Near the end of The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons, a character notes, in a footnote btw, that “it’s complicated.” That should be the tagline for the book because this is a complicated book. The biggest criticism of The Ruin of Kings is that it’s too complicated. I understand that criticism, but I didn’t find it too complex. I found that Lyons created a fun structure that hooked me right away and kept me up late at night reading. This book has demons, magic, dragons, body swapping, souls returning from the lands of the dead, inter- and intra-family strife, a winner take all tournament for emperor, accessible gods, and fun structure. There’s a lot going on in The Ruin of Kings, but it works. I had meant to read bits and pieces of this between review books, but it grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go. The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons is as epic as epic fantasy gets.
Disclaimer: This book is from my personal collection. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
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TL;DR
The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons is as epic as epic fantasy gets. It’s got everything: demons, dragons, magic, gods, familial betrayal, good characters, dastardly politics, and a magic harp. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
When destiny calls, there’s no fighting back.
Kihrin grew up in the slums of Quur, a thief and a minstrel’s son raised on tales of long-lost princes and magnificent quests. When he is claimed against his will as the missing son of a treasonous prince, Kihrin finds himself at the mercy of his new family’s ruthless power plays and political ambitions.
Practically a prisoner, Kihrin discovers that being a long-lost prince is nothing like what the storybooks promised. The storybooks have lied about a lot of other things, too: dragons, demons, gods, prophecies, and how the hero always wins.
Then again, maybe he isn’t the hero after all. For Kihrin is not destined to save the world.
He’s destined to destroy it.
Jenn Lyons begins the Chorus of Dragons series with The Ruin of Kings, an epic fantasy novel about a man who discovers his fate is tied to the future of an empire.
Review: The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons
Kihrin is a thief on the streets of the Capital City. Kihrin is also a long lost prince about to be sold in the slave market in a bidding war between two powerful factions. Thus begins The Ruin of Kings. Kihrin’s story moves from the streets to one of the Royal Houses, where he is pretty much a prisoner of his family. But so much more ground is traveled in this story. Lyons takes Kihrin to an assassin’s island via a doomed sea voyage. Oh, and the island is being watched by a massive dragon. Along the way, Kihrin battles wizards, witches, demons, lizard people, and his own family. And there might just be more to Kihrin than simply being a long lost prince. He may hold the key to destroying the very empire his family helped create.
The Ruin of Kings is an alternating first- and close third-person point of view narrative. It is truly epic in scope. There is travel to many lands, some mystical, some mundane. The fate of an empire, if not a world, is at stake. There’s lost magical artifacts, supernatural powers, and a wild magic that I loved. This is a book that rewards close reading and paying attention.
There’s a lot that I’d like to talk about in this review that are spoilers; so, I won’t. But there’s so much to talk about, and even better, there’s more left in the world to discover. Lyons talks about a magical school, a magical wasteland, and a BIG BAD waiting in the wings. Plus, demons are just waiting on the chance to enter Kihrin’s world and cause chaos. This novel focuses on the Capital City, but there is much more in the world for Lyons to pluck stories from. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. Though, if you haven’t read The Ruin of Kings, DO NOT read the blurb for the second book in the series. It spoils book one.
Structure
The Ruin of Kings has an interesting structure. The book is three stories being told at once. There is a frame story that begins with a letter to “Your Majesty,” though this royal is not named until the book is over. The author of the letter adds footnotes that are comments on the main stories as well. Then, there is Kihrin telling his story, and finally Kihrin’s jailer, the mimic Talon, tells the part of Kihrin’s story prior to the other story. This structure does require the reader to pay attention because information in one story or a footnote will be important later on.
Part one of the book is titled A Dialog Between a Jailer and Her Prisoner, but it’s not really a dialog. For this section of the book, the chapters alternate between Kihrin telling part of his history, and Talon telling a different part of Kihrin’s history. Kihrin’s story starts with him being sold as a slave to a brotherhood of assassins that is also a death cult. This story runs to the present day in the novel. The jailer’s story starts with Kihrin being a thief in the poorer part of the city and also a musician in a brothel. This story ends where Kihrin’s begins. See complicated.
I loved the structure. I enjoy making connections and trying to figure things out before the author explicitly tells me, and this book rewards the type of reader who looks for clues. There is a lot of world-building here, a lot of mythology, and a lot of connections to be made.
Did I Say It's Complicated?
Between the body-swapping, returning from the dead, and all the familial connections, the book gets convoluted but not so much that it turned me off. I can see how it would frustrate some people. I think Lyons gives us information at the right pace. The reader isn’t overwhelmed. Not all the twists worked for me. A few at the end seemed contrived to set up later books. They felt tacked on, which means it was set up well enough earlier or I missed the clues that made the reveal work. It’s entirely possible that I missed the set up. And that’s the problem with reveals and twists. The set up has to be obvious that readers don’t miss it; or the reveal doesn’t feel earned. To be clear, this is just a few of the twists at the end of the book. Most of the twists and reveals were set up well.
Magic System
Magical systems is quite the rage right now. Thanks to Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan, magical systems that have their own sort of logic are popular in the SFF field. But in The Ruin of Kings magic is a wild element. Maybe Lyons has a system in her notes. If so, it wasn’t obvious in the book, and I loved that. The magic itself wasn’t the focus of the books. Magic just made the cool scenes that much cooler. I was happy to have a story where the magic was mysterious and wild.
Lucky Kihrin
It’s setup early that Kihrin is very lucky. In fact, the goddess of luck is his patron god. Little does he know is that his goddess is paying close attention to him. I’m okay with how lucky Kihrin is. Not only is shown throughout the novel that luck tends to break his way, forces within the story have worked and are working to set things up for him, in particular. Part of the resolution of the story is decided by pure luck. Or it could be viewed that the forces working behind the scenes set up things in motion to aid Kihrin. For me, this makes sense based on Kihrin’s interactions with the gods of this world.
Conclusion
Jenn Lyon’s The Ruin of Kings is a truly epic start to the Chorus of Dragons series. The book is complex but rewarding, and it has all the elements that make fantasy the genre I love to read. Highly recommended.
The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons is available from Tor Books now.
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