My Four Star Review of Sorcery of Thorns
OK, it has been WAY too long since I came on here with a book review. To be honest, my book reading has been slow BUT I read this one quite a while ago and still hadn't uploaded the review 🫣
Let's get into it...
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My Four Star Review of Sorcery of Thorns
You may know that I took a long hiatus from reading while I dealt with vision issues and waited for surgery. Now that I can see clearly, again, (with glasses though 😎) I'm happy to dive back into the world of both reading AND writing (check out my books and short stories by clicking right here).
After reading a few good books, Sorcery of Thorns was suggested to me by my stepdaughter. It's literally one of her favourite books but I know we don't share common interests for the arts so I wasn't sure if it would be my favourite, as well.
In the end, my suspicions were correct. It really wasn't the right fit for me.
But I caution anyone reading this review - the three star rating given here is ENTIRELY subjective. It has more to do with my personal interest and preferences than it does with the quality of the book. If you're very much into fantasy books in make believe worlds you are likely to enjoy this book more than I did (as someone who prefers strange twists on our real world).
Still, there's a lot to be said about Sorcery of Thorns, even from someone who isn't a huge fantasy fan.
Well developed world and characters who deserve more stories
A quick look at Margaret Rogerson's Goodreads profile tells me that these characters will see more stories. And I'm happy for that. They were all well-defined and layered. Honestly, that's often overlooked in fantasy.
Most authors and movie creators spend so much time world building and creating action scenes that they leave out one of the most important details for me - human connection. I want to care about the characters. I want them to be flawed, filled with layers and triggers and emotions that go beyond the expected.
Rogerson did a good job of character building for the leads and for smaller roles (even the books).
I truly hope that there are more books for this series, so that she can continue to tell their stories and peel back more layers.
She also did a fabulous job of creating quick-footed fight scenes that I didn't want to skim over (I'm terrible for that with fight scenes). I actually wanted to read those scenes and learned a lot about writing them, in the process. So, thank you for that!
Metaphors and lessons relating to our current political era
Yep, this is a real section in this review!
You might be surprised to hear that I found a lot of interesting metaphors and lessons relating to our current political era as I read this book.
Fiction doesn't need to be political but books have always had a way of becoming commentary on our world - intentionally or not.
I have no idea if any social commentaries were meant to linger in the background of Sorcery of Thorns and I have no idea what Margaret Rogerson's political affiliations are 🤷🏻♀️. And, honestly, I'm kind of happy I didn't know anything about Rogerson before reading this.
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**Spoiler alert**
But, for anyone interested in diving deeper (for the sake of school report and book clubs), I propose the following:
The Archenon holds an interesting relationship to Artificial Intelligence when it is placed in the hands of someone sick with power.
"With the Archenon's power at my disposal, humanity will be transformed. No more sickness, or poverty, or war. It will be a marvel - a glorious era in which all is possible, and every dream made real..." page 387
It's something that others know has more power for evil than it does for good. It has more destructive capabilities than it has productive ones. And that is especially true when placed in the hands of anyone who thinks that sacrifices (sometimes of lives) should be justified in search of the overall good - and even MORE especially when that person thinks they are solely capable of defining the overall good.
What's worse, not only is Ashcroft a person sick with power;, someone who has been led to believe they are special, who holds the power to unleash pure evil - it is an evil he will not be able to stop once it has been unleashed.
It makes me think of things like AI and certain kinds of warfare. Things that are truly terrifying.
Do I think Rogerson wanted us to think about this? Well, I'm not sure. But it's certainly worth discussing.
