I am @willk7 and this is my first Book Recommendation
The book is :
Prince Of Thorns is a dark journey to the human mind in search of the deep scars left by the moments of pain and despair in the subconscious and its resulting healing through flames of vengeance. It's a fantastic book that blends a gloomy medieval world with post-apocalyptic touches with deeply realistic and scary characters. Mark Lawrence has succeeded in his debut novel creating a story controversial, charged with violence and black humor in a devastated world, wrapped up in the vision of one of the most cruel protagonists. A anti-hero/villain whose actions establish a very tenuous limit between what is acceptable or not to achieve your goals, Prince Honorio Jorg Ancrath. Since reading The Black Tower I do not find a series that excites me as much as The Trilogy of Thorns.
Another interesting point is the construction of religion in Prince Of Thorns. The Empire is formed from Catholicism and references to the Bible and Jesus are highly used, but there is still room for mysticism there are magicians blacks who can manipulate dreams and necromancers who revive dead. There is a religious clash in the rather interesting book.
Mark Lawrence is able to achieve maximum success with the creation of its protagonist, Jorg Ancrath. The Prince of Thorns is beyond his age, his anger and his pain are as shocking as his wisdom as well as his desire for revenge. Jorg is heir to Ancrath and his education matches the learning a future king must possess, but during a walk with his mother and younger brother, his whole world changes after an attack at the behest of another king. Only Jorg has time to be "saved" by one of the guards that throws him from the carriage. But for his bad luck, he ends up falling in the middle of a wild rose bush, injuring him with the pointed thorns of the branches. In the midst of the lightning that crosses the darkness from the sky he sees images of his mother being brutally raped and the cruel death of his brother. Jorg tries to get off the thorns but his efforts just push the thorns deeper into his skin, but the physical pain does not compare to the pain that rises in his chest. And it is this pain that will guide your steps.
Jorg goes beyond the concept of anti-hero to the point of sometimes getting closer to a villain than to a protagonist of afantasy story. For him the Ends Justify the Means. It's the type of character that can only produce extreme feelings to the reader. Or you love or hate his personality. The author went deep into the human psyche to show the evolution of his character from heir to king to emperor. The story is told by Jorg's vision and all the other characters are constructed from his perceptions. The narrative is interspersed between the present and memories of the past, focused on four years ago to from the death of his mother to the events that took him where he is today. These flashbacks are well conducted and bring a vision beyond the main scene deepening the reader/protagonist bound and serving as a way (strange, I would say) to justify the violence of the protagonist.
A very interesting thing i notice is that in the beginning of all the chapters there is a small passage describing the personality of each of Jorg's companions, always with a dark humor that soon become an interesting appetizer for the insatiable reading of the novel. But don't let this "humor" trick you, Prince Of Thorns is a delightfully cruel book, but still,a cruel book.
It's a book suitable for all types of readers ... if you have a strong stomach.
Ohhh one important thing, I don't know if i made myself clear but this book is the first of a trilogy, so if you found it interesting just know it that it has two more there are as good (even more in my opinion).
