A review from Orson Scott Card
I stumbled across this old review and found it very interesting.
It's a really bad idea to start a trilogy with the second volume. But I was traveling and desperate for something good to read. The bookstore didn't have the first volume; the third volume was only out in hardcover, and why spring for that when you don't even know if you like the series yet?
So I bought volume two.
The author is Megan Whalen Turner. The first volume is The Thief. The third volume is The King of Attolia. And the book I read is The Queen of Attolia.
The titles notwithstanding, all three books are mainly about the thief, though he's no ordinary cutpurse or burglar. This young adult fantasy is set in an ancient Greek land where one of the kingdoms has a semi-hereditary office called "the Queen's (or King's) Thief." He's a one-man intelligence service, creeping into other kings' palaces and eavesdropping, stealing documents, or (occasionally) conducting "diplomacy with prejudice" -- i.e., assassination.
This is a world with little magic, and what there is comes from the workings of the gods. They are not the familiar gods of Greek mythology, just as none of these little kingdoms corresponds with any real city-state of ancient Greece. The Thief is named Eugenides, which is the same name as the god of thieves whom he serves. He is downright pious about it -- but in the process of the story he begins to have good reasons that the very gods he serves have come to hate him.
He is caught by an enemy and, in the traditional (but rarely used) punishment for thieves, his right hand is cut off. And that's only the beginning of his troubles. By the end of the fascinating, compelling story, he has a very long list of complaints against the gods.
In fact, because I read this just before rereading C.S. Lewis's finest novel, Till We Have Faces, it seemed obvious to me that Turner has to be familiar with Lewis's work, which is also set in an imaginary kingdom in the vicinity of ancient Greece, with imaginary gods, and with a main character who has a long list of complaints against the gods who have, she believes, used her ill.
It might be coincidence. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that Turner's novel is, for me at least, even more emotionally effective than Lewis's, if only because the writing is less distant and we rather like the main character better.
Turner's handling of personal politics and diplomacy in an era when kingdoms were very small is as accurate as I think a modern writer can achieve. More to the point, she creates intriguing characters who grow more important to us as they become more complex.
Sometimes she seems to cheat a little, withholding from us information that is perfectly well known to the main characters. But in fact she's quite careful not to use the viewpoint of the character who knows the secret during the time she's keeping the secret from us. It's a deft juggling act, but she pulls it off with flair.
Needless to say, I'll be reading The Thief and The King of Attolia as soon as I can lay hands on copies of them. Still, I'm happy to report that you don't have to have read the first book to understand -- and enjoy -- the second.
For me, Turner joins the very small pantheon of strong, realistic fantasy writers who are making of this genre something very fine indeed.
*
Since writing the above, I bought and read King of Attolia. It is, if anything, even better.
Though the same characters continue from the previous story, this is a different kind of book. The magical element in this "fantasy" is very, very slight. Instead, this is a Graustark novel -- a story set in an imaginary kingdom -- and it focuses on political intrigue, threatened assassination, trust, and personal relationships.
Another thing this book isn't is "young adult." Yes, a couple of main characters are young -- but in an era when they could already function in adult roles. And I wonder if this book might be too sophisticated for a lot of young readers. Not because of sex, for the book shows none, but because Turner writes about small-kingdom politics at a very high level.
But then, there is no place in our society where personal politics is carried on with more ruthlessness and intensity than junior high school. No matter how much childish behavior you find in Congress or university faculties, image-building, character-assassination, and jockeying for position reach their peak among seventh and eighth graders. So this novel may be exactly right for that age group.
It's also an adult book, however -- an unusually entertaining and intelligent one -- and I recommend it highly. Give the gross-out thrillers a break and pick up something that will actually exercise your brain and leave you feeling rather good about being human.
And one for The Thief:
For the past two weeks, I've reviewed books by Megan Whalen Turner. I read them in a weird order -- the second book in the series first (Queen of Attolia), then the third one (King of Attolia). Now I finally got to read the first book, The Thief, which was a Newbery Honor Book in 1997. It's quite different from the latter two, and not just because it's told in first person.
It's a smaller book. The intricate politics of the sequels is there, but it is concealed behind the adventure; and I suspect that if I had not already known the things I learned from the sequels, I would have been annoyed at how much key information, fully known to the narrator from the start, was withheld from the reader.
But ... not to worry. It's a wonderful book, and I'm looking forward to reading more by her.
Source: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2006-02-12.shtml
It's a really bad idea to start a trilogy with the second volume. But I was traveling and desperate for something good to read. The bookstore didn't have the first volume; the third volume was only out in hardcover, and why spring for that when you don't even know if you like the series yet?
So I bought volume two.
The author is Megan Whalen Turner. The first volume is The Thief. The third volume is The King of Attolia. And the book I read is The Queen of Attolia.
The titles notwithstanding, all three books are mainly about the thief, though he's no ordinary cutpurse or burglar. This young adult fantasy is set in an ancient Greek land where one of the kingdoms has a semi-hereditary office called "the Queen's (or King's) Thief." He's a one-man intelligence service, creeping into other kings' palaces and eavesdropping, stealing documents, or (occasionally) conducting "diplomacy with prejudice" -- i.e., assassination.
This is a world with little magic, and what there is comes from the workings of the gods. They are not the familiar gods of Greek mythology, just as none of these little kingdoms corresponds with any real city-state of ancient Greece. The Thief is named Eugenides, which is the same name as the god of thieves whom he serves. He is downright pious about it -- but in the process of the story he begins to have good reasons that the very gods he serves have come to hate him.
He is caught by an enemy and, in the traditional (but rarely used) punishment for thieves, his right hand is cut off. And that's only the beginning of his troubles. By the end of the fascinating, compelling story, he has a very long list of complaints against the gods.
In fact, because I read this just before rereading C.S. Lewis's finest novel, Till We Have Faces, it seemed obvious to me that Turner has to be familiar with Lewis's work, which is also set in an imaginary kingdom in the vicinity of ancient Greece, with imaginary gods, and with a main character who has a long list of complaints against the gods who have, she believes, used her ill.
It might be coincidence. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that Turner's novel is, for me at least, even more emotionally effective than Lewis's, if only because the writing is less distant and we rather like the main character better.
Turner's handling of personal politics and diplomacy in an era when kingdoms were very small is as accurate as I think a modern writer can achieve. More to the point, she creates intriguing characters who grow more important to us as they become more complex.
Sometimes she seems to cheat a little, withholding from us information that is perfectly well known to the main characters. But in fact she's quite careful not to use the viewpoint of the character who knows the secret during the time she's keeping the secret from us. It's a deft juggling act, but she pulls it off with flair.
Needless to say, I'll be reading The Thief and The King of Attolia as soon as I can lay hands on copies of them. Still, I'm happy to report that you don't have to have read the first book to understand -- and enjoy -- the second.
For me, Turner joins the very small pantheon of strong, realistic fantasy writers who are making of this genre something very fine indeed.
*
Since writing the above, I bought and read King of Attolia. It is, if anything, even better.
Though the same characters continue from the previous story, this is a different kind of book. The magical element in this "fantasy" is very, very slight. Instead, this is a Graustark novel -- a story set in an imaginary kingdom -- and it focuses on political intrigue, threatened assassination, trust, and personal relationships.
Another thing this book isn't is "young adult." Yes, a couple of main characters are young -- but in an era when they could already function in adult roles. And I wonder if this book might be too sophisticated for a lot of young readers. Not because of sex, for the book shows none, but because Turner writes about small-kingdom politics at a very high level.
But then, there is no place in our society where personal politics is carried on with more ruthlessness and intensity than junior high school. No matter how much childish behavior you find in Congress or university faculties, image-building, character-assassination, and jockeying for position reach their peak among seventh and eighth graders. So this novel may be exactly right for that age group.
It's also an adult book, however -- an unusually entertaining and intelligent one -- and I recommend it highly. Give the gross-out thrillers a break and pick up something that will actually exercise your brain and leave you feeling rather good about being human.
And one for The Thief:
For the past two weeks, I've reviewed books by Megan Whalen Turner. I read them in a weird order -- the second book in the series first (Queen of Attolia), then the third one (King of Attolia). Now I finally got to read the first book, The Thief, which was a Newbery Honor Book in 1997. It's quite different from the latter two, and not just because it's told in first person.
It's a smaller book. The intricate politics of the sequels is there, but it is concealed behind the adventure; and I suspect that if I had not already known the things I learned from the sequels, I would have been annoyed at how much key information, fully known to the narrator from the start, was withheld from the reader.
But ... not to worry. It's a wonderful book, and I'm looking forward to reading more by her.
Source: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2006-02-12.shtml