The Briar King
by Greg Keyes
Tor $59
Reading The Briar King is like working your way through a checklist of fantasy cliches: there's a big bad evil monster, an ancient sacred city, a homely tavern, a brave forest ranger, an idealistic young priest, a troubled king and a beautiful princess in distress. But then again, fans of this genre don't seem to mind reading the same thing over and over again, so perhaps it's not a bad thing. Keyes opens the book with two characters crawling through the mud on a battlefield, and this sets the mood and the pace for the rest of the story. This is the first instalment in a new saga, titled The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, and it's from the author of The Age of Unreason and the Star Wars New Jedi Order novels. If you don't mind the sense of deja vu, it's still an entertaining romp through a world of war, intrigue, sorcery and passion.