Emperor of Thorns
core novel 2013 The Broken Empire
Record
| First published | 2013 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.22 (58,885 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 434 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780425256855 |
Synopsis
Having survived the siege of the previous novel, Jorg now sets his sights on the imperial throne itself, but the path to becoming Emperor requires something new from him: rather than conquering it by force, he must win the votes of the empire's assembled political elite, a body known as the hundred, despite being widely distrusted and disliked among them. While Jorg travels toward the gathering where that vote will take place, he continues digging into the pre-apocalyptic history of his world, hunting through the relics and knowledge of a lost civilization of builders for any advantage he can bring to the contest ahead.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Broken Empire
- Series: The Broken Empire core; position 3 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Mark Lawrence
Awards (verified)
- David Gemmell Legend Award, 2014: won
- Readers' Choice Awards (Fantasy), 2013: nominated; Reader-vote finalist round; did not win.
Notes
- From the series record (The Broken Empire): Jorg Ancrath's ascent from road-brigand prince to emperor (2011-2013). No universe-wide internal chronology is recorded: the companion Red Queen's War trilogy runs CONCURRENTLY with this one, depicting overlapping events from a different POV (shared scenes appear in both, e.g. Jorg's duel with Sir Galen), so any single linear ordering across the universe would be false precision, the author himself says the two trilogies 'can be read in either order' (recorded in prose rather than forced into integers).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Broken Empire: position 3 of 3: previous King of Thorns (2012)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broken_Empire_Trilogy
- Mark Lawrence's official site
- https://fantasy-faction.com/2013/emperor-of-thorns-by-mark-lawrence
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