The Thorn Boy

by Storm Constantine

Darien is the king’s favourite – cool, aloof and quick to conspire. Akaten is warm, sensuous and full of life – and a captive of war. Darien is driven by desire. Akaten by love. This is the story of their passion – and what happens when the king chooses a new favourite. Set in the world of the Magravandias trilogy, ‘The Thorn Boy’ is a tale of love and revenge and of the lessons in survival learned hard in the dangerous territory of a royal court, where everyone seeks to secure their place in a fragile and treacherous hierarchy.


Librarian note: this edition from Eidolon Publications ISBN 0958686432 is for the novella The Thorn Boy published individually in 1999. This novella was later included in the anthology The Thorn Boy and Other Dreams of Dark Desire.

Genres: Fantasy

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Storm Constantine was a British science fiction and fantasy author, primarily known for her Wraeththu series.

Since the late 1980s she wrote more than 20 novels, plus several non-fiction books. She is featured in the Goth Bible and is often included in discussions of alternative sexuality and gender in science fiction and fantasy; many of her novels include same-sex relationships or hermaphrodites or other twists of gender. Magic, mysticism and ancient legends (like the Grigori) also figure strongly in her works.

In 2003 she launched Immanion Press, based out of Stafford, England. The publishing company publishes not only her own works but those of new writers, as well as well-known genre writers, mainly from the UK.

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty disappointed in this book. I have read many of Storm Constantine's books and have really enjoyed them and Storm Constantine's writing. No so for this book. I found all but the first two or three short stories to be fairly boring. Most of the story was taken up with the main character traveling from one place to another which really slowed the pace of the story. Only a couple of the stories ended with a somewhat happy ending and just about all of them ended abruptly. I had never heard of most of the fairy tales that these stories were based on, so they should have been more interesting since they were new to me, but this was not the case and I found myself reading as quickly as possible in order to just get the book read. I really wanted to like this book as I had enjoyed all of the previous books by the author, but I just couldn't do it.

[Cyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title story is an erotic tale of love and betrayal in a royal harem of young men.
Constantine's prose is quite beautiful and without pretention. The world building is amazingly complete. This is a difficult thing to pull off in a short story or novella. The descriptions are lush without overwhelming the story.
Recommended people that like character driven fiction.

[Golddragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover is not the same as the one I have read (my copy's cover is far worse). But.
This was an exquisite collection of short stories, some of which are connected. Exotic, intriguing, inspiring, an if-only-there-was-more kind of book. My favorite among Storm Constantine's short story collections, I would have loved to see more of these characters in a novel kind of setting. Not for the homophobic, definitely for the fantasy romance-lover. Mature themes of course, tastefully written, like an arabian night's dream turned yaoi (boys loving boys).

[Ruby Roh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really didn't enjoy this book. I found the main characters to be self-centred and self-serving, and I couldn't believe the king was incapable of recognising court plotting and intrigue when it stared him in the face.

All in all, these characters reaped what they sowed, but I disliked them all so much, I really didn't care what happened to them.