Brokedown Palace.

About Brokedown Palace

Brokedown Palace is a fantasy novel by American writer Steven Brust, the only stand-alone novel set in Dragaera. It was originally published as a paperback original by Ace Books in 1986 and reprinted several times over the next decade. A British edition appeared in 1991. Orb, an imprint of Tor Books, brought the novel back into print in trade paperback in 2006. It is also notable for being set in Fenario, the human-populated portion of that world. Brokedown Palace opens in a medieval setting where a young man lies with grave wounds beside a river. He is the victim of his brother, the king, who has a very evil temper. There are four brothers in total, and this book is mainly about their relationships and battles. The pace is kept off-kilter by brief chapters interjecting folklore or sidestepping to other seemingly unrelated stories. The story incorporates Hungarian folklore and is filled with metaphors; the castle, for instance, represents a body, as well as being a metaphor for the disintegration of the family and the kingdom.