Posts Tagged: Ace

PRINCE OF THORNS by Mark Lawrence

Prince of Thorns

By Mark Lawrence
Hardcover
Pages: 336 pages
Publisher: Ace Hardcover
Release Date: 08/02/11
ISBN: 0441020321

EXCERPT

On page five of Prince of Thorns, I almost stopped reading. By page 12, I went to my computer to read a few reviews from some trusted bloggers/critics to reassure myself that it was a book I truly wanted to give a chance. By page 40 of Prince of Thorns, I couldn’t put it down.

So, why’d I hate it?

The novel begins in such a caustic, morally insensitive way that I was almost instantly reminded of Stephen Donaldson’s Lord Foul’s Bane, the first book to bring me such ire that I almost literally threw it into the fireplace. I finished Lord Foul’s Bane, on the strength of two trusted readers, but ended up hating the novel so much that I haven’t touched Donaldson since. That experience rang though my head as I began Prince of Thorns. The protagonist/narrator, Jorg, was just such a little fuck, so insensitive and hard to relate to, that I couldn’t fathom reading an entire novel centred around him.
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Among Thieves by Douglas HulickFirst, I want to thank Aidan for inviting me to blog over here on A Dribble of Ink. It’s terribly flattering when someone trusts you enough to ask for your help in maintaining a blog they’ve worked so hard on over the years. It’s like being asked to house-sit, only there isn’t any booze to steal or plants to ignore. Which is a bit of a let-down, now that I think about it.

So, Lesson Number One: Guest blogging — not as fun as wrecking someone else’s house while throwing a huge party, but better than sitting around your own place watching TV.

That being said, Aidan was good enough (at my request) to come up with a list of possible topics for me to write about. Things like how my life has changed now that I am published author; or whether I might want to write about one of my literary influences; or what it was like to take a familiar character trope (the thief) and try to put a fresh spin on it.

These are great suggestions. In fact, they’re so good I may steal them for use on my own blog at some point (assuming, you know, I start one). I’m particularly intrigued by the whole “new spin on the thief” thing, because I haven’t consciously thought about it that much.

But if I’m going to steal them for later use, that doesn’t exactly help me right now, now does it? Which leads us to…
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