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''The Red Queen's War'' is a fantasy trilogy by Mark Lawrence, the author of [[ThePrinceOfThorns the Broken Empire trilogy]], to which it is a sequel. It is made up of''Prince of Fools'' (June 2014), ''The Liar's Key'' (June 2015) and ''The Wheel of Osheim'' (June 2016).
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''The Red Queen's War'' is a fantasy trilogy by Mark Lawrence, the author of [[ThePrinceOfThorns [[Literature/ThePrinceOfThorns the Broken Empire trilogy]], to which it is a sequel. It is made up of''Prince of Fools'' (June 2014), ''The Liar's Key'' (June 2015) and ''The Wheel of Osheim'' (June 2016).
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* MoralityPet: Garyus brings out the best of his great-nephew Jalan and his sisters, the Red Queen and the Silent Sister.
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* TookALevelInBadass: Jalan goes from a cringing, cowardly wreck to a bonafide badass by the end.
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* TookALevelInBadass: Jalan goes from a cringing, cowardly wreck to a CowardlyLion capable of being a bonafide badass in some circumstances by the end.
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* YouKilledMyMother: Edris Dean [[spoiler:killed Jalan's mother. Jalan hates him so much because of it that he's able to overcome his natural cowardice to try to kill him in retributionn]].
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unmarked spoiler
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* TheStarscream: Edris Dean ostensibly serves the Lady Blue, but he's far more interested in usurping her by the end to seize godhood for his own purposes.
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* TheStarscream: Edris [[spoiler:Edris Dean ostensibly serves the Lady Blue, but he's far more interested in usurping her by the end to seize godhood for his own purposes.]]
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''The Red Queen's War'' is a fantasy trilogy by Mark Lawrence, the author of [[ThePrinceOfThorns The Broken Empire Trilogy]], to which it is a sequel. It is made up of''Prince of Fools'' (June 2014), ''The Liar's Key'' (June 2015) and ''The Wheel of Osheim'' (June 2016).
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''The Red Queen's War'' is a fantasy trilogy by Mark Lawrence, the author of [[ThePrinceOfThorns The the Broken Empire Trilogy]], trilogy]], to which it is a sequel. It is made up of''Prince of Fools'' (June 2014), ''The Liar's Key'' (June 2015) and ''The Wheel of Osheim'' (June 2016).
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''The Red Queen's War'' is a Fantasy Trilogy by Mark Lawrence, the author of ''[[ThePrinceOfThorns The Broken Empire Trilogy]]'', of which this series is the Sequel of. It began with the first book ''Prince of Fools'' published in June 2014, continued with ''The Liar's Key'' in June 2015, and concluded with ''The Wheel of Osheim'' in June 2016.
Prince Jalan is 10th in line to the throne, and is content to gamble, womanize, and laze about without ambition or goals. He can also see the Silent Sister, a creepy old woman who serves as the invisible advisor to Jalan's grandmother, the Red Queen herself, although he likes to pretend the Silent Sister isn't there. Jalan likely would have continued to not amount to anything if he hadn't escaped a deadly trap set by the Silent Sister, with the result magically tying him to the Norse warrior Snorri.
Prince Jalan is 10th in line to the throne, and is content to gamble, womanize, and laze about without ambition or goals. He can also see the Silent Sister, a creepy old woman who serves as the invisible advisor to Jalan's grandmother, the Red Queen herself, although he likes to pretend the Silent Sister isn't there. Jalan likely would have continued to not amount to anything if he hadn't escaped a deadly trap set by the Silent Sister, with the result magically tying him to the Norse warrior Snorri.
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''The Red Queen's War'' is a Fantasy Trilogy fantasy trilogy by Mark Lawrence, the author of ''[[ThePrinceOfThorns [[ThePrinceOfThorns The Broken Empire Trilogy]]'', of Trilogy]], to which this series it is the Sequel of. a sequel. It began with the first book ''Prince is made up of''Prince of Fools'' published in June 2014, continued with (June 2014), ''The Liar's Key'' in June 2015, (June 2015) and concluded with ''The Wheel of Osheim'' in June 2016.
(June 2016).
Prince Jalan is10th tenth in line to the throne, and is content to gamble, womanize, and laze about without ambition or goals. He can also see the Silent Sister, a creepy old woman who serves as the invisible advisor to Jalan's grandmother, the Red Queen herself, although he likes to pretend the Silent Sister isn't there. Jalan likely would have continued to not amount to anything if he hadn't escaped a deadly trap set by the Silent Sister, with the result magically tying him to the Norse warrior Snorri.
Prince Jalan is
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* AntiHero: Jalan is a DirtyCoward, but contrary to [[Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg]] he doesn't have enough villainous traits to be a VillainProtagonist.
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* AntiHero: Jalan is a DirtyCoward, but contrary to [[Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg]] he doesn't have enough villainous traits to be a VillainProtagonist. He does become a (little) better person over the course of the story thanks to CharacterDevelopment.
* ArchEnemy: The Lady Blue is the Red Queen's and her siblings' bitter enemy, as she killed their grandfather and tried to kill them when they were teenagers.
* ArchEnemy: The Lady Blue is the Red Queen's and her siblings' bitter enemy, as she killed their grandfather and tried to kill them when they were teenagers.
* GoodIsNotNice: The Red Queen, [[GreyAndGrayMorality for a given variation of 'good.']] Her goal is to protect her people and prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. But she's ready to do ''everything'' to ensure that, including attacking a country while ravaging its countryside (causing a lot of deaths) or [[ShootTheDog shooting her own sister to spare her the tortures her enemies were going to subject her to after they captured her]].
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* NominalHero: Jalan again, due to the magic that tethers him to Snorri, and people mistaking his attempts at running away as heroism.
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* NominalHero: Jalan again, due to the magic that tethers him to Snorri, and people mistaking his attempts at running away as heroism. He does become a little more heroic over the course of the story though.
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* UnluckilyLucky: Jalan's bad luck is simply astounding. And the only thing more astounding is his ability to land back on his feet in spite of this, thanks generally to a sudden stroke of good luck.
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* AGodAmI: The Lady Blue plans to speed the end of the world to gain godlike power and reshape it as ultimate god of the new world. [[spoiler: Edris Dean plans to hijack the plot.]]
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* BigBad: The Dead King serves as this for the trilogy.
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* BigBad: BigBadEnsemble: The Dead King wants to escape hell, and overrun the world, while the Lady Blue works with him and his servitors, but has her own agenda centered around becoming a god. And there's Edris Dean who supposedly serves as this for the trilogy.both, but has his own agenda.
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* ColdBloodedTorture: Do you have something Edris Dean wants to know? Heaven help you if you fall into his hands because he knows how to hurt people.
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* DarkActionGirl: The Lady Blue can get her hands dirty, though she's much older than normal for this trope.
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* FireForgedFriends: Jalan, Snorri and friends go through so much Jalan is even able to overcome his natural cowardice for their sake.
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* ItsPersonalWithTheDragon: Yeah, The Lady Blue is trying to wipe out Jalan's homeland, become a God, remake the world...but Edris Dean [[spoiler: murdered his mother, unborn sister, nearly killed him, tortured and killed his friend and has enslaved his dead sister's soul as an undead abomination. Even after the Lady Blue is dealt with, Jalan and Edris are ready to throw down thanks to Jalan's burning hatred for the man.]]
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* NeverMessWithGranny: When your granny is the 'Red Queen' and a famed warrior who can kick ass even in her old age? Yeah, best not to trifle with her.
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* ShootTheShaggyDog: Snorri's quest to save his family [[spoiler: is pointless. Edris Dean has long since murdered them and damned his unborn child to hell to become one of the Unborn. All Snorri can do is MercyKill him.]]
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* TheStarscream: Edris Dean ostensibly serves the Lady Blue, but he's far more interested in usurping her by the end to seize godhood for his own purposes.
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* TookALevelInBadass: Jalan goes from a cringing, cowardly wreck to a bonafide badass by the end.
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* WouldHurtAChild: Edris Dean would hurt ''unborn'' children to send their souls to hell and become super powerful undead monsters called the Unborn.
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* AntiHero: Jalan is a DirtyCoward, but contrary to [Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg]] he doesn't have enough villainous traits to be a VillainProtagonist.
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* AntiHero: Jalan is a DirtyCoward, but contrary to [Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy [[Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg]] he doesn't have enough villainous traits to be a VillainProtagonist.
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* AntiHero: Jalan is a DirtyCoward, but contrary to [Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg]] he doesn't have enough villainous traits to be a VillainProtagonist.
* BornLucky: Jalan manages to land on his feet far better and more often than he has any right to.
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* BornLucky: Jalan manages to land on his feet far better and more often than he has any right to.
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* CreepyGood: Possibly the Silent Sister, for a given variation of 'good.'
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* CreepyGood: Possibly the Silent Sister, [[GreyAndGrayMorality for a given variation of 'good.'']]
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* IronLady: The Red Queen.
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* IronLady: The Red Queen.Queen, the merciless queen of Red March.
* LadyOfWar: The Red Queen was one in her youth, as she personally led her army in battle. That's how she got her nickname. After a slaughter of enemy soldiers, her armor was covered with so much blood that it became red.
* LadyOfWar: The Red Queen was one in her youth, as she personally led her army in battle. That's how she got her nickname. After a slaughter of enemy soldiers, her armor was covered with so much blood that it became red.
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* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: You know that something is wrong when [[DirtyCoward Jalan]] advocates for killing Edris Dean instead of fleeing. But he has a good reason. [[spoiler:Edris Dean killed his mother.]]
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* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Jalan to Jorg. Technically, Jalan's story happens at the same time as [[Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg's]], but his books were written after. Both men share a dark and cynical view of the world around them and a sense of humour just as dark and cynical. However, Jorg is TheUnfettered and often fights in person, Jalan is a DirtyCoward whose first instinct is to run away from a fight. Jorg acts and plans, while making a point of always being the master of his own destiny (and being rightfully pissed when he learns he was manipulated by a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] all along in his first book). Jalan is basically dragged along by other people during most of his adventures. And while Jalan is less valorous than Jorg, [[ALighterShadeOfBlack he's a more decent human being]] (as he's not a murderer and a rapist).
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* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Jalan to Jorg. Technically, Jalan's story happens at the same time as [[Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg's]], but his books were written after. Both men share a dark and cynical view of the world around them and a sense of humour just as dark and cynical. However, Jorg is TheUnfettered and often fights in person, Jalan is a DirtyCoward whose first instinct is to run away from a fight. Jorg acts and plans, while making a point of always being the master of his own destiny (and being rightfully pissed when he learns he was manipulated by a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] all along in his first book). Jalan is basically dragged along by other people during most of his adventures. And while Jalan is less valorous than Jorg, [[ALighterShadeOfBlack he's a more decent human being]] (as he's not ''not'' a murderer and a rapist).
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* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Jalan to Jorg. Technically, Jalan's story happens at the same time as [[Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy Jorg's]], but his books were written after. Both men share a dark and cynical view of the world around them and a sense of humour just as dark and cynical. However, Jorg is TheUnfettered and often fights in person, Jalan is a DirtyCoward whose first instinct is to run away from a fight. Jorg acts and plans, while making a point of always being the master of his own destiny (and being rightfully pissed when he learns he was manipulated by a [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] all along in his first book). Jalan is basically dragged along by other people during most of his adventures. And while Jalan is less valorous than Jorg, [[ALighterShadeOfBlack he's a more decent human being]] (as he's not a murderer and a rapist).
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* HolyHandGrenade: More literally than most.
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* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Brother Sem is actually a woman named Emma and forces herself on Jalan. This is treated as hilarious by Snorri and the others in the tavern it happens.]]
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* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Brother Sem Emmer is actually a woman named Emma and forces herself on Jalan. This is treated as hilarious by Snorri and the others in the tavern it happens.]]
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* YourCheatingHeart: The Queen of Ancrath makes plans to sleep with Jalan so he'll attack or kill Prince Jorge. [[spoiler: Her attempts to touch his groin to start the process doesn't work because of her sister's earlier GroinAttack.]]
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* YourCheatingHeart: The Queen of Ancrath makes plans to sleep with Jalan so he'll attack or kill Prince Jorge.Jorg. [[spoiler: Her attempts to touch his groin to start the process doesn't work because of her sister's earlier GroinAttack.]]
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italics for work names
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The Red Queen's War is a Fantasy Trilogy by Mark Lawrence, the author of ''[[ThePrinceOfThorns The Broken Empire Trilogy]]'', of which this series is the Sequel of. It began with the first book ''Prince of Fools'' published in June 2014, continued with ''The Liar's Key'' in June 2015, and concluded with ''The Wheel of Osheim'' in June 2016.
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Published in June 2014 by Mark Lawrence, The Red Queen's War currently has one book in print, called ''Prince of Fools.''
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* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: What Jalan is and aspires to forever be. [[spoiler: He finally succeeds in ''The Wheel of Osheim'' by becoming a Cardinal.]]
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* SurprisinglyHappyEnding: [[spoiler: Jalan becomes a Cardinal with no real responsibilities and Lisa as his mistress. Snorri returns to the North, at peace with his family's death. Kara saves the world from destruction and gains new supernatural insights.]]
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* ConsummateLiar: Virtually everyone believes Jalan's lies, no matter how outrageous because he gives that much sincerity to the role.
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* ActionGirl: Kara is a Viking woman and a sorceress.
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* BornLucky: Jalan manages to land on his feet far better and more often than he has any right to.
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* SmugSnake: Jalan is a rare (anti)heroic example as he's always of the mind things will go his way and his POV is near-constant privileged snobbery.
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* AllMythsAreTrue: To an extent. The Builders created many A.I. which have since gone on to take on the personalities of Loki, angels, and other figures.
* ArcWelding: This is a storyline which follows up on many of the plotlines introduced in ''Emperor of Thorns.''
* ArtifactOfDoom: The Liar's Key and the door to the underworld.
* ArcWelding: This is a storyline which follows up on many of the plotlines introduced in ''Emperor of Thorns.''
* ArtifactOfDoom: The Liar's Key and the door to the underworld.
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* BigBad: The Dead King serves as this for the trilogy.
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* HandsomeLech: As a good-looking prince, Jalan has no small amount of luck with women. This includes commoners, noblewomen, and everything in-between.
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* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Brother Sem is actually a woman named Emma and forces herself on Jalan.]]
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* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Brother Sem is actually a woman named Emma and forces herself on Jalan. This is treated as hilarious by Snorri and the others in the tavern it happens.]]
* GroinAttack: Katherine delivers one of them to Prince Jalan when he mistakes a message from her as a romantic invitation.
* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: Jalan, it turns out.
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* YourCheatingHeart: The Queen of Ancrath makes plans to sleep with Jalan so he'll attack or kill Prince Jorge. [[spoiler: Her attempts to touch his groin to start the process doesn't work because of her sister's earlier GroinAttack.]]
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* DoubleStandardFemaleOnMaleRape: [[spoiler: Brother Sem is actually a woman named Emma and forces herself on Jalan.]]
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* DoubleStandardFemaleOnMaleRape: DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Brother Sem is actually a woman named Emma and forces herself on Jalan.]]
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* {{Curse}}: Snorri and Jalan are linked together by one of these.
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* DoubleStandardFemaleOnMaleRape: [[spoiler: Brother Sem is actually a woman named Emma and forces herself on Jalan.]]
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[[quoteright:313:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/18693743.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:313: A Prince, a Coward, a Fool, and our Hero.]]
[[caption-width-right:313: A Prince, a Coward, a Fool, and our Hero.]]
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* EntitledBastard: Jalan notes that this behavior is expected of nobility. It's how he convinces the guards to admit him into the castle of a neighboring king despite his outfit being subpar.
* FamedInStory: Snorri's a Viking, so he comes from a culture that puts a lot of value on remebering and reciting stories. Snorri's also aware of how this can be manipulated as well. He reveals - and hides - important information about himself in this fashion. Jalan admits that Snorri's a fantastic story teller.
* FamedInStory: Snorri's a Viking, so he comes from a culture that puts a lot of value on remebering and reciting stories. Snorri's also aware of how this can be manipulated as well. He reveals - and hides - important information about himself in this fashion. Jalan admits that Snorri's a fantastic story teller.
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* EntitledBastard: Jalan notes that this behavior is expected of nobility. It's how he convinces the guards to admit him into the castle of a neighboring king despite his outfit being subpar.
sub-par.
* FamedInStory: Snorri's a Viking, so he comes from a culture that puts a lot of value onremebering remembering and reciting stories. Snorri's also aware of how this can be manipulated as well. He reveals - and hides - important information about himself in this fashion. Jalan admits that Snorri's a fantastic story teller.
* FamedInStory: Snorri's a Viking, so he comes from a culture that puts a lot of value on
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Snorri is determined to rescue his wife and son in the north, and mistaking Jalan for an honorable sort, takes him along. Neither of them is happy about being magically bound to the other, and the farther they travel, the more things come to light about an army of the undead, and the state of the world, that Jalan can no longer safely ignore. The trap he escaped as made both of them pieces in a much larger game.
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Snorri is determined to rescue his wife and son in the north, and mistaking Jalan for an honorable sort, takes him along. Neither of them is happy about being magically bound to the other, and the farther they travel, the more things come to light about an army of the undead, and the state of the world, that Jalan can no longer safely ignore. The trap he Jalan escaped as has made both of them pieces in a much larger game.
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* OhCrap: Jalan's is fairly understated and drawn out, as he gains a better understanding of just how bad the situation is throughout the ''Prince of Fools,'' save when violence has broken out in his presence. [[Spoiler:He and the reader share a large one at the end of the novel. Snorri may use the key that can open any lock to open the door to death to find his wife and children.]]
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* OhCrap: Jalan's is fairly understated and drawn out, as he gains a better understanding of just how bad the situation is throughout the ''Prince of Fools,'' save when violence has broken out in his presence. [[Spoiler:He [[spoiler:Jalan and the reader share a large one at the end of the novel. Snorri may use the key that can open any lock to open the door to death to find his wife and children.]]
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* OhCrap: Jalan's is fairly understated and drawn out, as he gains a better understanding of just how bad the situation is throughout the ''Prince of Fools,'' save when violence has broken out in his presence. [[Spoiler:He and the reader share a large one at the end of the novel. Snorri may use the key that can open any lock to open the door to death to find his wife and children.]]
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Prince Jalan is 10th in line to the throne, and is content to gamble, womanize, and laze about without ambition or goals. He can also see the Silent Sister, a creepy old woman who serves as the invisible advisor to Jalan's grandmother, the Red Queen herself, although he likes to pretend the Silent Sister isn't there. Jalan likely would have continued to not amount to anything if he hadn't escaped a deadly trap set by the Silent Sister, with the result magically tieing him to the Norse warrior Snorri.
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Prince Jalan is 10th in line to the throne, and is content to gamble, womanize, and laze about without ambition or goals. He can also see the Silent Sister, a creepy old woman who serves as the invisible advisor to Jalan's grandmother, the Red Queen herself, although he likes to pretend the Silent Sister isn't there. Jalan likely would have continued to not amount to anything if he hadn't escaped a deadly trap set by the Silent Sister, with the result magically tieing tying him to the Norse warrior Snorri.
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** [[spoiler:EliteZombie, called 'Unborn' are made when an infant dies in the womb, and can combine with the flesh of other nearby corpses to create incredibly powerful undead. Two massive, and monsterous versions are encountered, with Jalan possibly running into a smaller, but much more human shapped variety early in the book. One of the monsterous ones was made from Snorri's unborn son. Their abilities seem to vary more widely than the garden variety undead.]]
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** [[spoiler:EliteZombie, called 'Unborn' are made when an infant dies in the womb, and can combine with the flesh of other nearby corpses to create incredibly powerful undead. Two massive, and monsterous monstrous versions are encountered, with Jalan possibly running into a smaller, but much more human shapped shaped variety early in the book. One of the monsterous monstrous ones was made from Snorri's unborn son. Their abilities seem to vary more widely than the garden variety undead.]]
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* WarriorPrince: Jalan has an undeserved reputation as this in his home country. [[spoiler:That he has TheBerserker tendencies when he has to stand and fight may see him living up to this more fully in the future.]]
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* WarriorPrince: Jalan has an undeserved reputation as this in his home country. [[spoiler:That he has TheBerserker tendencies when he has to stand and fight may see him living up to this more fully in the future.]]
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Published in June 2014 by Mark Lawrence, The Red Queen's War currently has one book in print, called ''Prince of Fools.''
Prince Jalan is 10th in line to the throne, and is content to gamble, womanize, and laze about without ambition or goals. He can also see the Silent Sister, a creepy old woman who serves as the invisible advisor to Jalan's grandmother, the Red Queen herself, although he likes to pretend the Silent Sister isn't there. Jalan likely would have continued to not amount to anything if he hadn't escaped a deadly trap set by the Silent Sister, with the result magically tieing him to the Norse warrior Snorri.
Snorri is determined to rescue his wife and son in the north, and mistaking Jalan for an honorable sort, takes him along. Neither of them is happy about being magically bound to the other, and the farther they travel, the more things come to light about an army of the undead, and the state of the world, that Jalan can no longer safely ignore. The trap he escaped as made both of them pieces in a much larger game.
!This series provides examples of:
* TheBerserker: [[spoiler:Jalan, despite all of his cowardly qualities. When he has no choice to but to fight for his life, he doesn't remember a thing of what happened, but the surviving Vikings around him outright call him this.]]
* CreepyGood: Possibly the Silent Sister, for a given variation of 'good.'
* DirtyCoward: Jalan, although his attempts at fleeing a dangerous situation often get mistaken for acts of heroism. (ie: attempting to run away from an undead abomination gets interpreted as him fetching a sword that was knocked out of a friend's hand, and the only weapon currently available. He just picked up the sword on the way.)
* EntitledBastard: Jalan notes that this behavior is expected of nobility. It's how he convinces the guards to admit him into the castle of a neighboring king despite his outfit being subpar.
* FamedInStory: Snorri's a Viking, so he comes from a culture that puts a lot of value on remebering and reciting stories. Snorri's also aware of how this can be manipulated as well. He reveals - and hides - important information about himself in this fashion. Jalan admits that Snorri's a fantastic story teller.
* InfantImmortality: Averted. [[spoiler:All of Snorri's children are dead, although he spends some time being in denial about it. The death of the unborn is required to make an EliteZombie.]]
* IronLady: The Red Queen.
* NominalHero: Jalan again, due to the magic that tethers him to Snorri, and people mistaking his attempts at running away as heroism.
* TheUndead: The main antagonist (so far) seems to be the Dead King, who's working on an undead army. Two kinds of undead appear in the books as well.
** There are incidents wherein our heroes kill some people who were trying to kill them, only for the corpses to get back up and try to finish the job. These variety are simply referred to as undead and don't seem to be intelligent.
** [[spoiler:EliteZombie, called 'Unborn' are made when an infant dies in the womb, and can combine with the flesh of other nearby corpses to create incredibly powerful undead. Two massive, and monsterous versions are encountered, with Jalan possibly running into a smaller, but much more human shapped variety early in the book. One of the monsterous ones was made from Snorri's unborn son. Their abilities seem to vary more widely than the garden variety undead.]]
* WarriorPoet: Snorri. At one point he starts reciting poetry from a different culture while separating people from their limbs, and he's much more knowledgeable about cultures other than his own than Jalan.
* WarriorPrince: Jalan has an undeserved reputation as this in his home country. [[spoiler:That he has TheBerserker tendencies when he has to stand and fight may see him living up to this more fully in the future.]]
Prince Jalan is 10th in line to the throne, and is content to gamble, womanize, and laze about without ambition or goals. He can also see the Silent Sister, a creepy old woman who serves as the invisible advisor to Jalan's grandmother, the Red Queen herself, although he likes to pretend the Silent Sister isn't there. Jalan likely would have continued to not amount to anything if he hadn't escaped a deadly trap set by the Silent Sister, with the result magically tieing him to the Norse warrior Snorri.
Snorri is determined to rescue his wife and son in the north, and mistaking Jalan for an honorable sort, takes him along. Neither of them is happy about being magically bound to the other, and the farther they travel, the more things come to light about an army of the undead, and the state of the world, that Jalan can no longer safely ignore. The trap he escaped as made both of them pieces in a much larger game.
!This series provides examples of:
* TheBerserker: [[spoiler:Jalan, despite all of his cowardly qualities. When he has no choice to but to fight for his life, he doesn't remember a thing of what happened, but the surviving Vikings around him outright call him this.]]
* CreepyGood: Possibly the Silent Sister, for a given variation of 'good.'
* DirtyCoward: Jalan, although his attempts at fleeing a dangerous situation often get mistaken for acts of heroism. (ie: attempting to run away from an undead abomination gets interpreted as him fetching a sword that was knocked out of a friend's hand, and the only weapon currently available. He just picked up the sword on the way.)
* EntitledBastard: Jalan notes that this behavior is expected of nobility. It's how he convinces the guards to admit him into the castle of a neighboring king despite his outfit being subpar.
* FamedInStory: Snorri's a Viking, so he comes from a culture that puts a lot of value on remebering and reciting stories. Snorri's also aware of how this can be manipulated as well. He reveals - and hides - important information about himself in this fashion. Jalan admits that Snorri's a fantastic story teller.
* InfantImmortality: Averted. [[spoiler:All of Snorri's children are dead, although he spends some time being in denial about it. The death of the unborn is required to make an EliteZombie.]]
* IronLady: The Red Queen.
* NominalHero: Jalan again, due to the magic that tethers him to Snorri, and people mistaking his attempts at running away as heroism.
* TheUndead: The main antagonist (so far) seems to be the Dead King, who's working on an undead army. Two kinds of undead appear in the books as well.
** There are incidents wherein our heroes kill some people who were trying to kill them, only for the corpses to get back up and try to finish the job. These variety are simply referred to as undead and don't seem to be intelligent.
** [[spoiler:EliteZombie, called 'Unborn' are made when an infant dies in the womb, and can combine with the flesh of other nearby corpses to create incredibly powerful undead. Two massive, and monsterous versions are encountered, with Jalan possibly running into a smaller, but much more human shapped variety early in the book. One of the monsterous ones was made from Snorri's unborn son. Their abilities seem to vary more widely than the garden variety undead.]]
* WarriorPoet: Snorri. At one point he starts reciting poetry from a different culture while separating people from their limbs, and he's much more knowledgeable about cultures other than his own than Jalan.
* WarriorPrince: Jalan has an undeserved reputation as this in his home country. [[spoiler:That he has TheBerserker tendencies when he has to stand and fight may see him living up to this more fully in the future.]]
