715 reviews for:

Emperor of Thorns

Mark Lawrence

4.09 AVERAGE

mattdavenport's profile picture

mattdavenport's review

4.0

7.3 - Good

My least favorite entry in the BE trilogy unfortunately, somewhere in the 7s. Jorg is still great, but the events plodded more, and the main revelation - the Dead King is his brother William - was so overly foreshadowed that I figured out by *at least* the first quarter of the book. The typical good things of Lawrence so far were still good - Jorg is fun and evil, his flashbacks into his life are brilliantly done, there's a lot of plotting over various times to come together for the ending and all loose ends are closed well. But....I just didn't feel like it was done nearly as well. Things seem forced, Jorg's ridiculous plot armor is ultimately now shown to be just that, plot armor, with no other world-reason for it. The fast-paced action in this book left me usually feeling like I missed out on something rather than compounding to the chaotic nature of violence as the previous books largely accomplished. At the end of the series now, I definitely love Jorg and am impressed by the world and story, but I also feel a bit let down. I feel like the story and ramifications could've been explained a lot better along the way to give a more fulfilling ending. I'm perfectly happy with Jorg's arc, it makes perfect sense, but the side character's got pushed aside along the way for the sake of the magic-story, which wasn't as fulfilling and didn't pull me in. In theory, I love it, the magic is human-will overcoming the laws of physics, but that's gradually increasing and breaking down the world itself. But those ramifications, and how Jorg and William exactly fixed it, wasn't that satisfying to me. I don't personally like that the Heaven and Hell concepts got turned into a "it's just all in your head" thing. Maybe I'm just not smart enough lol.
adventurous dark emotional inspiring lighthearted sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This was a complex trilogy. 

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tommythebear's review

4.0

Great end to the series. Character was a complete asshole through and through. My kind of trilogy.

ericfomley1's review

5.0

Glorious. A stellar ending to a well written and one of a kind trilogy.

Two stars means I finished it and that I didn’t hate it. Not love or praise. Just a book that I finished because I wanted to complete the series. Ever since the first book I slowly started to lose my interest in Jorg and the story. I only finished it because I wanted to know what happened but honestly if I could find a good plot summary online I would’ve read that instead of the entire book.

alpharhorho's review

4.0

This was a strong conclusion to the series. Did it hit all of the points I was looking for to wrap things up? Sadly, no. I would have loved to get more resolution on several characters or some denouement, but for the most part it hit the key points. The "5 years ago" sections in this book lacked much of the weight they carried in King of Thorns, since there it was all key in the final victory. While it was also important in this book, it wasn't the linchpin it was previously, and thus felt a little rehashed/disjointed. That said, I think Jorg's adventures are more interesting when he's traveling, so even if those chapters weren't as necessary to the plot they were still the more interesting chapters. All in all, I really enjoyed this series, and I'll definitely keep an eye out for more books from Mr. Lawrence.
adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

gbtay's review

3.0

I loved the series, but this book felt too slow at the beginning then rushed through the ending. Too many loose ends. The ending was good, just too fast, like the last 15 pages could’ve been another 100. EoT was my least favorite of the trilogy but as a whole the series is top tier and so unique in its concept.
prairiephlox's profile picture

prairiephlox's review

4.0

Literally the best ending to a series ever. I highly HIGHLY recommend the violent, gory trilogy.

I absolutely love Jorg. His personality shines through the grimdark. So many laughs and WTF Jorg moments.

I'm glad Mark Lawrence stopped at 3 books. The third book felt a little stretched out and adding a fourth would not have done him any favors. About 25% or more of the story was a bit boring. That's why I took away a star. It was during the scenes where Jorg ventured out on his own. Jorg is no fun on his own.

The series as a whole is 5 stars. If you're a fan of grimdark you must read Mark Lawrence.