Broken Empire Trilogy
It’s been a little while now since I finished reading the Broken Empire trilogy, frequently the passage of time and the reading of subsequent books can diminish the esteem felt for a book or series immediately after finishing, not in the case of The Broken Empire trilogy.
Over the course of this series we follow the titular character Jorg, from youth to young adulthood, he’s a cold, calculating, manipulative and violent monstrosity, or at least he was when he was ten, as he gets older his real character flaws begin to emerge. A witness at a young age to the brutal death of his mother and younger brother, Jorg was always likely to have a few personality kinks to work out. Frequent psychological and physical humiliation at the hands his domineering father, adds further fuel to the fire. These formative experiences combine to engender the primary motivation behind the majority of Jorg’s crimes, vengeance, chiefly manifested by an all-consuming urge to prove his old dad was wrong about him never amounting to nothing, preferably by performing the act of patricide.
The author relays the story from Jorg’s perspective, in the first person at all times, apparently this is an issue for some people, but I would urge you not to let it prejudice your opinion on this occasion. Notwithstanding the various flaws noted above, Jorg is actually an extremely introspective character, particularly as the series progresses. We learn more and more about his motivations and the circumstances behind them, we also see the internal doubts and insecurities that remain hidden beneath Jorg’s brash external façade, without the use of first person perspective these complexities would be extremely difficult to portray, without diluting the actual character of Jorg. Most importantly, Jorg IS the story here, everyone else, no matter how interesting, is merely supporting cast.
It’s quite a journey that Jorg takes us on, I found myself part horrified, part fascinated by his behaviour, particularly during the first book. In the second and third books it’s difficult to disentangle whether Jorg’s behaviour is actually improving, or greater familiarity with Jorg’s childhood and upbringing, makes it easier to understand the anger and excuse the flashpoints, or if repeated exposure to Jorg’s capacity for laser focused and, in his twisted kind of way, perfectly logical violence, merely insulates the reader from the shock. The reality is probably a combination of all three, Jorg never really loses his capacity for the unexpected though, a quality perfectly encapsulated by the ending, which in my opinion Mr Lawrence nails perfectly.
It’s probably important at this stage to point out that the Broken Empire Trilogy is not an unremitting barrage of sadistic violence, or a bleak plunge into the darkness of Jorg’s psychological turmoil. I found there to be a very wide seam of underlying black humour, Jorg has the ability to see the humour in most situations, frequently through sardonic self-appraisal.
I’m a big fan of an economically written book, (give me the precisely written Earthsea Cycle, or whatever they’re calling it these days, over the long and winding Lord of the Rings all day long), Prince of Thorns firmly falls into this category. The whole series is relatively short by modern fantasy norms, especially the first book, I polished that one off within two days, such was my inability to uncurl my fingers from my kindle while it was on the screen. King of Thorns and Emperor of Thorns are both longer but still not on the ‘epic’ scale, don’t let that fool you though, these books pack a punch and definitely feature in my pound for pound top tomes. I’d recommend this series to any fans of grimdark fantasy or anyone in possession of a dark sense of humour.