STOP PRESS - the trilogy is complete! The Wheel of Osheim is out! 
 All the blog reviews so far: 
 http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.co.uk... 
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 Well... I kinda liked it. 
 One thing I didn't want to do was give you Jorg again in new clothes - I didn't want to put the reader straight back through the emotional wringer and build another defiant young man. But I do enjoy writing in the first person and the Broken Empire feels as though it's big enough to host a few more tales yet. So I give you Jalan Kendeth, who owes his inspiration of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman (of the eponymous Flashman (1969)) just as Jorg owed his to Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (1962). MacDonald Fraser's Flashman character was of course inspired in turn by Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857) by Thomas Hughes, so really I'm reaching back over 150 years! 
 The opening line is: 
 I'm a liar and a cheat and a coward, but I will never, ever, let a friend down. Unless of course not letting them down requires honesty, fair play, or bravery. 
 Other picks include: 
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 I've always viewed boats as a thin plank between me and drowning. 
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 Humanity can be divided into madmen and cowards. My personal tragedy is in being born into a world where sanity is held to be a character flaw. 
 * 
 'Utter waste of time.' I nodded at the juggler. 
 'I love jugglers!' Snorri's grin showed white teeth in the cropped blackness of his beard. 
 'God! You're probably the sort that likes clowns!' 
 The grin broadened as if the mere mention of clowns was hilarious. 
 I hung my head. 'Come on.' 
 http://thatthornguy.com/contests/prin...