The Briar King (The Kingdoms Of Thorn And Bone book one) by Greg Keyes
01/12/2003 . Source: Jennifer Howell 

pub: TOR. 553 page hardback. Price: £17.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-4050-3351-7.

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Cut to two thousand years of peace later and the youngest of her descendants, Princess Anne Dare of Crotheny, is having strange dreams and visions that warn there must be a queen alive when he comes and that it may well be her.

Having no clue as to who he is and with two older sisters and a mother between her and the throne, Anne is not really inclined to take the warnings to heart.

Meanwhile, Aspar White, the king's holter, hears stories of supernatural massacres in his forest and comes face to face with a mythical monster who may turn out to be the warm-up act for something even worse. Along the way, Aspar rescues Stephen Darige, a trainee priest-scholar whose talent with dead languages leads him to translate an ancient document with an ominous message: the Briar King, harbinger of death, is overdue to make a comeback.

For anyone familiar with the fantasy genre, merely reading the blurb of 'The Briar King' should be enough to induce cliché overload. Ancient evil awakening, check! Prophesy, check! Idealistic young priest, rebellious princess who has been 'chosen', grizzled, grumpy but fair woodsman - check, check, check!

Luckily for Greg Keyes, it only takes about thirty seconds of reading to realise that this book deserves every one of the many plaudits adorning the back cover. Keyes, as it happens, has a way with language that had me pausing to admire every other phrase and 'The Briar King' has a dense, layered plot that won't reduce down nicely to a comfortable blurb.

What makes it so different is that, on the surface, this is a classic example of what passes for fantasy these days. Beneath the apparent clichés lies a dark, spiky take on the usual with characters that may not always be likeable but are always believable. The dialogue is an especial high point. Take a look at the two soldiers in the prelude for a great example of how to make even over-blown fantasy speeches sound natural.

What this all adds up to is a book that is more about its characters than about the world they live in or the fantasy tropes around them. The settings, for instance, are nothing groundbreaking but merely solidly recognisable Western cultures. Like all the best fantasy, this is really about human nature.

In a nice twist, the Briar King, drawing from pagan mythology of the Green Man, is seen as something terrible but not necessarily evil - more an inevitable part of nature. It takes human characters to come up with the really sick and twisted schemes, as Princess Anne's dysfunctional royal family soon find out.

It is perhaps the darkness that lends this book its weight. While never one to stint on the gore factor (I lost count of how many disembowellings after a while), Keyes also has a deft touch in showing injuries and death from the perspective of the victim.

The confusion and denial then comes across as far more realistic and powerful. The concept of a 'coven' of nuns actually devoted to teaching girls how to be assassins and spies works as a good counterpoint to expectation and the slight twists on religion are generally well thought out.

As good as 'The Briar King' is, it is essentially a difficult book to describe. As far as I'm concerned, it goes beyond what I've come to expect from the genre and not in ways you can anticipate. Special mention has to go the artist Kirk Caldwell as usually maps are on my list of What I Hate Most About Fantasy.

The inside covers of the hardback edition are home to a couple of beautifully detailed water-colour maps that I actually spent time poring over and that almost never happens.
In the end, the best recommendation I can give is that if you are sick to death of fantasy, read 'The Briar King'. Remember why you used to love it.

Jennifer Howell