Ah, that difficult middle book of the trilogy! The one that carries all
the baggage of the first without the freshness, while also setting up
the climax of the third without being able to resolve the big questions.
All too often it feels like drifting - there’s motion of a sort, but
it’s slow or undirected. There’s an element of that here. What seems
like the main plot, the massive army of the Prince of Arrows camped at
Jorg’s gate, seems to play second fiddle to the flashback story which
feels like nothing so much as a road trip. If it had a magic gizmo to be
found or a Big Bad to defeat, we could call it a quest, but actually it
just feels like ambling through the scenery. Look, a circus. And some
Vikings. Here’s a swamp, and some ghosts, and ooh! zombies! And now
let’s visit the family. Wait, now we’ve got a sort of murder mystery.
It’s all a bit choppy. Of course, even a road trip is brilliant fun with
Jorg.
To recap: the fourteen-year-old who grabbed a throne as
part of his revenge plot in book 1 is now eighteen, getting married and
simultaneously facing up to the massive army of the would-be emperor,
the Prince of Arrows. Interspersed with that are flashbacks starting
four years earlier, filling in some of the missing four years. As if
that wasn’t enough, there are also snippets from the journal of
Katherine, Jorg’s step-aunt, for whom he has the hots, which are also
flashbacks and also reveal crucial information just when the author
wants to. And on top of all that is possibly the most outrageous device
ever for witholding information from the reader - the memory box. This
is an ingenious twist on the old bump on the head amnesia trick; Jorg
has done something so terrible that the memory of it has been taken from
his mind and put into a box. So we get little reveals trickled out over
the whole course of the book as Jorg almost-but-not-quite opens the
box.
I have to be honest and say that I found these different
threads confusing. In ‘Prince of Thorns’, there was a now plot and a
four-years-ago plot, and the two wove together very well. Here, the
multiple timelines meant that more than once I had a
wait-I-thought-he-was-dead moment, and had to think quite carefully to
work it out. It’s very disconcerting to grieve over the death of a
character one moment only to have him appear alive and well a few pages
later. Sometimes it felt like there was a page or three missing. At one
point, Katherine turns up with the Brothers - why? How did that happen?
And the calculated dribbling of those reveals felt quite contrived,
especially the big one at the end, which borders on cheating.
The
background to this world continues to open up in intriguing ways. When I
read 'Prince', there was still room for a tiny sliver of doubt about
this post-apocalyptic world, that perhaps it might be some parallel but
freakishly similar world to our own, almost the same but not quite. Not
any longer. Even in a universe of infinite possibilities, there can
surely only be one world which has 'American Pie' in it. We get to see
some of the Builders’ devices, and find out what the Tall Tower really
is (or was, perhaps). I have to say, I’m not sure that I buy into the
idea that such things could last a thousand years unscathed. I assume
the Builders’ heyday was a little after our own, with technology just a
bit more advanced.
Jorg has matured somewhat, which is hardly
surprising. In the earlier parts, when he’s still around fourteen or so,
he still has his let’s-just-do-this attitude, where he listens
carefully to advice (“This is a bad idea, Jorg”) and then cheerfully
ignores it. He’s still reckless and careless of his own (or anyone
else’s) welfare. But by the latest time shown here (when he’s eighteen),
he is definitely on top of his game, showing an astonishing degree of
forward planning, and becoming quite philosophical to boot. He deals
unexpectedly gently with his bride, Miana, and while he’s never exactly
sentimental, he’s certainly less cavalier with his friends.
I
have to say that Miana is one of my all time favourite fantasy
princesses. She smart and resourceful and apparently just as likely to
take the spectacular one-shot chance as Jorg, and she probably has the
funniest lines in the book. Katherine, on the other hand - not sure what
to make of her. I’m not at all sure what Jorg sees in her, except that
she’s unattainable and therefore he’s determined to get her. Meh. The
rest of the characters - I have to confess that I found the Brothers
fairly undistinguishable. It’s not that they don’t have differences,
it’s more that I can never remember which one is which. Plus Jorg sheds
them like dandruff; no point getting attached to a character that could
be dead two pages further on. Of the others, I liked Uncle Robert and
Makin and Gog and the big guy (Gorgoth?). And the Vikings - gotta love
the Vikings.
With book 1, I had very little to grumble about, and
this review seems like a catalogue of complaints by contrast. Doesn’t
matter. Jorg’s wild journey to the emperor’s throne is as compelling as
ever. Lawrence has a wonderfully vivid writing style which makes even
the craziest moments pop out into stark 3D relief, so that images linger
unforgettably. In the cave with Ferrakind and Gog. The ghost in the
basement. Miana and the ruby. The swamp. And the dog - ye gods, the dog.
I’m sitting here trying not to cry just thinking about it. I rarely
find books that have such emotional depth, and there’s also an
intellectual depth, if I could only tear myself away from the racing
story for a second to ponder it. I like Lawrence’s economical way with
words, too; he never uses twenty or even ten words where four will do,
but every one chosen with surgical precision.
I know not everyone
approves of Jorg’s style. He’s basically a villain, a lying, cheating
scumbag, and there’s a wonderful contrast here with the heroic Prince
Orrin of Arrow, the honourable selfless leader that everyone likes. His
meeting with Jorg early in the book is heart-rending. But this is not a
story of heroes, and I loved watching Jorg’s progress. Yes, he cheats,
he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to win, but he’s smart, he’s
endlessly creative, he’s wickedly funny and he never hesitates to put
his own life on the line. This book isn’t quite as smooth as the first
book, but it’s still an astonishing performance. Five stars. And now on
to ‘Emperor’...
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