Still no Unicorns ,,, but

Any additional comments?

Still Dark ,,,,Brooding and Violent but a much deeper plot. I like this book a lot better than the first book and i really liked the first.Seemed a bit less harsh with deeper characters.

The back story is great. Builders Sons,, Book of Kirk.. Took me longer than it should have to figure it out :) If you like The First Law books by Joe Abercrombie or The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks you will like these books. I am downloading Emperor of Thorns now.

I HIGHLY recommend this book.

16 people found this helpful

Not close to Red Sister

I found this book lacking in the outstanding character development that Mark show us in Red Sister ( a must read), and his follow up book Gray Sister. The book left me ambivalent and not really caring about Jorge or what is next. if not an audible book to pass gym time...meh

4 people found this helpful

excellent protagonist. disgusting story.

I struggled with this book. on the one hand I love the wit and voice given to the characters. oftentimes it was laugh out loud. but the story was so disgusting and dark, a bit too much for my taste

4 people found this helpful

Horrible

Would you ever listen to anything by Mark Lawrence again?

No

Any additional comments?

The first book was bad but I finished it and started this one because I had bought all three at once and thought perhaps it would improve. I was wrong: King of Thorns is worse. The book is disjointed with no story line, merely lurching from one unpleasant scene to the next and growing more gruesome as the book continues. I finally quit when I got to the scene where the father makes his six year old son, who has been naughty, break his dog's leg as punishment. The author must enjoy this sort of thing because he goes into great detail about the dog's fear and what the leg looked like after being hit with a hammer. I don't need a book to be filled with roses and sunshine, but I don't need gratuitous violence, gore and suffering either. This book has absolutely no redeeming features and I simply cannot fathom how it got so many 5 star reviews.

8 people found this helpful

Tension spoiled by Lawrence bouncing around timeline & disposable characters

My biggest qualm with the book is that the first half is just a bunch of wandering and adventure without purpose. It’s also hard to really care about Jorg or any of his brothers, so when the stakes are high, I just didn’t care if someone would die. Additionally, with all the jumping around timelines, it can get a bit confusing at times. Specifically the big flaw I see in the time jumps are that characters are seen in the future before they’re put into a risky situation in the past. So then there’s no tension since I know they make it out okay.
The story is interesting. It’s odd, because it feels like fantasy, but the Lawrence tries to make it sci-fi. Only problem is he doesn’t really explain how it could possibly/theoretically work. He just says vague things that are somehow meant to convince.

3 people found this helpful

totally disjointed.

I enjoyed the first book in this series. I enjoyed moments of this one. However, I found it impossible to follow the story and keep the time line straight. The story jumps so frequently between the present and flashback and there are few clear indications which time you're currently observing. very frustrating.

3 people found this helpful

Great sequel!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

James Clamp returns with a masterful reading of Mark Lawrence's "King of Thorns." One of my favorite audiobook performances.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I like Jorg...and I hate him. I guess that's why I like him. He's complicated, but not arbitrarily so.

What does James Clamp bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Clamp manages distinct voices for each character and is very consistent. He breathes a kind of personality into Jorg that I might have missed if I were just reading it on my own.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When Jorg wrestles with the unintended effects of his necromancy (trying not to give too much away).

7 people found this helpful

I don't know what to make of this one

I liked this volume up until the last few minutes. Jorg is obviously a bad guy, but he sometimes did the right thing, and then told himself he did it for the wrong reasons. I liked that. And I also liked that his reasons for being ruthless, violent, and power hungry made sense. But then at the end, he somehow becomes all powerful, which I hate because it takes the conflict out of future stories (like in Mistborn) or they inexplicably need to go backward in the sequels to keep it interesting (like in the Matrix). I prefer my protagonists to have to struggle. They're boring and unrelatable otherwise. I also worry that jabbing him fully embrace his dark side will make the character one dimensional in the next volume. I'm going to listen to it, but I'm definitely giving it the side eye at this point.

2 people found this helpful

Superb- fantastic

Inspired and original Mark Lawrence continues to improve (and after writing the first in the series which I thought could bear no improvement) "King" continues to follow Jorge in his journey of self discovery and adventure.

Lawrence continues to reveal himself as potentially one of the 21st century's best fantasy (or is it SCI FI?) authors- but with character and plot development equal to, or better than, any genre.

I would recommend this to ANYONE who loves great fiction and especially lovers of low FANTASY.

THANK YOU MARK!

5 people found this helpful

A tough one to get through

Performance was okay. Clamps range is pretty limited and I found myself opening up my hard copy tot figure out what was going on, when it was happening, and who was present. I've read many Lawrence novels, and his works are always hard to follow due to the deep introspective rants and tangents his characters go off on. He tends to focus on character development instead of environmental descriptions and world design. The story is okay. Jorg grows noticeably since the last entry and his motive and intentions are the brunt of the novel. Science has been warped, allowing for seemingly supernatural powers and people to run rampant. The story follows a strange plot wherein we jump between Jorgs wedding day at 18 years, and his past 4 years prior. It's a mess, and he introduces a lot of stuff that becomes irrelevant by the end of the story. It's almost Oceans 12 with it's ridiculousness and almost wacky prescience Jorg has with his actions and stratagem. Jorg is a bit more tolerable and humane in this entry, but his evil and despicable actions make it hard to listen. It gets easier to listen to about 4 hrs in, but otherwise I'd just stick to the written word.

1 person found this helpful