Emperor of Thorns Review

This week we’re returning to Europe, or the flooded, warped remains of Europe in Emperor of Thorns. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s about anti-hero Jorg Ancrath and his quest to unite the 100 small, fractured kingdoms of the continent into one glorious empire like in the olden days. That said though the previous books were more about Jorg’s revenge on his father, his uncle and finding more and more darkly hilarious, albeit morally questioning ways to kill people who got in his way. 

Now aged 20 and king of his own kingdom, King Jorg is summoned to Congression where he and other leaders of the realm are to meet and vote on a new emperor. Emperor of Thorns leaps between the journey to Congression and the events of five years ago, running together at the end of the book to explain how what happened then has affected the present.

I know I’m going to have stones thrown at me for saying this but I didn’t like this book as much as the last one. The story is still really strong and early on the style the flashbacks are wrote in tease you to keep reading to find out more. There is still a great deal of mystery and questions from the previous books which are played out here and what Jorg discovers is surprising as well as intriguing. There are some tense and bloody moments early on which also keep you hooked in the vein of the previous two books.  

That said I felt Emperor of Thorns wasn’t as sharp as its predecessors. What made the first two great were the ways ever increasingly imaginative ways Jorg killed his enemies or got out of tight spots. The way Jorg reflected on the situation in the first person also made it darkly funny. But I just didn’t feel this was replicated in the new book, especially the second half. The first half of the book did and did so well. 

The thing that really brought it down for me was the ending. I won’t spoil it here as I know a lot of people haven’t finished reading it yet and Mark Lawrence is a really cool guy. But I will say that it just didn’t do anything for me and seemed vague. 

Emperor of Thorns still gets a healthy 7/10.