I have always loved to read. During my teenage years, I believe I read over a hundred books. For a few years, I had this ritual, go to the public library, spend a couple of hours searching for a book that wasn’t educational or a romance novel, pick my allotted two books, and head home. I’d finish both within the week.
To be honest, I remember very little about the books I read back then, mostly because they were boring. At that time, I hadn’t discovered my favorite genre yet. That public library (a wonderful resource to have in the city) didn’t have a particularly exciting collection. Most of the books were about things you’d encounter in school or college, geography, history, math, and the like. But thanks to donations (and I could tell because the non-educational books all had several wear signs, some older than the library itself), there were occasional gems, fictional stories buried between academic volumes.
Then life happened. I was no longer a teenager. I had to work, study, and be an adult. The books that had once helped me endure those teenage weren’t part of my life anymore.
But I didn’t completely stop reading. Beyond the mandatory books for university or work, occasionally a famous book would catch my attention. But it was never the same. I didn’t have the time for a regular reading habit. Instead, I’d stumble upon a book that piqued my interest enough to make me want to read it, but it was rare. In the decade that followed my departure from hobby reading, I may have finished five books. I started many more but abandoned them for one reason or another, too elitist, too boring, outside my preferred niche, or simply because I wasn’t in the mood to read. I dropped quite a lot of books during this period.
Then, some time ago, I decided to give it another shot. I’d already lost interest in TV shows and movies, they’d all become the same. Mediocre actors, bad direction, uninspired stories, painfully slow pacing. Every movie felt like yet another “The Hero’s Journey.” Disillusioned with popular media, I started remembering about the books I had once loved, Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams, 1984, Dune, a few Sherlock Holmes stories, and others that I certainly will never remember but I do remember the feeling that I once liked them very much. They were original. They weren’t predictable. It wasn’t always the same story (well, Sherlock kind of is). They weren’t following a formula. And so, I decided to return to books.
I started slow, finishing one of the many books I’d bought but abandoned midway through. It was a slow process, very slow, just a couple of pages a day, but I made it through. I had promised myself to go back to reading, now I had to, and I was determined to keep that promise. That first book was a bit of a struggle, but I made it.
Progress was slow at first, largely because I had no idea what authors or genres were popular. Then I remembered my Google Play Books account, where I had a few purchased books I had never read. I couldn’t recall why or when I’d bought them, but they were there, waiting patiently, some for years. That’s where I found Prince of Thorns.
And I couldn’t have chosen a better way to jump back in. What a fantastic read.
This book was made for me. It had everything I love, no traditional hero, minimal reliance on “The Hero’s Journey,” a touch of magic, strange creatures, a world that wasn’t Earth (no spoilers!), and a time frame completely disconnected the world history that I know. There was gore, unpredictability, fast paced, on every chapter something was happening, and some excellent plot twists. It was perfect for me.
The trilogy, The Broken Empire, which begins with Prince of Thorns, isn’t flawless. It’s not a 5/5 masterpiece, and plenty of readers don’t like it. But for me, Mark Lawrence did an incredible job.
Something interesting happened while I was reading Prince of Thorns. As I mentioned, this book had been sitting on my Google account for years. I had no memory of why I bought it or what it was about. I simply saw the cover, liked the title, and started reading. Initially, I thought it was similar to Game of Thrones, the vibe in the first few chapters was the same. But some of the descriptions didn’t quite fit. References to “steel bars” and “liquid rock” puzzled me. I didn’t understand them, nor did I try to. I assumed it was magic and moved on, I wanted to see what was going to happen next and didn’t pay much attention to descriptions of houses and roads, “yeah, yeah, it is a road, whatever, tell me what happens!”.
Then it clicked. Almost at the end of the book, while the characters were going through some tunnels (also described in a way that didn’t fully make sense to me at the time), something happened. The protagonist began interacting with something I recognized. Suddenly, it all fell into place and flashbacks started happening on my mind. Those strange descriptions I’d been ignoring earlier now made perfect sense. I understood what had happened to this world, why it wasn’t a medieval fantasy like I’d initially assumed. Everything, the tools, the castles, the roads, even the tunnels, it clicked. I went back to the map at the beginning of the book and saw it in an entirely new light, I understood the map. It was a marvelous, mind-blowing moment.
I pity those who read this book already knowing its “secret”. I’m sure some readers would catch on much earlier than I did, I was well over 70% into the book before the realization hit me. But for me, the delayed revelation was a thrilling surprise.
And Mark Lawrence knows how to write. After finishing The Broken Empire trilogy and Road Brothers, I deliberately avoided reading more of his work. I didn’t want to risk getting tired of his style. Instead, I ventured into other authors and stories, sticking to science fiction and fantasy of course. Within a year, I’d read 32 books, a huge personal achievement after more than a decade of near-zero hobby reading.
Recently, I returned to Mark Lawrence with One Word Kill. Having just finished another fantasy novel (which was good but not particularly engaging), I was reminded of how well Lawrence writes. The previous book, that has a similar number of pages as One Word Kill, had taken me almost a month to finish, despite being easy to read, it just didn’t pull me in. But One Word Kill? I devoured it in a week. The pacing, the engagement, the sheer readability, it’s exactly my niche.
I might create a personal scoring system based on how engaging a book is. That feels like a better metric than just rating books on technical aspects or general popularity for my top favorite.
And I now realize I haven’t talked much about Prince of Thorns or The Broken Empire. This post turned out to be more of a “Books are better than TV” post, and my renewed passion for books. I’ll dedicate another post to Mark Lawrence’s work later. For now, I’m off to finish One Word Kill.
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