The Briar King

Keyes stunned the fantasy community with his phenomenal new high fantasy novel, The Briar King, a few years ago. This guy is a master of the English language. His writing is both witty and beautiful; sort of an Oscar Wild meets J.R.R. Tolkien synergy. His plot is thick, rich with interesting characters (and the dialogue is top notch and at times, hilarious), and the world fairly gritty, though less so than George R. Martin's. Keyes takes old fantasy cliches and creates something new. I can't recommend this fantasy series enough. Keyes continues his excellent standard throughout the series for the first couple, but the last book things fall to pieces. What a magnificent start and an equally magnificent failure of an ending. Had Keyes kept things up, this series would have been up there on the Great or Top 100 list, but now it's only Good enough. Shame.