To add on the mark Lawrence's writing journey (since im a big fan so I know a ton xD) He was a research scientist in the field of AI but he was always a fantasy nerd and a DnD player. His scifi trilogy is actually set in 80s London following a crew of teenagers who play DnD and are science nerds (pretty much he was inspired by his own childhood i guess, since he grew up in London in the 80s). He was the dungeon master all the time so he had to write stories and he loved it, so eventually when the internet got big he started writing on a forum site where a lot of random people who were aspiring writers would write X amount of pages and post there for people to criticize. He did that for years and when his heavily disabled daughter was born somewhere in early 2000s he had to spend a lot of his free time in the hospital, sometimes even weeks. In 03 he started writing Prince Of Thorns as a standalone short story akin to a DnD campaign i think (might be wrong for the DnD part). He was writing it while in hospital with his daughter, immensly stressed since she was in a really really bad state. Once he wrote a respectable amount he sent it to that forum site and his friends (this wasnt his first story mind you, he has written a ton before that) and everyone loved it and pushed him to publish it. He actually didnt want to do it since he had 0 connections and felt it wouldnt be worth it, so for years he sat on it until somewhere in 09 or 2010 a friend of his started to really push him to try and publish it. So he fleshed it out a bit to make it a full length novel and sent it to gazillions of publishers (actually his friend did that i think since he didnt have time for all that) and eventually one of them picked it up and he found success literally over night. He was offered a 3 book contract with that publisher and then the book was out. It caused massive controversy on its release because people heavily implied that it was a self insert power fantasy which with all the violence would be really fucked up, or that it was a "rape fest", "torture porn" etc. Most of that Lawrence assumes came from the fact that he wrote it in first person so people immediately tried to connect Jorg's thoughts with the authors himself. Lawrence later explained the point of the trilogy and it goes like this(Link to the blog post: mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2012/10/murders-bad-mkay.html): "“are we supposed to like Jorg?” - a question I often see posed by people who then go on to make it very clear that my intention was for them to like him (it can’t be a fantasy book without a hero!) but they manfully (or womanfully) resisted. Well here’s the thing. I was interested in whether the combination of first person and charisma, of youth and some measure of doubt would draw readers to the character. I never decided that the reader should like Jorg. I was interested in challenging the reader with a complex character. To have him do terrible thing but to muddy the waters a little, to consider how long a shadow the crimes of youth cast down our years - to consider to what degree if any youth and background extenuate - to see what elements of the character resonate with readers - to examine our own reaction when the evil-doer is charming and witty, and how that contrasts with our feelings when a coarse and ugly villain does those same deeds. I do all that and people often appear to insist that whilst they end up hating/disliking/condemning Jorg ... _I_ am desperately trying to make them love him? Surely that would mean I've done a piss-poor job of it? If I wanted to make everyone love him wouldn't I just make him a nice person who does nice things? The fact I get a wide variety of reactions to Jorg is (to me) welcome confirmation that I pitched the question just right and that readers (a diverse bunch) fall on every side of the fence (a clever multi-dimensional fence). Prince of Thorns isn’t a book that sets out to make you cheer bad deeds or a bad person - it’s a book that sets out to challenge the reader with a character - to make you think about a real (albeit unusual) person and about the issues of what makes us bad, what is and isn’t forgiveable, what role nurture plays over nature, how we react when the badness is done by someone clever, intelligent, charming. And it doesn’t answer those questions. The trilogy as a whole stumbles toward an answer, but it won’t ever get there. It’s what we scientists call ‘an unsolved problem’. Above all it’s not a guide for life, not an instruction manual, not a political statement or social commentary. It’s a book that treats you as an adult, accepts that you’re not an idiot and already know murder is a bad thing, and presents you with a puzzle. Jorg." After a few years of being a writer while working a full time job as a scientist and taking care of his daughter who need 24/7 surveillance he finally decided to quit his job as a scientist since he could now pay the bills with his books. He also opened the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off which is the most popular indie fantasy contest from which many beloved books found their readers and have now signed with major publishing houses due to the fame they got from winning/being in the contest or have started their own independent publishing business. But some months ago Lawrence finished the 3rd book in his latest trilogy Book Of The Ice which will release next year (he usually finishes his books way ahead of schedule, Broken Empire was finished by early 2012 but the last book got published in late 2013). And after finishing that book Lawrence wrote a blog post saying that he kinda burned out and would like to take a break but doesnt know for how long. He is thinking of doing science again since he kinda misses it so we'll see, so far he has been promoting his latest book on social media and has been writing random short stories and doing what he feels like doing atm. Great video guys had a blast listening to yalls discussion and different reactions to one of my favorite books of all time in my favorite series of all time!
Also to add on the conversation about the rest of the book feeling shallow except for Jorg, that was also what the author wanted to achieve. It's a character study, the plot and the world building is there just to engage the reader but it is all there really just to test Jorg's character, to exercise him. Jorg is the MAIN show, the rest of everything else is jsut there to test him. Side characters especially are not really fleshed out because you are seeing everything from Jorg's perspective and Jorg doesnt care about anyone really but himself. There is a big element of an unreliable narrator throughout this whole series.
Relating to the recommendation discussion towards the beginning of this video: I don’t think this book has to be recommended to only those that are fans of the genre, because it’s not a typical fantasy books at all (and feels like sci-fi a lot of the time), but it’s definitely an adult-only book. If you’re gonna recommend it to a friend, just make them aware it is a dark story full of dark things. Sounds to me like maybe Josh simply isn’t as into dark stories 🤷♂️
I'm enjoying this trilogy so far. Jorg often gets compared to Joffrey but I think that's inaccurate, Jorg has more in common with Ramsey Snow and Tywin Lannister than Joffrey.
To add on the mark Lawrence's writing journey (since im a big fan so I know a ton xD)
He was a research scientist in the field of AI but he was always a fantasy nerd and a DnD player. His scifi trilogy is actually set in 80s London following a crew of teenagers who play DnD and are science nerds (pretty much he was inspired by his own childhood i guess, since he grew up in London in the 80s).
He was the dungeon master all the time so he had to write stories and he loved it, so eventually when the internet got big he started writing on a forum site where a lot of random people who were aspiring writers would write X amount of pages and post there for people to criticize. He did that for years and when his heavily disabled daughter was born somewhere in early 2000s he had to spend a lot of his free time in the hospital, sometimes even weeks.
In 03 he started writing Prince Of Thorns as a standalone short story akin to a DnD campaign i think (might be wrong for the DnD part). He was writing it while in hospital with his daughter, immensly stressed since she was in a really really bad state. Once he wrote a respectable amount he sent it to that forum site and his friends (this wasnt his first story mind you, he has written a ton before that) and everyone loved it and pushed him to publish it. He actually didnt want to do it since he had 0 connections and felt it wouldnt be worth it, so for years he sat on it until somewhere in 09 or 2010 a friend of his started to really push him to try and publish it. So he fleshed it out a bit to make it a full length novel and sent it to gazillions of publishers (actually his friend did that i think since he didnt have time for all that) and eventually one of them picked it up and he found success literally over night. He was offered a 3 book contract with that publisher and then the book was out. It caused massive controversy on its release because people heavily implied that it was a self insert power fantasy which with all the violence would be really fucked up, or that it was a "rape fest", "torture porn" etc. Most of that Lawrence assumes came from the fact that he wrote it in first person so people immediately tried to connect Jorg's thoughts with the authors himself.
Lawrence later explained the point of the trilogy and it goes like this(Link to the blog post: mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2012/10/murders-bad-mkay.html):
"“are we supposed to like Jorg?” - a question I often see posed by people who then go on to make it very clear that my intention was for them to like him (it can’t be a fantasy book without a hero!) but they manfully (or womanfully) resisted.
Well here’s the thing. I was interested in whether the combination of first person and charisma, of youth and some measure of doubt would draw readers to the character. I never decided that the reader should like Jorg. I was interested in challenging the reader with a complex character. To have him do terrible thing but to muddy the waters a little, to consider how long a shadow the crimes of youth cast down our years - to consider to what degree if any youth and background extenuate - to see what elements of the character resonate with readers - to examine our own reaction when the evil-doer is charming and witty, and how that contrasts with our feelings when a coarse and ugly villain does those same deeds.
I do all that and people often appear to insist that whilst they end up hating/disliking/condemning Jorg ... _I_ am desperately trying to make them love him? Surely that would mean I've done a piss-poor job of it? If I wanted to make everyone love him wouldn't I just make him a nice person who does nice things?
The fact I get a wide variety of reactions to Jorg is (to me) welcome confirmation that I pitched the question just right and that readers (a diverse bunch) fall on every side of the fence (a clever multi-dimensional fence).
Prince of Thorns isn’t a book that sets out to make you cheer bad deeds or a bad person - it’s a book that sets out to challenge the reader with a character - to make you think about a real (albeit unusual) person and about the issues of what makes us bad, what is and isn’t forgiveable, what role nurture plays over nature, how we react when the badness is done by someone clever, intelligent, charming. And it doesn’t answer those questions. The trilogy as a whole stumbles toward an answer, but it won’t ever get there. It’s what we scientists call ‘an unsolved problem’.
Above all it’s not a guide for life, not an instruction manual, not a political statement or social commentary. It’s a book that treats you as an adult, accepts that you’re not an idiot and already know murder is a bad thing, and presents you with a puzzle. Jorg."
After a few years of being a writer while working a full time job as a scientist and taking care of his daughter who need 24/7 surveillance he finally decided to quit his job as a scientist since he could now pay the bills with his books. He also opened the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off which is the most popular indie fantasy contest from which many beloved books found their readers and have now signed with major publishing houses due to the fame they got from winning/being in the contest or have started their own independent publishing business.
But some months ago Lawrence finished the 3rd book in his latest trilogy Book Of The Ice which will release next year (he usually finishes his books way ahead of schedule, Broken Empire was finished by early 2012 but the last book got published in late 2013). And after finishing that book Lawrence wrote a blog post saying that he kinda burned out and would like to take a break but doesnt know for how long. He is thinking of doing science again since he kinda misses it so we'll see, so far he has been promoting his latest book on social media and has been writing random short stories and doing what he feels like doing atm.
Great video guys had a blast listening to yalls discussion and different reactions to one of my favorite books of all time in my favorite series of all time!
Great comment! Thanks for taking the time to write all of that out and educate us. Mark sounds like a really interesting guy
Also to add on the conversation about the rest of the book feeling shallow except for Jorg, that was also what the author wanted to achieve. It's a character study, the plot and the world building is there just to engage the reader but it is all there really just to test Jorg's character, to exercise him. Jorg is the MAIN show, the rest of everything else is jsut there to test him.
Side characters especially are not really fleshed out because you are seeing everything from Jorg's perspective and Jorg doesnt care about anyone really but himself. There is a big element of an unreliable narrator throughout this whole series.
Great point! I can definitely see this. You said it better than we did
Relating to the recommendation discussion towards the beginning of this video: I don’t think this book has to be recommended to only those that are fans of the genre, because it’s not a typical fantasy books at all (and feels like sci-fi a lot of the time), but it’s definitely an adult-only book. If you’re gonna recommend it to a friend, just make them aware it is a dark story full of dark things.
Sounds to me like maybe Josh simply isn’t as into dark stories 🤷♂️
Very possible. Josh has this weird hope for humanity vibe going on
I'm enjoying this trilogy so far. Jorg often gets compared to Joffrey but I think that's inaccurate, Jorg has more in common with Ramsey Snow and Tywin Lannister than Joffrey.
Yeah definitely not joffrey. I would say a more humanized Ramsay or maybe a younger tywin are reasonable
Once again I’m afraid after this review
Live in fear Josh