Prince of Thorns
Jorg Ancrath was nine years old when he watched his mother and brother murdered and was dragged through a hedge of thorns that would not let him save them. Four years later, he is the vicious leader of a band of road brothers, riding through the ruins of a kingdom built on the bones of our own world. When Jorg returns to his father's castle, he finds a court poisoned by a stepmother, a necromancer at the edge of the map, and a political game that demands he become even colder than he already is. Mark Lawrence's 2011 grimdark debut is narrated by one of fantasy's most uncompromising antiheroes, and it pairs bleak battlefield imagery with a strange post-apocalyptic undertow that slowly reveals the nature of the Broken Empire.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Prince of Thorns
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
First in the Broken Empire trilogy. Fourteen-year-old Prince Jorg rides with a company of road brothers, planning to take back the kingdom of his uncle, who killed Jorg's mother and left him for dead.
Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire trilogy has three books: Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, and Emperor of Thorns. He has written multiple connected trilogies in the same universe, including The Red Queen's War and Book of the Ancestor.
Yes. Prince of Thorns is widely cited as a defining grimdark fantasy novel, alongside Joe Abercrombie's First Law and Glen Cook's Black Company. The protagonist Jorg is intentionally unlikable; the violence is graphic and the moral framing bleak.
Prince of Thorns was written by Mark Lawrence, published in 2011 by Ace Books.
Prince of Thorns is 384 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Prince of Thorns takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Prince of Thorns is a standalone novel by Mark Lawrence, not part of a series.
Prince of Thorns is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.