The Briar King: 1 (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone) - Softcover

Greg Keyes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345440706 ISBN 13: 9780345440709

Publisher: Del Rey Books, 2004

Synopsis

"A wonderful tale . . . It crackles with suspense and excitement from start to finish."--Terry Brooks

Two thousand years ago, the Born Queen defeated the Skasloi lords, freeing humans from the bitter yoke of slavery. But now monstrous creatures roam the land--and destinies become inextricably entangled in a drama of power and seduction. The king's woodsman, a rebellious girl, a young priest, a roguish adventurer, and a young man made suddenly into a knight--all face malevolent forces that shake the foundations of the kingdom, even as the Briar King, legendary harbinger of death, awakens from his slumber. At the heart of this many-layered tale is Anne Dare, youngest daughter of the royal family . . . upon whom the fate of her world may depend.

Praise for The Briar King

"Starts off with a bang, spinning a snare of terse imagery and compelling characters that grips tightly and never lets up. . . . A graceful, artful tale from a master storyteller."--Elizabeth Haydon, bestselling author of Prophecy: Child of Earth

"The characters in The Briar King absolutely brim with life. . . . Keyes hooked me from the first page, and I'll now be eagerly anticipating sitting down with each future volume of the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series."--Charles de Lint, award-winning author of Forests of the Heartand The Onion Girl

"A thrill ride to the end, with plenty of treachery, revelation, and even a few bombshell surprises."--Monroe News-Star (LA)

About this title

Review:

The Briar King opens Greg Keyes' four-volume fantasy sequence "Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone". Besides being highly readable, the novel offers an intriguingly tangled plot and back-story that rises well above the black-and-white simplicities of commercial fantasy.

A prelude of magical battle and hard-won victory over hated slave masters strikes a note of doom as it's suggested that the coming Golden Age is already poisoned by misuse of magic at its founding. Next, a much later historian's note records that "In the year 2,223 E, the age of Everon came to an abrupt and terrible end." This is the year in which the main narrative begins.

It's a time of late-medieval kingdoms, with credible political tension and devious diplomacy. In the kingdom of Crotheny, something is very wrong in the royal forest--signalled by the forest warden's sighting of a "greffyn". Both like and unlike the griffin of myth, this creature's mere presence poisons streams with a deadly contamination that lingers and can be passed on by touch.

Something is rotten in the Church, too, where a gifted novice monk finds himself translating ancient, unspeakable texts that should have been left in decent obscurity. Other kinds of wrongness fester at court, with shifting tensions among the mostly likeable members of a dysfunctional royal family, increasing political pressure from outside and genuinely shocking treason within. When a knight of the Queen's most trusted personal guard abruptly tries to kill her, there seems to be no safety anywhere. Not even in the well-defended "coven" or convent to which the youngest, most wilful princess is despatched to be trained as an assassin-nun.

As a variety of neatly-drawn characters pursue personal feuds, vendettas, love affairs, comic pratfalls, escape plans and paths to advancement, there are repeated hints that the land itself--defiled by sinister rituals of desecration--is dying. The greffyn and the appalling Briar King of prophecy seem to be symptoms rather than the real disease.

The Briar King is a strong start to what promises to be a gripping fantasy sequence. --David Langford

Review:

"A wonderful tale . . . It crackles with suspense and excitement from start to finish."--Terry Brooks

"Starts off with a bang, spinning a snare of terse imagery and compelling characters that grips tightly and never lets up. . . . A graceful, artful tale from a master storyteller."--Elizabeth Haydon, bestselling author of Prophecy: Child of Earth

"The characters in The Briar King absolutely brim with life. . . . Keyes hooked me from the first page, and I'll now be eagerly anticipating sitting down with each future volume of the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series."--Charles de Lint, award-winning author of Forests of the Heartand The Onion Girl

"A thrill ride to the end, with plenty of treachery, revelation, and even a few bombshell surprises."--Monroe News-Star (LA)

About this edition

• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0345440706
• ISBN 13: 9780345440709
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 608