Shannon’s Reviews > King of Thorns > Status Update

Dreams took me before Makin could find an answer. Katherine walked them, the dead child in her arms and accusations on her lips.

You sure it's not a Botchling?

We're built of contradictions, all of us. It's those opposing forces that give us strength, like an arch, each block pressing the next. Give me a man whose parts are all aligned in agreement and I'll show you madness. We walk a narrow path, insanity to each side. A man without contradictions to balance him will soon veer off.

Let people pray to God, it's nothing to me. Some good may even come of it, if goodness is something that matters to you. Trap him in churches if you must, and lament him there. But Roma? Roma is a weapon used against us. A poison flavored sweet and given to hungry men.

Uhhh ... probably not good for me that I agree with a psychopath.

And that exhausts my insights into the kicking of severed heads.

That ... is not a sentence I thought I'd ever read.

"Do I have to be a monster? Do I have to be a new Queen of Red to—"

This pretty much never happens but I'm feeling the urge to spoil this for myself and read the synopsis for the next series because of the quote above. Resisting ... Resisting ...

Argh, this is almost painful, especially since I won't get to that series until I read the next book!

She crosses her own chest, a protection quickly sketched. "There's evil in you, Jorg," she says.
"Perhaps," I say. "There's evil in a lot of men. Women too. Maybe I just wear it more plainly."

The time you find that your mother cannot keep you safe, that your tutor makes a mistake, that the wrong path must be taken because the grown-ups lack the strength to take the right one...each of those moments is the theft of your childhood, each of them a blow that kills some part of the child you were, leaving another part of the man exposed, a new creature, tougher but tempered with bitterness and disappointment.

"When they bury me my son will have to buy the longboat and have it sailed and carted from Osheim."

I could've sworn that was the name of town on the Skellige Isles in Witcher 3. Closest I found was Trottheim though. The few people introduced definitely feel like they'd be at home in Skellige, for sure.

Brother Maical's wisdom lies in knowing he is not clever and letting himself be led. The foolishness of mankind is that we do not do the same.

You know, reading this series I feel like it's a great commentary on the ebook vs. physical copies of books. Like so:

All war is deception, Sun Tzu tells me on pages yellow as jaundice, dry as sand.

Apparently "real" books will be around for thousands of years!

...

*I'm reading this on a Kindle, btw"