Today I’m reviewing Prince of Thorns, a remarkable debut fantasy, and Cinder, a young adult sci-fi adventure that re-imagines the Cinderella fairy tale in a fresh and addictive way.

PRINCE OF THORNS: Book 1 of The Broken Empire

Since I finished it first, I’ll start with Mark Lawrence’s Prince of Thorns, which tells the story of Jorg Ancrath, the only surviving son and heir to the King of Ancrath, one of many kingdoms in a crumbling empire that has long been consumed by war. Four years before the book opens, Jorg’s mother and younger brother were slaughtered on the roadside by the men of Count Renar, the ruler of a province bordering Ancrath. Jorg was only spared death because he was thrown from the carriage and trapped in a snare of hookbriar thorns, where he watched the violence unfold and from which he received the name Prince of Thorns. Now fourteen, Jorg is living a violent, immoral life on the road as the leader of a band of thugs and thieves. When news reaches him of his stepmother carrying a new heir for Ancrath, Jorg is forced to return to the court of his father to protect his birthright. But much has changed in Ancrath since Jorg left and he soon finds himself back on a path of vengeance he abandoned years before—hunting the man man responsible for the murder of his mother and brother.

Having heard a lot of praise for this debut earlier in the year, I couldn’t stop myself from reading it immediately after returning home with a copy purchased from my neighborhood Barnes & Noble. The cover, an image of the book’s namesake standing surrounded by bodies and mist, caught my imagination the moment I saw it and still hasn’t let go—just as the first page captured my attention and didn’t release it until the last. This is a beautifully written page-turner with a surprising and cleverly created world (study the map carefully as you read). Jorg is a twisted and deeply disturbed young man, but that somehow didn’t stop me from wanting him to succeed—even when he was doing terrible things. The narrative alternates between the present and key moments in Jorg’s past, leaving the reader to piece together the events that led him to where he is today. This is dark fantasy at its most dark, and anyone who likes moral lines blurry will find something here to enjoy. My only complaint is that the ending was a bit anti-climatic and that Jorg (when he was a child) didn’t speak his age.

Favorite Quotes

War is a thing of beauty and those who say otherwise are losing.

I saw what they did to Mother, and how long it took. They broke little William’s head against a milestone. Golden curls and blood. And I’ll admit that William was the first of my brothers, and he did have his hooks in me, with his chubby hands and laughing. Since then I’ve taken on many a brother, and evil ones at that, so I’d not miss one or three. But at the time, it did hurt to see little William broken like that, like a toy. Like something worthless.

Hate will keep you alive where love fails.

I swallowed darkness and darkness swallowed me.

CINDER: Book 1 of The Lunar Chronicles

An arc (advance reader’s copy) of Cinder came to me in the mail at my office and I was instantly intrigued by the cover and concept. So much so that I ignored the other two books I was reading in order to start it on my train ride home that day. Set on a future Earth ravaged by a deadly new plague called letumosis, the book tells the story of Cinder, a teenage cyborg living with her stepmother and two stepsisters in New Beijing. Cyborgs are treated as second class citizens by society, which sees them as living on borrowed time, but Cinder manages to excel as a mechanic (though all the money she earns goes to her stepmother’s bank account). Her renown expertise on androids is what brings Crown Prince Kaito to her shop desperate to retrieve information from a malfunctioning android—information that could ignite a war between the governments of Earth and the moon kingdom of Luna.

All the familiar fairy tale elements are here—the girl scorned and mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, the prince who charms her even as he falls for her, a ball, and even a glass slipper in the form of a cyborg’s robotic foot. What is so brilliant about Cinder is the way that the fairy tale becomes the story, rather than overwhelming it. Never once did it read as though events were being forced into the mold of Cinderella because Marissa Meyer has made a familiar story all her own. It’s Cinderella with cyborgs, androids, plagues, and Lunar magic. The characters are wonderfully drawn, the world imaginative and believable, the narrative perfectly paced, and the ending (despite my initial worries) left me with that bittersweet combination of fulfillment and wanting more. I just didn’t want this one to end, and I can’t wait to get my hands on book 2.

[Cinder goes on sale January 3rd, 2012]

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