The Briar King (The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Book 1)

This is a book I’ve read before but with all four books in the series now published, I’m interested to know what happens next having already enjoyed the first two books. As I have difficulty in remembering one series from another, I’m aiming to catch up on the series before reading the final

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two books. This book was a little daunting to re-start given its size but after the first two chapters, the story becomes compelling. The story has a very earthy, pagan feel to it: nature and landscape as much characters as the main protagonists. The characters are a major strength of the story: well drawn and likeable, which makes a change from the trend of fantasy fiction nowadays which shies away from loyal and honourable characters. As if it’s impossible to have an interesting protagonist without the roguish element. Makes a welcome change to enjoy the wholesome nature of good and decent. The Briar King is very much a story setting up a great turn of events yet it also strikes the right balance between a successful conclusion and hinting at what is to come. I’ve already cracked open the spine of book two and I’m looking forward to seeing where the characters and the series goes next.

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The first three books of Gregory Keyes brilliant "Kingdoms of Bone & Thorn" series. He paints a rich world of mythos and lyrical history superimposed with a suspenseful and fast moving storyline. Any fans of Tolkien, Guy Gavriel Kay, Julian May or Robin Hobb are sure to enjoy........

I read a lot of fantasy and so I have a low tolerance for certain stereotypes, but I stuck through this one, and am glad that I did. it looks like it will be a fun series to read, if not particularly groundbreaking or original.

Specifically, the Princess Anne almost caused me to put the book down. A

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headstrong, tomboyish princess who rebels against her family is usually a red flag, but Keyes treats her realistically; instead of being the author's darling who can never do wrong, she is actually portrayed as immature and selfish, and there are consequences for her behavior. He brings the same depth to some of his other characters who are fantasy archetypes.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series.

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This is an excellent start to a new fantasy series. Like many series recently, this is multi-dimensional and has several plot threads going. Unlike some, it does not suffer from over writing or over plotting, and the books are not longer than necessary.
If you are a Robert Jordan, Martin or

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Goodkind fan, this is a good series for you.

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Many of the characters in this book are stereotypes: the rebellious Princess and her loyal maid, the gruff forester with the heart of the gold, the inept, naive but incredibly well-educated scholar, the wise Queen, the "gods-touched" heir to the throne, the rapacious and evil neighbouring kingdom,

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the jealous younger brother of the emperor, the young, politically naive but incredibly loyal knight (who is also baseborn, and a berserker). All of these and more old, familiar characters raise their heads.

That shouldn't be allowed to put you off - the world in which they live is incredibly well realised and fascinating. The religion is interesting and has twists and turns. The language of the characters is sometimes odd, hard to handle even, but it makes certain elements of the story work really well, and certainly adds a strong flavour to what's going on. Why it's a greffyn rather than a griffin I'm not sure, and that's not the only example, but it's one of many such odd words - and to some extent it's this strangeness that makes the story and the book so engaging and rewarding. It makes the people seem real rather than ciphers despite their easy to see nature. It makes the politics work and so much more.

If you don't like reads that stretch you linguistically, you may well hate this, but fans of Gene Wolfe will almost certainly love it as much as I do.

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Another traditional Fantasy which I enjoyed, mainly because I found that the female characters were well realized. It is the story about political elbowing, and straight out murder for the crown and of course in the backdrop of a growing threat from powerful evil beings bent on destruction of the

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world. Characters are great, and flawed, plot is good and understandable...always a plus. Good fun.

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I am very picky about fantasy novels and usually do not like them. The same is true for this one. Stereotypic characters, boring story line; confusing in parts, especially the older "worlds".

This book started great and finished well but in between it got a bit ??????????? I guess the best word would be boring. There were many good parts to the book and the character build was excellent. I may read the next book but I am not going to search for it.

Oct10:

Characters: Just loved them. Such a broad cast and they were all awesome.

Plot: Perfect pacing. All the mini cliff hangers. And so much happening. And yet all still brought together nicely.

Style: Modern epic fantasy. A step above the 1000+ page era. The fights were just awesome.

This is a common story line, a long 'dead' evil is discovered to not be dead, just sleeping. There are many story lines in the book, which is huge, and the first of 4. While some story lines seem to be finished, some are not and you realize that at the end of the book the story is far from

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done.Greg Keyes has done an admirable job of taking a common story line and adding his own unique twist to it, at the end most of the threads have woven together and come into one plot line. This book has it all, a doomed royal family, betrayal by trusted people, dark magic and good forces combating it, knights in armor, and crusty old warriors that just might save the day.The only thing is I don't know if this is compelling enough to last through 4 books. I hope so since I have already bought the other 3 books, but I don't know it that is because I really want to read them or because I am obsessed with reading every book in a series I start to read. People who enjoy Fantasy would probably enjoy this series.

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The storyline of The Briar King is fantastic. I enjoy fantasy plots with a doomsday prophecy and characters who have no idea what they're getting themselves into. There are the stereotypes that one comes to expect in this sort of novel: stubborn, hot-headed princess, naive priest, brave knight,

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cynical woodsman, etc. However, I think there are quite a lot of unique elements to the story, and the imagery of the Briar King thoroughly creeped me out. What really sold me at the end was how everyone's stories start fitting together.

Despite this, I found this book extremely difficult to get in to. The writing gets progressively better throughout the book, but the beginning was tough going. It reads like a middle-grade novel instead of adult fantasy. There's very simplistic narrative, unrealistic dialogue (and a lot of it!), and many of the characters aren't likeable at first. At about three-quarters of the way in, the plot gets moving and the characters get better. I think it's because they have to deal with real problems instead of whining about trivial things.

I'm not sure if it's worth investing in this series yet, considering that it doesn't become good until the later part of the first book. There are three more books, and if these three are anything like the last part of The Briar King, I think it will be worth it. The ending of this book is definitely enough to keep me reading more, but the sequel has to be very good for me to continue with this series all the way.

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This was not the most easy book to get into. It starts out with difficult names, an unknown world, about five different points of view and no clue how those five are related. The chapters are short and as a result, there is a lot of switching between viewpoints, and although I cannot identify what

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it is that makes it so, the language is such that it is slow to read.

After a while though (ok, it was a long while), I got used to the slower reading pace, and it became clear that all the viewpoints were at least in the same land, and a few of them got together. Finally understanding the world, I did get into it. And loved it. Like I said, it's not a fast read, and although I liked all the (good) characters and lots of things happen to them, it was not very exciting or tense. I've got the feeling this is because my affection got divided over all of them, so even though I didn't want any of them to die, I still could live with it, because there were enough of them left. I was very much engaged with the book, though. Somehow there was not a single story line that I disliked or even liked significantly less than any of the others. This is a rare thing in my experience; in most books with multiple story lines, there is at least one that is a necessary evil (necessary to get through to understand the story at least), one that disappoints you when you turn the page and see you've ended up in THAT story line again. The briar king didn't have that at all. All story lines were interesting and all (good) characters in them were engaging. I say good here because the one character I wish was different was the king's crazy brother. I just don't like that type of insane character.

As for the other characters, I really liked seeing how some of them evolved. I liked that the bookish young priest gains some skills in the physical department. Mostly I liked the two really young people, princess Anne and Cazio, gaining an understanding of life and of adventures, learning a bit more realism. That was quite well-done. And, although this is by no means an equal society, I still liked the portrayal of the women. I imagine the 'men fight from the outside, women from the inside' motto of the coven would not sit well with everyone, but the book does hold plenty of interesting and confident women, who, although they do not fight the way men do, still rescue the men as often as the other way around, and can hold positions of power.

So, all in all this book gets four stars, and I've already started the sequel... Which is really necessary by the way, because the book really doesn't end in a way that makes it even seem like you are at an ending.

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A riveting tale that has begun to pull you into a long adventure in a new world. From the characters to the setting this book has enthralled my mind and set me into a world of discovery and chaos.

This excellent fantasy series ("Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone") is very
reminiscent of George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire - except that
it's actually finished! (There's one more book in the series that I
haven't yet read.) It follows a similar format, structurally, and the
'feel' of the writing is

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very similar. The story itself, however, is
quite original - at least, more so than many fantasy epics. I mean,
it's still got Dark Forces and Bold Warriors and Beautiful Queens etc,
etc... but we want that, right?

The implication, at the beginning of The Briar King is that the lost
colony of Roanoke island was somehow transported into an alternate
world. However, not much is done with this setup, as we are now many
many years from that time, and fully immersed in this world - a world
where humans were once enslaved by the demon lords, the Skasloi, but
managed to free themselves through dread magics, and develop a
medieval-type society.
However, the King's Holter, a dedicated woodsman, Aspar White, has
been seeing strange and ill things in his forest of late... When he
rescues Stephen, an innocent young scholar and novice monk, from
bandits, he is at first irritated by the young man's naivete, but soon
realizes his book-learning may shed light on some of the mysteries of
the forest... old tales of the rise of the fearsome Briar King, a sort
of Green Man/nature spirit of ambiguous nature.
Meanwhile, the mystic prophecies of the gypsy-like Sefry race seem to
indicate that there must be a Queen in the land. There is indeed a
Queen - and some princesses to boot - but there are also assassins
abroad... The low-born warrior knight Neil McVren is absolutely loyal
to Queen Muriele - and also falling in love with one of her daughters
- but his bravery may not be enough to stop the treachery and foul
plots that surround the royal women.

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I liked this book, but it definitely had some flaws. The biggest problem was I didn't feel attached to any of the characters. With the exception of Anne, I didn't get a good sense of each characters' personalities. It just felt like they were going through the motions. Also, the story starts out

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very, very slowly. It takes about three-fourths of the book before it hits its stride.

However, once the book does get going, it is very exciting! A lot happens in the last fourth of the story, which saved the series for me. I will continue to read the rest of the series, but I hope they don't all follow this pattern.

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I think I would have liked this more if I had read it earlier, I wasn’t surprised by anything really as I’ve felt like I’ve read this type of characters,plots before in other books, yet it was well done. I would have liked to see more grey type characters personally.

This was not the most easy book to get into. It starts out with difficult names, an unknown world, about five different points of view and no clue how those five are related. The chapters are short and as a result, there is a lot of switching between viewpoints, and although I cannot identify what

Show More

it is that makes it so, the language is such that it is slow to read.

After a while though (ok, it was a long while), I got used to the slower reading pace, and it became clear that all the viewpoints were at least in the same land, and a few of them got together. Finally understanding the world, I did get into it. And loved it. Like I said, it's not a fast read, and although I liked all the (good) characters and lots of things happen to them, it was not very exciting or tense. I've got the feeling this is because my affection got divided over all of them, so even though I didn't want any of them to die, I still could live with it, because there were enough of them left. I was very much engaged with the book, though. Somehow there was not a single story line that I disliked or even liked significantly less than any of the others. This is a rare thing in my experience; in most books with multiple story lines, there is at least one that is a necessary evil (necessary to get through to understand the story at least), one that disappoints you when you turn the page and see you've ended up in THAT story line again. The briar king didn't have that at all. All story lines were interesting and all (good) characters in them were engaging. I say good here because the one character I wish was different was the king's crazy brother. I just don't like that type of insane character.

As for the other characters, I really liked seeing how some of them evolved. I liked that the bookish young priest gains some skills in the physical department. Mostly I liked the two really young people, princess Anne and Cazio, gaining an understanding of life and of adventures, learning a bit more realism. That was quite well-done. And, although this is by no means an equal society, I still liked the portrayal of the women. I imagine the 'men fight from the outside, women from the inside' motto of the coven would not sit well with everyone, but the book does hold plenty of interesting and confident women, who, although they do not fight the way men do, still rescue the men as often as the other way around, and can hold positions of power.

So, all in all this book gets four stars, and I've already started the sequel... Which is really necessary by the way, because the book really doesn't end in a way that makes it even seem like you are at an ending.

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