The Briar King (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Book 1) | J. Gregory Keyes

The Briar King (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Book 1) | J. Gregory Keyes | LongAwaited

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The Briar King (Ki...

	The Briar King (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Book 1) J. Gregory Keyes, 2003 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 105 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In the kingdom of Crotheny, two young girls are playing in the tangled gardens of the sacred city of the dead when they stumble upon the unknown crypt of a legendary ancestral queen.

4 1/2 stars great book

The briar king has that chivalrous medieval feel when kings and queens ruled and knights were sworn to loyalty. Keyes does a wonderful job at making this environment come alive and describes the different cultures of the area splendidly. As the novel progresses the reader is introduced to several different story lines happening simultaneously throughout the world. Each if these characters in the stories become easily connected to through Keyes brilliant characterization and once you become familiar the plot thickens quickly. Keyes easily turns this seemingly uncomplicated fantasy to epic when the evil starts showing up in the book. The evil is somewhat typical, but refreshing due to the authors prose style. Through the thickening of the plot the separate storylines then start to come together making for a climatic ending leaving you running to the book store for the next installment.

Overall, great read, not too complicated, but beautifully written. The author has a wonderful abiltity to end a chapter on a cliffhanger which leaves you reading a few more chapters to figure out what happened only to find yet another cliffhanger at the end of that chapter. Needless to say you will find yourself reading this book of almost 600 pages in a time frame closer to a book half that size. Highly recommended.

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LongAwaited

Wow, a novel without the tedious end fantastical war scene. Why good writing translates to improbable, outlandish wars, I don't understand. For me, a good novel is characters, prose, plot, dialogue, imagination and a setting that sweeps me in. Though the Briar King is the Grail King in a variant form, it is original. I loved the lack of huge magic battles, the one on ones in their stead and the entertaining characters: Stephan and Cazio . . .and perhaps Charles as someone not what he seems. (He or his jester? The Black Jester?. Or is that Robert?) In this tale I question the way when most often I see the obvious path laid out before me. That works. Good work Keyes. Keep it up.

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Review of the whole series - well worth reading, not perfect

The Briar King is the first in a four book series which is well representative of the more recent trend in fantasy writing that eschews the typical fantasy cliches. The series starts out with a glimpse of an ancient event in which humanity is rescued from slavery to an opressive overlording race and in doing so curses itself to eventual destruction. As the series progresses the mystery of that curse and its ultimate conclusion unfolds. The story itself is very detailed and intelligent. There is enough complexity to keep you interested without feeling like you are reading teenage fantasy. It is very easy to get involved in without much tedious historical background or excessive character building However, there is a tradeoff here.

There are a few mechanisms that Keyes uses which I feel cheapen the work. First of all, Keyes is a big fan of the "cliff hanger." Virtually every chapter in all four books ends with a cliff hanger. This sort of makes it read like a fantasy soap opera, where right before the commercial the actor turns away from the camera slowly in suspense as some dreadful revelation or event has just been revealed. This keeps you reading but it becomes tacky after a while. It also makes the reading predictable because eventually you learn that even though things look terrible at the end of every chapter, they will turn around abruptly at the resumption of that story line a few chapters later. Another device that Keyes uses which I feel cheapens the work is his replacement of several English words with "native" replacements. So, everyone speaks flawless English except for now and then when, without any consistency, they suddenly switch to some replacement word. He does this with about 4-5 words and I found it irritating. It did not help to immerse me in the work but rather distracted from it.

The story focuses on several main characters who are well developed. However, the world itself feels somewhat underdeveloped. Recent works by Martin and Erickson spend a lot more time with world building but this can be tedious as it tends to involve a lot of dry, historical reading. There is a lot of fantasy-politik in this series which I feel is also underdeveloped - just concentrating on the ruling family, allies, enemies, and the church - but there is no real depth to the politics.

I think this series falls squarely in-between the more esoteric works of Erickson and Bakker, and the heavy fantasy-politik works of Martin. It still has a very progressive feel to it and was a pleasure to read. While I was not a big fan of a few of his devices I found it overall very fun and intelligent reading and I would highly recommend it.

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Underrated And Original

One of the top contenders to the unofficial "Most Underrated Voice in Fantasy Today" would have to be Greg Keyes. I ordered the Briar King on one of those completely spontaneous moments and went into the tale with very little in the way of expectations. By the end I came out wondering why this book (or rather this series as the case may be) doesn't seem to generate the hype it deserves. Keyes is very easily on par with some of the top names in the genre both in terms of plot, pacing and style. But before I get ahead of myself here, let's break down the pros and cons of diving into the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone (KOTAB) saga.

Coming in at 608 pages, it's a fairly typical (if not a bit on the light side of late) first entry into an epic fantasy saga. Surprisingly, Keyes elects to forgo the recent trend of 10, 11 and 12 part series and keeps his KOTAB efforts to a four-book run. Thos who favor epics with seemingly no end in sight may view this as a deal-breaker but I for one felt like the smaller series allowed Keyes to keep the main plot relevant throughout (and didn't force him into penning up thousands of pages of filler or subplots).

Without giving away too much of the plot itself (there are dozens of reviews posted already that do a better job at that than I could if I wanted to) I will say that Keyes deserves credit in sidestepping the cliché fantasy literary elements that have run rampant in the genre as a whole and instead brings a pretty slick prose to the table. Aside from the misunderstood Briar King himself, the majority of once-believed mythical beasts that make their appearance in this series are simply misspelled incarnations of creatures straight out of mythology (griffons, basilisks, and so on). The jury is still out on exactly how effective the slight misspellings of modern English words proves their point, but I suppose they neither detract nor add to the flow of things as a whole.

Perhaps Keyes greatest strength is his ability to pour on the creepiness when required. Some scenes would fit right in the horror category just as effectively as the fantasy niche (making a fence of intestines from disemboweled corpses for example). Younger readers or those easily grossed out need not apply. However, this isn't to insinuate that Keyes relies upon gore to make up for a weak prose; in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Like George RR Martin, Mr. Keyes breaks the story down into the individual exploits of a bunch of seemingly unrelated characters then has their paths cross and intertwine later on. Some authors attempt this with little success- Keyes needn't worry. Not quite as large in scale is the universe GRRM or Robert Jordan have become famous for creating, Keyes isn't too far behind (quite an accomplishment considering he's done in only 4 books what it has taken others 10+ to accomplish).

The author's second greatest asset is pacing- a trait that many other fantasy authors could stand to note. Never does the reader get bogged down with wordy descriptions of mundane objects such as clothing or a dinner menu. Instead the character development is steady and just thorough enough to get the job done until a hardy action sequence picks up and effortlessly bridges the gap to the next instance of development.

All in all the Briar King (and its subsequent entries) represent a gem among many bloated and over-hyped fantasy entries. It isn't perfect but then again nobody has ever charged it with being so and in the end maybe that's what makes it special.

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Good start to a new fantasy series

This was a good book. Solid characters. The story moved along at a good pace. My only criticism is that sometimes the characters use words or discuss things that aren't explained really well. Overall, a good story and I look forward to reading the sequels.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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