Got this review in e-mail, and for reasons I am not at liberty to divulge it is prob. OK for me to post it: ________________________ 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. ----------------------
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review of Attolia by Orson Scott Card, part 1
Date: 9/21/06 01:06 pm (UTC)________________________
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.
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