Former (possibly mad) scientist Mark Lawrence first came to the world's attention with his Broken Empire trilogy, an insalubrious fantasy series (with a sliver of sci-fi) which explored the less-than-heroic exploits of Prince Jorg Ancrath. What set Lawrence's novels apart form the reams of dark and gritty low-fantasy lining the shelves (apart from his exquisitely wrought prose) was just how amoral his leading man was. Sure, you can't throw a wizard's staff these days without hitting an anti-hero, but Jorg was different, there was a venom in his veins and a darkness upon his soul that spoke of true villainy.
It's a trick Lawrence repeats in his latest outing, Prince of Fools, which puts us once more in the shoes of another less-than-savoury leading man. This time round, it is the vainglorious, puffed-up princeling Jalan Andreth. Unlike Jorg, who set his slippery sights on conquering the entire Broken Empire, Jalan is cozened coward whose ambition extends only to the conquering of high-born ladies' bedchambers. Refreshingly, Jalan doesn't rue his lack of bravery or skill - he revels in it. This is a man that is comfortable in his own skin, stained with sin and debauch though it may be.
Of course, we wouldn't have much of a novel if all Jal did was wench and gamble his way through the book's 500-odd pages, which is where Snorri ver Snagason comes in. Perhaps the most wholesome character Lawrence has ever written, Snorri is everything Jalan isn't: guileless, brave, optimistic and heartfelt. On a quest to rescue his family from a traitorous warlord named Broke Oar, the Viking's fate becomes entangled with Jalan's after a magic spell turns their world upside down. Snared by this enchantment, the two are unable to get too far away from one another, and Snorri - being the bigger, meaner and braver of the two - forces Jalan to become an unwilling ally on his quest for vengeance.
A lot of your enjoyment of Prince of Fools, like the Broken Empire trilogy before it, will depend on whether or not you can stomach the book's main character, Jalan. The Prince of the Red Marches is a complex creation, one that eschews a lot of tired fantasy tropes; he is waspish, cowardly, vain and selfish, interested only in saving his own skin and seeing ladyfolk in nothing but theirs. Luckily, Lawrence colours Jalan's character with just enough wit and warmth to keep him from becoming completely unlikeable, and he never quite plumbs the same depths of depravity Jorg Ancrath wallowed in. The author does, however, like to beat readers over the head with tales of Jalan's amorous exploits, something that does begin to wear thin quite quickly.
This is symptomatic of a larger problem with the book; namely, its almost complete lack of strong female characters. Sure, the Red Queen and her Silent Sister loom large in the book's opening chapters, but they quickly fall by the wayside, replaced by a faceless parade of females whose only purpose is to be pawed over by our protagonist. We are in no way accusing Lawrence of sexism - he has already shown a knack for writing strong female characters in his Broken Empire books - but we do hope the next book in the Fools series addresses this to some degree.
Plot-wise, this is a novel that fairly rattles along, with a rare sense of pace and an almost swashbuckling sense of adventure. Lawrence is deft at balancing bloody, breathless action sequences with quieter, more character driven moments, and his searing wit gives the book a subversive, almost satirical, air. There is little in the way of politics, and he wisely avoid ramming reams of exposition down readers throats; this is definitely a book for those who like their fantasy to be a bit more down and dirty than majestic and operatic. If we had to nit-pick, a little bit more world-building wouldn't have gone amiss, and the threat facing our heroes from the Dead King feels a little too vague to be truly threatening, but, on the whole, this is strong entry in a series we can't wait to explore further.
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