The Wheel of Osheim

“Different than anything I have ever read.”—Terry Brooks, New York Times best selling author.

“Dark and relentless…A two-in-the-morning page-turner.”—Robin Hobb

“Lawrence’s epic fantasy is a great summer read, full of humor, revenge, and perils that this warrior-and-coward duo must evade in order [to] save their kingdoms and themselves.”—The Washington Post

The Wheel of Osheim is the third book of The Red Queen’s War series by Mark Lawrence. The story is told in first person through Jalen’s—Jal’s perspective who is the queen’s grandson and has been bound to by some magical force to go along on this, to him, arduous journey with Snorri ver Snagason as they continue to find there way through Hel so that Snorri can rescue his family. For me this story seems to be about friendship, and Jal’s struggles to overcome his cowardice.  

The book picks up where The Liar’s Key left off, and we find Jal is finally on his way back to Vermillion where he’s been trying to get to this whole time, while Snorri continues his travels through Hel. It jumps around a bit going back and forth in time as we continue to get nearer Jal’s home. Ever since he started off on this adventure Jal has wanted nothing more than to go back home, which he finally gets to do. Along the way he gets drunk and has a funny encounter with Jorg Ancrath, and if you’ve read The Prince of Thorns, you’ll probably find this encounter to be particularly amusing as he tells Jorg exactly how it is that he would hand Maeres Allus upon his return, to which Jal follows his advice precisely.   

Shortly after coming home, Jal is given a high position within the city over the armies and their defense against the attacks from the ghouls and dead that have been walking around. Upon returning the people around him notice how much he has changed since he’s been away on his journey with Snorri, and much for the better, which will help him with what is yet to come—though he still continues to struggle with some of his cowardice. At first Jal isn’t quite that interested in the position because he believes that it will entail a great deal more work than he is expecting to do—which is nothing. However, after he discovers that his new station will be higher than his brother Martus, he suddenly finds himself more interested in the matter.

The setup of this book includes paying off some of the conflicts that had been created earlier throughout the series, so that we can get a clearer picture of what is yet to come. The dead men that have been walking around, and the end of the world, or Ragnarök, which has something to do with The Wheel of Osheim, which has been foreshadowed since Prince of Fools and has something to do with Loki’s key, along with The Dead King, and Lady Blue. Without giving too much away I will say that as The Wheel turns it continues to drive the world to its end. Lady Blue would like to speed up the process and bring the world to its end sooner rather than later so that she can be there when the world is remade anew and find herself in a favorable position to rein as it is rebuilt.  

In The Wheel of Osheim we finally get to find out who The Builder’s are, and what happened on The Day of a thousand Sons. There are exciting encounters with the Djinn that were eluded to earlier on in the series, along with other magical beings.  

This is my first review on the Red Queen’s War series, I’ll go ahead note that Jal is certainly an antihero—something I’ve been noticing from Mark Lawrence’s protagonists and why I keep reading him—that exhibits nearly zero qualities that you would expect from a hero. Not only does he not even want to be on this quest with Snorri, but he complains all the time, wishing he were back home. Then, upon returning home, knowing what it is that is out there, he still has no desire to do anything that would cause him too much of a bother. And the only reason that he takes up this call to action…bragging rights it would seem. That being said, Jal is certainly a fun character to following along with; his comments are amusing and keep me coming back for more.  

Jal’s inner struggle has always been with his cowardice. There’s an amusing scene early on where he’s alone with The Sheik’s daughters who he’s been told to watch over, and who happened to find him very interesting, to say the least. To say the reason he wants them to keep their hands to themselves is because of his virtues would be quite laughable, rather, he’s more concerned about what it was that had been promised to him if he were to lay a hand on them, and quite interestingly, having to do with turning some bits of him into gold plated earring to be worn around. Again, it’s not Jal’s virtues that motivate him to do good, but rather his cowardice of the consequences if he should he be caught.  

Throughout this series, we are given glimpses that there is something far more unique about this world than we are being immediately shown through stories and interesting encounters with peculiar artifacts and whatnot. This book explains the roots of where the world came from. But to say anything more than that would be a spoiler, so I’ll leave it at that.  

What I enjoyed most about these books was reading about Jal and the friendship that he forms with Snorri throughout their adventures together, along with the fun characters that I get to meet throughout their adventures along the way. This book is also rich and full of lore from Norse Mythology, which is something else that I love reading about.

If you’re not too familiar with Mark Lawrence’s writing, I would suggest starting with Prince of Fools The Red Queen’s War series, it’s a little more light-hearted than some of his other works, and then from there, you may check out Red Sister from The Ancestor series, which is phenomenal, though not connected that I can see it’s still a great read and offers another style of the authors writing. And if you’re really into the grimness of the world I would check out Prince of Thorns from The Broken Empire, which is connected to this world.  

If this sounds like something you’d like to read you can purchase it can be purchased through Amazon or Audible.  Note: These are affiliate links. If you purchase something using one of these links, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks!