The Briar King by Gregory Keyes

[Pants]

Anyone read this?
It was being heavily promoted as 'the next GRRM' or something or other, so I got suckered into buying it. But it was fairly good, not description heavy, more like dialogue heavy. Good dialogue though, nice snappy and witty dialogue. Some good characters as well. But, I think it was a bit overpromoted. It was good, but not GRRM quality good. It was a bit too short and the character perspective changed a bit too much, mostly resulting in me not caring about certain characters at all (the King comes to mind). Still, it was a good read and I'm glad I spent my money on it. Good change of pace after reading Salvatore for a while.


Anyone else read it?

Edit: Forgot the author's name.... *slaps forehead*

 

[EricNoah]

Is this the Fool Wolf guy? (and is this a Fool Wolf book?)

 

[WayneLigon]

Yes, it's the 'Fool Wolf' guy; no, it's another fantasy world entirely. Funny, I hadn't heard it was 'overpromoted'; in fact, didn't even know it existed until I saw it in the store.

A link about the three main cultures in the Fool Wolf/Children series.

 

[Umbran]

Hm. That seems to be J. Gregory Keyes. I don't think it's been over-promoted. I tend to like the guy's work, but I've never heard of "The Briar King", or the "Fool Wolf" books (at least not by that name).

I know Mr. Keyes from his work on Babylon 5 novels, and his Age of Unreason series.

Mr. Keyes may not be super strong on description, but I'd hardly call him weak. And I note that not all stories call for heavy description. It can drag, and get in the way.

 

[Pants]

Del Rey was giving away the first half of the book in ebook format for quite a while. Maybe it's not 'overpromoting' but Del Rey was heavily promoting the series.

Mr. Keyes may not be super strong on description, but I'd hardly call him weak. And I note that not all stories call for heavy description. It can drag, and get in the way.

Well, I wouldn't call the description 'weak,' more like light description. It was still good though and thank god it wasn't RJ description style.

 

[drothgery]

Hm. That seems to be J. Gregory Keyes. I don't think it's been over-promoted. I tend to like the guy's work, but I've never heard of "The Briar King", or the "Fool Wolf" books (at least not by that name).

AFAIK, the latter aren't novels, they're short stories that showed up in Dragon. But they're set in the same world as The Waterborn and Blackgod, the Children of the Changeling books -- which I think could use a third. There was too much of everyone living happily ever after at the conclusion of Blackgod.