As a fan of the Broken Empire series I started Prince of Fools with some mild apprehension. I love the way Mark Lawrence writes, but other people, who already read the book, often used the word ‘different’ to describe it and I didn’t like different. I wanted the same, whatever this particular blend was I previously liked so much.
I opened the book and got different. It was a great story, that I started to enjoy from the first moment and with a definite ‘Mark Lawrence-ness’ quietly rumbling deep down at its core, but it left me wondering if the magic will somehow once again reach out of the pages and stun me into falling head over crazy, as before.
And soon enough the book twisted and turned, it changed, considered, conspired until it accomplished its aim and I was utterly captured, the prose overwriting my concepts on beautiful, heart stolen away giggle by giggle, line by line, opened with a secret key, cradling me until the dark caressed my daylights into nights.
At the same time Prince Jalan Kendeth, third son of the Red Queen‘s third son, became just as trapped in the legendary Snorri ver Snagason‘s eloquent tales, only to find them turning into cold reality around him that would melt him, freeze him, hammer him into a destiny written by a blood-soaked game played behind hidden veils, drawing their lives toward a single point and time upon which a dream may wake from blood and sacrifice.
I found this book a lot more colourful than the first three, every location of the journey painted with attentive, precise strokes of a thousand shades, characters, interactions, even movements felt more vivid, described in a way that leaks the words into pictures, fiction swallowing your reality, opening a door you willingly enter, forgetting your body far behind.
Closing it left me with one of those peculiar moods that you might experience after listening to a captivating melody or watching a sunset. Not something you want to discuss straight away, but preferring to stay quiet, smiling, enjoying and preserving the feelings it created inside.
And now, that I‘m ready to speak, my only fear is that I might not find the right words to tell just how much I loved it.
Hesitant we may be, but when God opens a door for us, we eventually go through – whether it leads to life or death. But what might that life be like, if we are given half the blessings others were so generously granted? A life of shadows. A life of shame.
Until one day the sun rises to seek us out, to mercilessly chase us out of our safe harbour of false dreams and sets us on a journey to find our purpose, our strengths and most importantly, ourselves.
And with that the swords clattered and rough words rattled, the icy winds swirled and the pages turned, and the journey grew into an epic adventure.
Half a King by Joe Abercrombie is a tale of betrayal, revenge, a bloody song you dance with death on and on, as the world shifts around you, turning love into hate and hate into love, with no rules, no choices and no exemptions given when you pay the price. Always you pay the price.
Cheated out of his own destiny, Prince Yarvi must face a perilous path, armed only with his mothers’ wisdom and cunningness, driven by his father’s anger and determination, bound by an oath, chased by enemies in a land where steel speaks and the weak listen.
While, as only to be expected, this was a skilfully written, highly enjoyable book, for me it was the last five chapters that truly turned a good story into a great one. Brilliant ending to the first book of the series, indeed very well played, Mr. Abercrombie.
When three weeks ago at Bloody Cake News the idea came up to interview a series of editors and ask them about some of their authors and their work relationships, I wholeheartedly volunteered to write a short introduction about Jane Johnson for this article. Little did I realise how I had just made a decision to walk into one of life’s perfect traps, for the more I read about her, the more I was drawn into this tale we may call her life, though in all honesty, it could pass as a fascinating piece of fiction, a story to be told huddled around the fireplace on a long winter’s night.
In vain I tried consulting the fantasy literature with my dilemma, where everyone seemed to know how to summon the genie from the lamp, but no one was able to tell me how to fit it in in the first place. Since this is a story of a little girl who was writing novels by the age of nine, had her schoolmates buying ghost stories from her until they were too afraid to cross the churchyard on their way to school and grew up to be a successful writer and an editor to some of the finest authors in today’s fantasy literature.
I once wrote ‘We do not see books as they are. We see books as we are. But every now and then a book comes along that changes everything.’ For me this book was Prince of Thorns that amongst many things has led me to this interview. For Jane it was The Lord of the Rings that amongst many things led her taking a degree in Old Icelandic, publishing the works of J. R. R. Tolkien during the 1980s and 1990s, commissioning John Howe and Alan Lee to illustrate them, spending months in New Zealand during the production of both of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, dubbed as the 10th member of the Fellowship by producer Barrie Osborne, writing Visual Companions under her pen-name of Jude Fisher; fishing with Aragorn, and watching and advising a number of incredible people as they brought to life the world she fell in love with as a child.
As if this was not enough to make you stop and wonder what you’ve been doing with your own life so far, she also decided about ten years ago to research an ancestress who was kidnapped from a Cornish church by Barbary pirates and sold into the North African white slave trade in the 17th century. This became an adventure that almost claimed her life, while spending a freezing night hanging between life and death near the top of a mountain, and a search for inspiration for the cruel pirate captain of her novel, The Tenth Gift, which she found in Abdellatif, a local Berber tribesman, whom she married within the year.
I read a comment from Robin Hobb recently, which said: ‘Jane’s like the sun; we just get pulled in to orbit around her’ and I’m by no means surprised to find that even such authors as these would be drawn to a woman whose love for books drove her to become an inspiration for us all.
I have asked Jane to answer us a few questions about Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin and Mark Lawrence.
Do you still remember the first time you met them? What was your first impression?
Jane: I was quite worried about meeting George for the first time – I mean, my only contact with him up to that point had been through his work. And anyone who could kill beloved characters off so mercilessly was likely to be a bit of a monster, right?
Jane on the Iron Throne with my Voyager editor Natasha Bardon and deputy publishing director Emma Coode
Wrong. George turned out to be the most affable, charming, funny writer I had encountered in years with an infectious and very surprising giggle and a very naughty sense of humour. He’s a bear of a man and, well, you just want to hug him, despite all the gallons of blood shed in A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. But there is also, beneath that affability, a steely character made up of equal parts of stubbornness, principle, and powerful intelligence. He’s a man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly and as a publisher he keeps you on your toes.
Robin Hobb (aka Megan Lindholm) is on the face of it George’s polar opposite: a small, modest woman who never pushes herself forward but exudes a quiet confidence. She was very polite and reserved, very accommodating. We had worked together for years before I began to understand the real person behind the persona of the perfect writer. It’s not for me to give away her secrets, but put it this way: she’s a lot more like George than you’d imagine. Toughness of character, a steely intelligence, determination, a wicked sense of humour, and a great deal of human warmth. All this you might intuit from reading the books: also that she is very secretive – she’s kept us all guessing about the nature of one of her central characters for 20 years!
‘A Game of Thorns?’ by Dusty Wallace
Mark Lawrence is not an easy man to get to know, partly because his circumstances make it difficult for him to travel (he cares for his disabled daughter Celyn, and works as a scientist, as well as writing, so that’s a round-the-clock schedule that makes travel well nigh impossible. First impressions came through the writing – of someone fearsomely intelligent, with an acute sense of humour and a streak of torrid viciousness that left me wondering whether I actually wanted to meet him! In person, though, Mark is good company: quiet and smart and fascinating to talk to, very gentle, very easygoing. He’s curious about the workings of things – especially the book trade, and often brings to the conversation a scientist’s logic that shows up our industry as the haphazard, serendipitous, Heath Robinsonian thing it really is. You can’t bamboozle Mark, and I would never try. As an editor I’ve learned that honesty is always the best policy, especially when allied with passion for the work.
If you could organise your next meeting with them anywhere in the world where would you take them?
Jane with Robin Hobb at her recent FP signing
Jane:George, I would take to the world’s best curry house. He’s a man who dearly loves a curry, the hotter the better.
Megan, I would take to a wolf sanctuary so that we could walk and talk. You know she raised a wolfcub in the wilds of Alaska as a child? I think she’d like that.
Mark, I would have to spirit away by time machine so as not to disrupt his schedule. Where would I take him? To Reyjavik, where I would get plenty of brennivin down him, and then we could wander around the museum and look at Viking axes 😀
What did you like most about their last book?
Jane: With George, that’s pretty much an impossible question to answer: the books are so immense, and do not stand alone. I love just about every character, wicked or good, that he creates: he invests them all with so much life. But of course we all adore Tyrion and his gorgeous witticisms and the warmth and depth of his humanity: despite being the smallest person in Westeros – or indeed now that he’s travelled so far afield, anywhere else in this vast world – he is without doubt the largest of soul and the marker by whom we judge all the other characters.
I just finished editing Megan’s new Robin Hobb novel, FOOL’S ASSASSIN, which we publish in August, and it was sheer thrilling, joyous, tear-jerking delight to return to my favourite characters in her world: that pair who share the most elusive, oblique, and touching love- affair-that-is-never-quite-a-love-affair-and-yet-much more in any form of fiction I have read. Readers have such an intense treat in store.
Prince of Fools ARC competition
Mark, having treated us to the ultimate anti-hero-who-is-actually-a-hero in Jorg Ancrath in the three BROKEN EMPIRE novels, is now treating us to his polar opposite: Prince Jalan Kendeth in his new trilogy, THE RED QUEEN’S WAR. Jal is what I like to call the ‘Fantasy Flashman’ – that is Harry Flashman, made famous by that wonderful writer, George MacDonald Fraser. Jal is a coward, a womanizer, a gambler, a liar and a strutting peacock of a waster: but he is also cursed with battle-frenzy, a dark angel and a hilarious turn of phrase. Readers are going to love him.
In the end it came to one last game of life and death. Colours of sixty-four squares alternated between light and dark, but every move was painted sharper, every piece was coated brighter, than ever before.
Gentle harmonies lulled me into an uneasy dream, softening my heart with beauty and laughter, closing my eyes to the sense of dread creeping up on me. And so I became an easy prey in a trap, as the terror moved in, making me grip the book tight enough for my nails to leave a script of their own, drawing a calligraphy of pain and fear on the pages, dotting around repeated hard lessons.
Intricately woven timelines span me around toward an unpredictable future twisted by prophecies. Sentences punctuated with stunned silences and accords of a thousand vibrant colours in their wake resonated deep within my soul, stirring up dark shadows from my past, handing them blurred memories to sharpen.
In the end Emperor of Thorns took no prisoners. Jorg Ancrath lured me into dreams where angels feared to tread and I followed him lovingly through a Broken Empire and beyond.
And in the end, my broken heart seemed a small price to pay to heal a shattered world. For as it turned out, he in fact mended one for us both.
I don’t quite remember anymore how I came upon The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey. I was looking for something new, something different. There was something about the little girl on the cover, calling to me ‘Me! Pick me!’ And I did.
I probably won’t be the first to advise new readers not to find out too much about the book prior to reading it – or anything, if possible! Because the way the story unfolds itself, oh my God! – is truly brilliant! In fact, while the whole book was very well done, to me the beginning was the strongest part. It reminded me of a time, when I quietly went through all of my mother’s Stephen King books at a very early age – to be honest pretty horrified by what I was reading, but at the same time far too fascinated to be able to look away, unleashing powerful images, just like with this book, that resonated within for quite some time.
M.R. Carey or Mike Carey is a British writer, author of the Felix Castor novels, writer of Hellblazer, adapter of Gaiman’s Neverwhere and current writer on X-Men Legacy and Ultimate Fantastic Four for Marvel Comics. He based the book on his Edgar Award-nominated short story, Iphigenia in Aulis, and also wrote the screenplay to the movie version that is being directed by Colm McCarthy, who worked on Sherlock, Endeavour, Ripper Street, Doctor Who and Outcast to mention but a few.
I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to learn about all these accomplishments after I finished the book, since the skills I was presented with throughout the novel impressed me greatly and swept me away without compromise. Love, fear and tension have been scientifically woven together into a gripping story that brings a new and refreshing perspective to the genre.
Once upon a time there was a Prince of a Thousand Promises. He was told to be brave, he was told to be ruthless, he was told to be immoral, he was told to be the greatest. Truly he did not look like much to me the first time, so I walked past him and left him after the first chapter or so. Or at least I tried. I failed to see that I already had little, invisible hooks in me, reeling me in back on board, binding me to his story stronger than I could ever imagine.
Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence is not for the faint-hearted. Its darkness wraps you in like a moonless night, its grim world chills your heart and sneaks out your darkest memories you hoped you had buried deep enough a long time ago, sets them free and makes you face them once again.
But it also shows you that you may find the lightning beautiful if you dare to look in the storm and you may just hear your heart singing if you care to listen in the silent darkness. It reminds you that the strongest heroes never grow in peaceful flowerbeds of sunlit meadows, but in soils of merciless trials, constant battles and grave sufferings. As do we all. And maybe this is why we brave a grim tale and are more the grateful when we do find beauty in dire places, solutions for hopeless situations, and love in heartless characters. But whatever this mesmerising and dangerous spell is, Mr Lawrence seems to be casting on us with disturbingly little effort, he does it mind-blowingly and with his first book series, as I see it, he has just revealed himself as the new Prince of Grimdark.
Luke Scull is one of a handful of authors whom I got to know first as a person to some extent before actually reading his book, having last year interviewed him for Bloody Cake News’s Facebook page and then spent two hours sitting next to him chatting at BristolCon, in the company of his wife, Yesica and two other authors, Snorri Kristjansson and Mark Lawrence. And boy am I glad I did! He’s such a great guy, with an easy-going and sociable personality and not just an intense knowledge of the fantasy genre, but also of my other interest, computer roleplaying games. As I found out, as a game designer he has done some work on one of my all-time favourite games, Dragon Age, too. He was kind enough to dedicate and even doodle my copy of The Grim Company, which I have just finished and all I can say: WHOA…!
My only complaint and criticism really: The book was not grim.
In fact, I have hardly read a story more colourful and entertaining; not to mention the many original ideas thrown in. The variety of characters, races, monsters has blown me away and the powerful magic coiling around full-blooded fight scenes was described so vividly, it made me feel as if I was watching it in 3D. The numerous threads of this epic adventure started off at various places on its world map and were masterfully woven together as the story progressed into a spectacular finale.
I absolutely loved what he did with the character of Davarus Cole, who also put me through a wide spectrum of varied emotions that ranged from annoyed to sympathetic and even affectionate at times. Out of all the characters I believe he was the one that made me both laugh and cringe the most. I went through bloody battles, massacres and tortures without blinking an eye, but whenever Davarus Cole cut someone’s throat, I witnessed it as if it had been the most horrible deed in the whole book. I was intrigued by his struggle to fulfil his destiny, straddling the line between who he was and who he thought he was, only to find, that being a hero might just be a moveable feast. And no mistake.
While it’s a sort of habit of mine to lend or more often give away my books, it’s been a long time since I was given someone else’s to read. Receiving a book of a friend, who loved it, is like discovering a world following in his or her footsteps, occasionally sharing a flinch or a smile, quite possibly even a chuckle here and there. Might you be physically a world apart, a shared story in a way will always unite you beyond realms of reality.
A shared story and on this occasion sharp and beautiful prose, that makes you either a fan or jealous. Daniel Polansky‘s first book, The Straight Razor Cure left me thinking: ‘damn, this guy is good’. Reading Tomorrow The Killing this notion required changing to: ‘damn, this guy is good – and he knows it.’ He unquestionably uses the brush with more confident strokes, painting his characters stronger, the background bleaker, the storyline bolder, twisting you deftly around a grim tale of bitter delight.
Even with trying my best to follow the plot closer this time, he was still ahead of me, turning his game up a notch or two since book one, leaving me looking like a little girl in front of a skilled magician, utterly lost in the spin as we went.
I still loved how the interactions between the characters were fashioned, witty dialogues and purposeful strikes chiseling my reactions, at times nicking lighthearted giggles, at others drowning me in shades of bloody violence. I enjoyed learning more about the relationships between the Warden and those closest to him, making him easier to relate to and understand, if not necessarily accept his actions and the reasons behind them.
Daniel Polansky presents the second Low Town instalment not just with talent, credit where it’s due, but also with perceptible passion and pride in his work. I look forward to finding out how he concludes the series and how exactly he’s proposing to serve us all up to She Who Waits.
There is something equally fascinating and disturbing about watching your favourite author becoming a fan of a book series and see him talking about someone else’s novel with as much, almost childish enthusiasm as you do about his. At any rate, it’s not something that could be ignored for long, hence I soon found myself face-to-face with the culprit himself and it’s only sufficient to say that in my eyes Daniel Polansky had a hell of an expectation to live up to.
I’d like to think that I started reading the first book of his Low Town series, The Straight Razor Cure, with a particularly critical eye, investigating not as much the possible outcomes of his noir fantasy novel, but more the goods he had on the shelf to offer, which had such an effect on some of the people I know, that they started calling him a writer’s writer. And I did find out soon enough, that as a truly effective cure can only be expected, it was dark, bitter and highly addictive.
With such a close inspection however I also couldn’t help connecting with his first person narrated villain, the Warden, fairly early in the story and even if he was not designed to be likeable by his creator, I have to admit, I grew to care about him. He could be disputing this revelation strongly however, had he the chance, given that a good couple of times when the poor man suffered I was laughing wholeheartedly on the other side of the book, thoroughly enjoying myself. For this I blame Polansky’s slick and witty prose, that got me hooked so neatly straight at the beginning that I hadn’t even noticed it.
In hindsight I wonder if I could have seen the plot clearer, had I not been so utterly lost in the main character’s thoughts. But I’m glad I was, because this way the ending took me by complete surprise. I remember, one of the first sentences I said to the author upon meeting him was, how I had come to see him as his fan’s fan. In a way I was clinging to that position barely by the fingertips during the better part of the story. But following the fact he played me so well and left me gaping after I closed the book, I had to give in, too.
At this point of writing I am already told that the next two volumes of the series are better still. And so here I find myself looking forward to the return of a drug dealer to see… if he can indeed take me even higher.
As a fan of the Broken Empire series I started Prince of Fools with some mild apprehension. I love the way Mark Lawrence writes, but other people, who already read the book, often used the word ‘different’ to describe it and I didn’t like different. I wanted the same, whatever this particular blend was I previously liked so much.
I found this book a lot more colourful than the first three, every location of the journey painted with attentive, precise strokes of a thousand shades, characters, interactions, even movements felt more vivid, described in a way that leaks the words into pictures, fiction swallowing your reality, opening a door you willingly enter, forgetting your body far behind.
Mitriel Faywood 