King of Thorns
core novel 2012 The Broken Empire
Record
| First published | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.17 (72,026 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 449 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781937007478 |
Synopsis
Four years after the events of the first novel, Jorg now rules as king, but his hold on power faces its sternest test yet as a coalition of six nations marches on his gates under a celebrated hero determined to reunite the fractured empire by force. Badly outmatched in open battle, Jorg refuses to simply surrender or flee, instead turning to unorthodox and morally dubious schemes, including a politically calculated marriage, to even the odds against the invading army. The narrative moves between the immediate crisis of the siege, flashbacks reaching back over the intervening four years that fill in how Jorg consolidated his rule, and diary excerpts offering another layer of perspective, gradually widening the picture of the wider world, its rival kingdoms, and the alliances Jorg will need if he is to survive the assault at all.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Broken Empire
- Series: The Broken Empire core; position 2 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Mark Lawrence
Awards (verified)
- Readers' Choice Awards (Fantasy), 2012: nominated; Reader-vote finalist round; did not win.
- David Gemmell Legend Award, 2013: nominated
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 2 of 3: previous Prince of Thorns (2011) · next Emperor of Thorns (2013)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broken_Empire_Trilogy
- Mark Lawrence's official site
- https://hobbleit.wordpress.com/2018/06/22/review-king-of-thorns-by-mark-lawrence/
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