’s the kernel of a good idea here, but it’s buried under a mountain of bad ideas. Hell, the whole book is inept on a scale that I feel inadequate to convey. Maybe it’s just that I’ve read most of the good fantasy and thus have to settle for minor league talent while waiting for the new Martin or Novik or Rothfuss (yes, Rothfuss, despite my well-documented issues with him, as on his worst day he wouldn’t trust Lawrence to pick up his dry cleaning). I’ve read some iffy genre fiction over the last year, but even if a book isn’t particularly good, there will be elements of the story that I end up enjoying: the setting of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the gender politics of 2312, the pure batshittery of Gun Machine. But I honestly cannot think of a single redeeming quality to Prince of Thorns, save that, should you find yourself in a survival situation, the pages will make excellent kindling.
Oh, man. I’ve only ever read good reviews of this, mostly from people who compare him favorably to Martin and Abercrombie (both of whom I’ve read, and I’m SUPER excited for Abercrombie’s new book to hit in July).
I will still probably give this a go, but I will do so with caution, and probably not any time soon.
Since it seems like we have similar tastes in books, and you mentioned ‘good fantasy’, I’m curious what you think of Brandon Sanderson. I loved his Mistborn trilogy, and the first book in his ginormous series The Way of Kings really impressed me when I read it last year. I could probably go look up your old CBR reviews but I’m feeling extra lazy at the moment.
Funny you should mention Sanderson, I’ve had Mistborn on my Amazon shopping list for some time, and I’m pretty sure that next time I give in to my book-buying compulsion, I’ll pick it up. And of course I’ll review it, because I’m enjoying this whole CBR process quite a bit.
And yeah, Lawrence is really trying to be like Martin and Abercrombie (both of whom I enjoy, though of course they’re not without their flaws), but he simply isn’t operating in the same stratosphere. For instance, Logen Nine-Fingers is a complete fucking psychopath, but he’s also charming and plain-spoken and highly capable and not without a sense of humor. The Hound is the same way (and you could make a strong argument that he’s not even a psychopath). As written, the main character in prince of thorns is more like, say, The Mountain That Rides, and while Gregor Clegane is a heck of a boogeyman, he’d be rubbish as a protagonist. For lack of a better way of putting it, there’s no there there. And the book is a complete mess as a result.
Really, you think Logen is a psychopath? Granted, it’s been several years since I’ve read the First Law books, but I always got the impression that he was actually a pretty nice guy under all that rage, if his life hadn’t shaped him to be a living weapon. Then again, those rage blackouts are pretty hard to explain away . . .
I was always more interested in Glokta, anyway. Man, what a fascinating character.
Psychopaths can be nice guys too. Even setting aside his Beast Mode, Logen’s a little iffy on basic societal rules. Maybe calling him a psychopath is a bit unfair, but he definitely has a different moral code than the presumably more civilized city-dwellers. Don’t get me wrong, I like Logen, though you’re right, he’s not as interesting as Glotka (great, great character, and more of a sociopath if we’re going to get all psychological), but he really does play up the rough-hewn, rough-living barbarian. And he’s another character who had his family wiped out by bad guys, and he managed to keep it together enough to not go around murdering everyone he laid eyes on. Seriously, I could go on for another thousand words about how much I hated PoT… sheesh.
And because I’m a masochist, I just spent like ten minutes reading people’s rapturous reviews over at Goodreads, and I kind of feel like hurling.
I feel the need to stand up for my buddy Jorg here. I adore this trilogy. One of the thing that keeps me from being a diehard fantasy fan is that so many of the books follow familiar tropes and the character development can most often be described as “found powerful sword, used it to do stuff, now am king.”
I think your assessment of Lawrence is harsh and undeserved. I actually like him for all the reasons you didn’t. Jorg is irredeemable, refreshingly so. So many anti-heroes are actually just heroes with a bit of scuffing about. Jorg is an evil narcissist and it makes him interesting. He’s not some dude who needs the love of a good woman or somebody like Logan Ninefingers who does what he needs to for survival. He is a man bent on vengeance at any price necessary and the trilogy follows his adventures as intelligence and sheer bull-headedness drive him on. This theme gets developed further in books #2-#3.
While it’s fair to say a book didn’t resonate with you for whatever reason to call this work inept seems overly harsh. Mark Lawrence isn’t a talentless hack, he’s a clever author whose freshman work is held up with Abercrombies because it deserves to be. Now I’m off to Goodreads to share raptures with my peeps.
PS. Nfarna – I also adored Way of Kings and think Abercrombie is fantastic (Red Country is on my all time best list). So for what it’s worth I loved both of those and Lawrence.
Alexis, I certainly respect your opinion and thank you for adding to the discussion. But I feel like we’re talking about two different books.
Certainly, old fantasy tropes have worn thin, but I don’t think anyone is comparing Lawrence to Tolkien, or worse to Brooks or Jordan. He’s clearly slotted himself into the gritty fantasy subgenre, which has eschewed the “found powerful sword etc” storyline for around twenty years. Equally clearly he invites comparison to authors like Martin and Abercrombie, both of whom have managed their antiheroes far more adroitly than Lawrence.
Perhaps it’s a personal thing, but I don’t find the concept of an evil narcissist (particularly one of such dull disposition) even remotely appealing or even interesting. In a pseudo-medieval world, it’s the easiest thing in the world to be an evil narcissist. After all, might makes right, and how could a village of farmers possibly hope to stand up to Jorg and his band of marauders? But a foundational element of good storytelling is struggle, and there’s no struggle in or around Jorg. It’s easier to destroy than build, easier to rape than court, easier to murder than persuade. His desire for vengeance is certainly valid, but his vengeance comes almost preposterously quickly, and most of the time he’s engaged in nothing that will actually gain him this vengeance. I fail to see how fondly reminiscing about raping farmers’ daughters is somehow supposed to get him closer to his vengeance against the Count. His plan to destroy the Red Castle is, well, it’s absurd (and completely illogical). His military victory toward the beginning of the story and his vengeance at the end are both based on him “somehow” being the biggest bastard that anyone’s ever seen (to say nothing of a talent at arms that beggars belief), which is equally absurd since if human history has taught us anything, there’s always a bigger bastard. Jorg may be well-educated, but he doesn’t strike me as being particularly smart. His successes come down to luck and outside interference most of the time, making for a strikingly impotent protagonist.
And if Jorg doesn’t need the love of a good woman, then he certainly spends an awful lot of time contemplating his stepsister, which rather leads me to another major issue I had with the book: the horribly cliched treatment of women and the one minority character. The stepsister is really the only female character of any note, and she cares about Jorg… why precisely? She should have stuck a knife in him at her earliest opportunity. Every other woman is murdered (if they’re lucky), usually by Jorg. And the Nuban is laughably poorly written, a Magical Negro of such basic stripe that he might as well have been written in the 1930’s. For a book that seems to be trying to push the envelope, Lawrence falls back on tropes that are far older and well-traveled than “found powerful sword etc”. He certainly has no obligation to try and actually have interesting, well-rounded characters that aren’t noble-born white males (and granted, that’s an area that fantasy has had issues with since forever), but it would’ve been nice if he’d at least given it the old college try.
Maybe that’s a fundamental problem with how he’s structured the book. When the whole story is told from the third-person POV of an evil narcissist, then there’s no room for other characters to have anything beyond the barest sketch of a personality.
Jorg is fundamentally no different from Joffrey Baratheon. Jorg wants to be Emperor, presumably to bring order to the world, though mostly because he wants it and he always gets what he wants because he’s a prince, yet he is a primary agent of chaos. He’s leveraged his exalted position into a pile of dead and violated bodies. The reason I mentioned the reviews on Goodreads is that there appears to be a distressing tendency for some of the reviewers to conflate horrible behavior with revolutionary storytelling, like there’s a Gritty Fantasy Arms Race going on, and Lawrence has placated the rubbernecking masses with a protagonist that kills and rapes and has zero remorse (not even in a “breaking a few eggs to make an omelette” sense). Jorg may be entitled to his vengeance, but what about the lives he’s destroyed, the children he’s left metaphorically hanging on the thorn bush? He’s no better than the Count. Worse, in fact.
Lawrence never, to my satisfaction, answers the key question “why should the reader hope for Jorg to succeed”? Frankly, by the end I was hoping someone would put a crossbow bolt through his neck. The idea of an evil narcissist becoming Emperor is frankly terrifying. I weep for a world that is so unfortunate to be ruled by a man like Jorg.