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The
Briar King (The Kingdoms Of Thorn And Bone book one) by Greg Keyes check out website: www.tor.com
Cut to two thousand years of peace later and the youngest of her descendants, Princess Anne Dare of Crotheny, is having strange dreams and visions that warn there must be a queen alive when he comes and that it may well be her.
Meanwhile,
Aspar White, the king's holter, hears stories of supernatural massacres in his
forest and comes face to face with a mythical monster who may turn out to be the
warm-up act for something even worse. Along the way, Aspar rescues Stephen Darige,
a trainee priest-scholar whose talent with dead languages leads him to translate
an ancient document with an ominous message: the Briar King, harbinger of death,
is overdue to make a comeback. For anyone familiar with the fantasy
genre, merely reading the blurb of 'The Briar King' should be enough to induce
cliché overload. Ancient evil awakening, check! Prophesy, check! Idealistic
young priest, rebellious princess who has been 'chosen', grizzled, grumpy but
fair woodsman - check, check, check! Luckily for Greg Keyes, it only
takes about thirty seconds of reading to realise that this book deserves every
one of the many plaudits adorning the back cover. Keyes, as it happens, has a
way with language that had me pausing to admire every other phrase and 'The Briar
King' has a dense, layered plot that won't reduce down nicely to a comfortable
blurb. What makes it so different is that, on the surface, this is
a classic example of what passes for fantasy these days. Beneath the apparent
clichés lies a dark, spiky take on the usual with characters that may not
always be likeable but are always believable. The dialogue is an especial high
point. Take a look at the two soldiers in the prelude for a great example of how
to make even over-blown fantasy speeches sound natural. What this all adds up to is a book that is more about its characters than about the world they live in or the fantasy tropes around them. The settings, for instance, are nothing groundbreaking but merely solidly recognisable Western cultures. Like all the best fantasy, this is really about human nature. In a nice twist, the Briar
King, drawing from pagan mythology of the Green Man, is seen as something terrible
but not necessarily evil - more an inevitable part of nature. It takes human characters
to come up with the really sick and twisted schemes, as Princess Anne's dysfunctional
royal family soon find out. It is perhaps the darkness that lends this book its weight. While never one to stint on the gore factor (I lost count of how many disembowellings after a while), Keyes also has a deft touch in showing injuries and death from the perspective of the victim. The confusion and
denial then comes across as far more realistic and powerful. The concept of a
'coven' of nuns actually devoted to teaching girls how to be assassins and spies
works as a good counterpoint to expectation and the slight twists on religion
are generally well thought out. As good as 'The Briar King' is, it is essentially a difficult book to describe. As far as I'm concerned, it goes beyond what I've come to expect from the genre and not in ways you can anticipate. Special mention has to go the artist Kirk Caldwell as usually maps are on my list of What I Hate Most About Fantasy. The inside covers of the hardback edition
are home to a couple of beautifully detailed water-colour maps that I actually
spent time poring over and that almost never happens. Jennifer Howell
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OTHER REVIEWS - December 2003
Other reviews this month Dreams Underfoot by Charles De Lint Spirits In The Wires by Charles De Lint First Rider's Call by Kristen Britain Roma Eterna by Robert Silverberg The Life Eaters by David Brin and Scott Hamilton Midnight Lamp by Gwyneth Jones Dreams of the Compass Rose by Vera Nazarian One Lamp: Alternative History Stories edited by Gordon Van Gelder The Druid King by Norman Spinrad Star Trek: Nemesis novelisation by J.M. Dillard Unto Leviathan by Richard Paul Russo The Sundering by Walter Jon Williams Nylon Angel by Marianne de Pierres Falling Out Of Cars by Jeff Noon The Darkest Part Of The Woods by Ramsey Campbell Lord Of Snow And Shadows by Sarah Ash Tales Of Ten Worlds by Arthur C. Clarke Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale Dante's Equation by Jane Jensen Archform: Beauty by L. E. Modesit Jr
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In the world according to Greg Keyes, the
evil, pretty much immortal Skasloi Lords once enslaved humanity.
Then Genia Dare, the Born Queen, led a rebellion that heralded a
new age of freedom and no more Skasloi. 
Having
no clue as to who he is and with two older sisters and a mother
between her and the throne, Anne is not really inclined to take
the warnings to heart.
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