Hello Fellow Journeyers,
After finishing Rise of Empire last week, I decided to take a break from The Riyria Revelations series to read a book by author Mark Lawrence, Prince of Fools. Let's get started!
What's the story about: the story is about two characters, Jalan, a petty prince out to save his own skin, and Snorri, a Norseman on a more traditional journey of valor and vengeance. They make an unlikely but enjoyable pair together based on unfortunate circumstances. This book takes place in The Broken Empire world but I have not previously read that trilogy. For some explanation, I attempted Prince of Thorns (first of The Broken Empire) and found the initial pages (like many other readers) fairly deplorable and unreasonably nasty. I have no problems with dark stories, but when the main character rapes women brazenly and shamelessly, it crosses a line in being able to support such a person, and I could see no reason in making that one worth reading. I had hope Prince of Fools would be different. It was.
You can't help but enjoy a story with a person who goes through a change of heart. The first thing I noticed immediately was how balanced Jalan's character was in being ridiculous enough to be shocked at times, but endearing enough to be relatable. Like most people of the sort, Jalan may be slightly "unlikeable," but there were many moments I found myself saying, "he's right." And laughing along the way. He's written with wit and cleverness that I couldn't help but be drawn to. And when it came to people's natures, he's pretty spot on. And then there's Snorri, who is introduced in the elegant way to showcase his character's traits: storytelling and melee fighting. The pairing works surprisingly well when you consider how very opposite they are. But maybe it just reminded me a touch of Geralt and Dandelion from The Witcher books (with the roles switched) that I couldn't help but enjoy.
Jalan is wonderfully and relatably selfish while Snorri is brilliantly bold and honorable. I was along for the ride to see what would happen with these two opposites and found myself entertained pleasantly along the way in the first half. Besides the seemingly obligatory sexual encounters for Jalan, there was constantly events that were enjoyably entertaining and occasionally insightful. The greatest this story has to offer is that it's character driven told expertly from the first person perspective. This is a character story through and through and for me when you have good characters, meandering plots don't matter much.
But not all was well, one of the downsides to a character driven story is when the plot doesn't work. Which leads to the second half of the book. I like character driven stories with simple plots, but this one confused me after the first half was over. The first half progresses along very quickly, giving us time to know the characters and see what they're going to do, but by the halfway point, I wondered why something important wasn't happening. Then with a quarter left, really wondering why more wasn't happening. The characters were the focal point, but the events that took place were confusing and unclear. Somewhere along the way, things tended to get overly convoluted in the hopes of having threads for the rest of the trilogy. But maybe the biggest problem was that Jalan is so passive for the middle part of the book that he feels so under utilized. When he's doing something, whether swooning women, singing, or using any of his talents, he's a riot to read, but when he's simply following Snorri, it ends up just being boring.
★★★ 2.5 Stars - Prince of Fools has a few great characters, a wonderful setting and prose, and you can tell Mark Lawrence is talented. Jalan is the fun while Snorri is the heart. But great characters can only go so far with an unclear and uncompelling plot. The ending brought together all of the convolusions of the first and second half of the book, but ultimately fell flatter than it should have.
Recommended For: mature audiences who like character driven stories. Readers of The Broken Empire trilogy.
Let me hear from you! If you like what you read, want to hear more thoughts on this book, other reviews, or talk book recommendations and Essential Reading, leave a comment below.
Rating system:
★★★★★ 5 Stars: It was amazing; I loved it. Read this book; it is definitely Essential Reading!
★★★★★* 4.5 Stars: It was nearly perfect. I really loved almost every aspect of it, but a few things kept it from being amazing.
★★★★ 4 Stars: It was very worth reading and satisfying; highly recommend.
★★★★* 3.5 Stars: I thoroughly enjoyed this story, but it was lacking in certain crucial areas.
★★★ 3 Stars: It was good, but could've been better or improved upon significantly.
★★★* 2.5 Stars: I wanted to enjoy it. Certain aspects were good, it was worth finishing, but many issues.
★★ 2 Stars: It was okay, I didn't feel strongly about it.
★ 1 Star: I did not like it. It was not worth finishing or I did not finish it.
*I round up based on the system on Goodreads. Also, there is no 1.5 Stars because it does not seem to have enough differentiation.