The Briar King is a better book than I expected. I ordered it on a whim from the Sci Fi book club on the basis of the blurbs in their monthly catalog, which is usually a mistake. But the book turns out to be a well-crafted piece of epic fantasy with some mildly surprising elements. per usual the story concerns the impending onset of a prophecy of doom and the central characters efforts to discover the true nature of the peril and fight it off. It’s the first book in a proposed series, and as such it lays the groundwork for what’s to come and spends a good bit of time on character development. It’s being heralded as the ‘next great epic’ and a worthy equal to George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Ice series, which I really like. I’m not sure it’s quite all that, but the book was definitely better than I expected and like Martin the author is not afraid to introduce empathetic characters and then do away with them in a gritty fashion. I’d give it 3 stars and I will pick up the next one when it comes out.

What’s that? You want to know something about the plot? Haven’t you noticed yet that I don’t tend to get into plots in my little capsule reviews? Go read the book, it’s epic high fantasy, they all have the same plots anyway, it’s just the details that differ 😉