Twenty hours is a serious commitment. That's longer than most deployments feel when you're stuck in a TOC watching a screen. But I burned through Liar's Key across a week of client site visits around central Texas, and the windshield time flew.
Let me cut to the chase: this is the rare fantasy sequel that's actually better than the first book.
A Coward Worth Following Into Hell
Jalan Kendeth might be the most honest coward in fantasy fiction. And I mean that as high praise. Mark Lawrence does something clever here - he gives you a protagonist who openly admits he'd rather be drinking and chasing women than doing anything heroic, and then drags him through increasingly dire situations where cowardice isn't an option. The dynamic between Jal and Snorri is what carries this thing. Snorri's trying to open the literal door to death to retrieve his dead family. Jal just wants to go home to Vermillion and pretend none of this happened.
I've served with both types. The guy who charges in because he genuinely believes it's the right thing, and the guy who stumbles into bravery because running away would be even more embarrassing. Lawrence nails that tension. There's a sequence midway through where Jal's trapped in a situation involving Sageous - a dream mage who gets inside his head - and you watch Jal's self-preservation instinct war with something deeper. Something he doesn't even want to acknowledge about himself. That hit me harder than I expected, sitting in a parking lot outside a client's office in Round Rock with Ranger asleep in the back seat.
Now, here's where it gets tricky. Lawrence has a habit of repeating Jal's cowardly quips. After the third or fourth time Jal says something about preferring a warm bed to whatever fresh nightmare he's facing, the joke loses some of its edge. It's like a soldier who tells the same war story at every barbecue - funny the first time, less so by the fifth. The author clearly did their homework on building a consistent character voice, but there's a fine line between consistent and repetitive.
Tim Gerard Reynolds Earns His Paycheck
Reynolds is the real deal. I've listened to enough mediocre fantasy narration to know the difference between someone reading words and someone performing a book. His Jalan has this perfect aristocratic laziness to it - you can hear the entitlement dripping off every syllable when Jal's complaining about his circumstances, which is roughly 80% of the time. But when things go sideways, Reynolds shifts gears without it feeling forced. His Snorri carries this Nordic weight, this gravelly determination that contrasts perfectly with Jal's whining.
The real trick is the secondary characters. Kara the völva gets a distinct cadence - measured, slightly otherworldly. And when the Dead King's influence creeps in, Reynolds drops into something colder. It's subtle, but it works. Twenty hours is a marathon for any narrator, and Reynolds doesn't flag. At 1.25x he sounds natural and energetic, which tells you his base pacing is already solid.
No production issues I caught. Clean audio throughout. Professional work.
The Grimdark Gets Darker (Fair Warning)
The first book, Prince of Fools, was mostly adventure with dark edges. Liar's Key goes deeper. There are torture sequences, some genuinely unsettling scenes with the undead, and the flashback sections to Snorri's past carry real emotional weight. Lawrence doesn't shy away from consequences - people die, people suffer, and the humor exists alongside the horror rather than replacing it.
I've seen some folks complain about the pacing in the middle third, and I get it. There's a stretch in Umbertide where the political maneuvering slows things down. But if you've got patience - or a long enough drive - it pays off. The ending, though? It's a cliffhanger. Full stop. If you're the type who needs resolution, you'll want Book Three queued up and ready. I had to start The Wheel of Osheim that same night because Lawrence left me hanging like an incomplete mission brief.
Who Needs This in Their Ears
If you liked Prince of Fools, don't even hesitate. If you enjoyed Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy - specifically the self-aware antiheroes - you'll feel right at home. Anyone who wants their fantasy with a dark sense of humor and characters who feel like real, flawed human beings rather than chosen ones with perfect moral compasses.
Skip it if you need a clean ending. Skip it if graphic violence bothers you. And maybe skip it if you haven't read Book One - you'll be lost, and Lawrence doesn't hold your hand with recaps.
Mission Debrief
Twenty hours well spent. Reynolds is operating at the top of his game, Lawrence writes antiheroes better than almost anyone in the genre, and the story builds to a payoff that made me white-knuckle my steering wheel on I-35. Hemingway pulled off something similar with flawed men stumbling toward meaning in The Sun Also Rises - different century, different setting, but that same refusal to let his characters off the hook. The repetitive character beats are a minor annoyance in an otherwise excellent listen. Ranger approved this one - he perked up during every fight scene, which I'm choosing to interpret as a five-star review from him.
Worth your time? Here's the debrief: buy it, queue up the sequel, and clear your weekend.
