2 stars
Emperor of
Thorns is the last book in the Broken Empire trilogy and, as the name suggests,
shows Jorg on his way to becoming Emperor. The book starts a little after the
events of King of Thorns (to which I did not write a review) with Jorg
traveling to Vyene to vote on the new emperor.
I gave 2
starts to the other two books in the trilogy and it is not different for this
one. Many of my problems were repeated in this book as well and different
problems appeared.
What I
liked:
- Some of
the side characters got interesting character development and they participated
more in the story (with that I mean that they were more important to the
narrative than in the previous ones, even though Jorg is still the one that
does most of the things by himself). Katherine, for one, was a character that
was more interesting and powerful. It was nice to see more female characters
doing important things;
- Not only
the secondary characters got more development but Jorg did as well. He still
does things his way, he is still careless and always manages to get away with
it, but he is a little more humane;
- We got
more answers concerning the world of the narrative and more “scientific”
explanations as well.
What I didn’t
like:
- We may
have gotten more answers but the world still does not make sense to me. Why did
only some books (and only books that fit the medieval vibe of the story at
that) survive and other did not? How can many of the technological devices
still work with no power source to keep them running? And the explanation as to
why there are ghosts, monsters, and the like did not work for me – even though
it fits the story;
- The book
drags on and on. There are too many scenes and descriptions that are completely
unnecessary. This space could have been used for the final conflict;
- Many of
the “scary things” were not scary at all and they have zero utility;
- I liked
that we had some chapters showing Chella’s, the necromancer, side (3rd
person instead of 1st as it is for Jorg), but they did not bring any
new information;
- I really
did not like the ending. Things were solved too easily and too quickly. The identity
of the Dead King was too obvious. I thought the author took the “easiest way
out” with this finale. He could have expanded the book a little more (or gotten
rid of some useless parts) and created an ending that would actually fit the
character’s personality and arc.
Over all,
speaking of the trilogy as a whole, I liked the idea behind the story and even
the world (had it been better explained), but I did not like the execution. I
believe things improved from one book to the other and as the story progresses,
but even so I could not get over my initial problems.