Hi!

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Hey fellow Sounisians :D

I'm a long-time lurker, rare poster and I felt inspired to share my first encounter with the Queen's Thief series.

Audiobooks are one of my absolutely favourite things. I found King of Attolia on audio at the library and started listening to it that night. Jeff Woodman is such a fabulous narrator. I didn't realize that I had picked up the 3rd book in a series until I was halfway through and I was enjoying KoA too much to stop. I found Queen of Attolia on audio as well and listened to that next. Then I read The Thief and waited for Conspiracy of Kings to come out. I've reread and relistened to the whole series many times since then (in the traditional order!).

Costis and I were on the same page from the first, since we both had no idea what Gen was capable of. Hilariously, I didn't make the connection between 'Gen the thief in prison' and 'Eugenides king of Attolia' when I read The Thief the first time so I was surprised and delighted at the reveal of the Thief of Eddis (and then I felt silly).

When I recommend the series to people, I sometimes wonder if I should recommend that they read it the way I did. Gen's conversion to left-handedness was much less traumatic for me than it seemed to be for traditional readers because Costis presents it as a fact in the first chapter of KoA (though I puzzled all through QoA about how on earth Irene and Gen would end up happily married). What do you think? I do respect original order but I feel kind of like this is a special case. Did Costis seem completely clueless to you when you read KoA (if you read the books in publishing order)?

Anyway, thanks for reading my rambly musings!

Comments

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

I find it amazing and kind of awesome that you didn't realize he was *that* Gen in The Thief, after reading/listening to KoA first! It's like you were more in the magus' world, in which Eugenides was known and yet unrecognized. (Whereas first-time readers are still only learning about Eddis and all that.) Wow!

Welcome!! :)

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Yay!
Yeah.... I think that the non-realization happened because a) the switch to first-person and b) it was the first Megan Whalen Turner book I read with the page and my eyes so I wasn't used to seeing 'Gen' written: therefore, no sparks of recognition. Plus he's super sneaky and fools everyone.
I like your idea of 'me in the magus' world', instead of just 'me being clueless' :D

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

I think one of the many wonderful things about this series is that they can be read in any order. I teach the high school English classes at our homeschool co-op and my 10th-12th graders are reading QoA right now. They haven't read The Thief, but that hasn't hindered them. It is interesting because they aren't as devastated by the hand thing either and they have been sympathetic toward Attolia from the first-they think she was wrong but they don't hate her.

I read the books in their publishing order and I didn't think Costis was clueless. I felt kind of sorry for him because Gen was messing with him so much and I rather liked him.

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

I love Costis. Whenever I listen to KoA again, I just want to cuddle him and tell him that everything is going to be all right.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Welcome, and I love this topic! I know of at least one other person who read KoA first, and said many of the same things you did. What is so cool about that book is that we both can enjoy the story, even though you (who read it first) saw things from a different perspective than I (who knew just what Gen was up to) did. Seems like a tricky thing to pull off, writing-wise. I was delighted during the book, to know what Gen was capable of as he simpered and played the bored fool. Though I admit at first I wondered why he was being such a clueless jerk. Only for the first chapter or so. And when he tossed the pillow on the floor and sat on it at Attolia's feet I started to get what he was up to. It also made me feel a lot of relief about their relationship. At the end of QoA I was a bit worried that Attolia might end up chopping off his other hand, pretty quickly, when he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

I read QoA first, and it remains my favorite. Like you, I wasn't so devastated at the chop-chop part, since I hardly knew Gen at that point. The big curveball for me was going from QoA to The Thief. I just couldn't match Gen the thief up with Eugenides, Thief of Eddis. I guess because of the POV change. I ended up, sometimes, transposing the 1st person into 3rd, just to get a sense of my dearly loved Gen from QoA. It was a chore, at times.

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Yay! I hoped that others would be interested :D
The Thief is the one I reread the least (because it's the only one I don't have on audio) (library didn't want to pay $75 for it, poor broke thing). Gen is hiding so many things that you'd think the first person point-of-view wouldn't work as well as it does. MWT: master of her craft :D

[shelver506.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the club!

I am unbelievably jealous of you, 1) that you got to experience Gen for the first time, and 2) that you got to experience him in a way and order that most of us never will.

Regarding Costis, the poor boy REALLY annoyed me the first time I read KoA because he so underestimated my beloved Gen. I wavered back and forth between facepalming and scoffing loudly at his ignorance. (For example, "You pitiful fool, you have no idea whom you are messing with.")

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Yay, I feel so welcomed by everybody :D
Haha, it's funny because I really got the best of both worlds. Obliviousness is useful sometimes!
I get that. I've had that happen with other series...es. Not with Costis, because like I said, he and I were reading from the same expectation sheet and I was just as blindsided as he was with everything. Like the drunken roof antics! I was like 'KING ON ROOF OH NO WILL FALL' and I think about that reaction now and laaaaugh. :D

[ejmam.livejournal.com]

Our book club picked King of Attolia deliberately; about half of us were huge fans who had read all four books, and half hadn't read any. So we thought King would be a good introduction. It worked really well and was a fun meeting to see the difference between perspectives.

My family book club has done The Thief (hugely popular) and Queen, but as the youngest is only eleven I'll wait another year or so before bringing out King.

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Cool! Yeah, my public library classified all the print books all as Junior (6-12) and the audiobooks (QoA, KoA and CoK) as Teen (13-19) for a while, which I found hilarious. They fixed it eventually by deciding that everything went into Junior. Reading levels and tastes are so different that the age ranges are really only broad outlines anyway.

[qwentoozla]

I love that you still experienced the end of Thief as unexpected even though you had already read KoA! That's awesome. :) You read in the opposite direction to most people!

I don't remember thinking Costis was clueless. He really didn't have the required information to get what was going on! I love him, he's a great character. I just had a lot of anticipation for the revelation of what Gen was up to!

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm special! I usually read things in order, I do, but I was in the middle of KoA (and I am pretty sure I realized it was the latter part of a series when they get the letter about Sophos being kidnapped and I was like 'who?') and I could not wait to go get the others before finishing. Then The Thief was only in print and I wanted more of Jeff Woodman's narration (I am desperately searching Youtube to see if there are snippets there because HE IS MAGNIFICENT, especially at drunken!Eugenides).
Costis is so confused and he keeps saying 'I hate the king' but you know that he's getting all loyal in spite of himself and I love his patron sense of honour and I have a lot of feelings about Costis.

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't MWT say at somepoint that The Thief was a spoiler for King of Attolia? So your reading King fist meant that you, in some sense, had one of the valid reading experiences that she had in mind...

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

She said that? Cool!

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

It's here (http://meganwhalenturner.org/Novels.html).

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

[betonyb.livejournal.com]

I was another one of those who read in traditional order--I think the biggest change was the shift from first-person POV in TT to third-person in all the others (well, and back again in CoK--but from Sophos's perspective). I half-expected the series to continue in from Gen's snarky perspective, but now in retrospect, there was no good way to get the information we need in later books. I don't remember thinking Costis was clueless in KoA, though; I was more concerned that Gen was in way over his head before his schemes became clear, so in a way, my thoughts might have been similar to Costis's!

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Yeah, the shift in POV was weird going the other way (probably why I didn't recognize Gen). Yay, mostly everybody liking Costis too :D

[elle-winters.livejournal.com]

Welcome! :D

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Thanks :D

[pogopuppy100.livejournal.com]

Ok, so sorry I'm late, but I had to respond because I had almost the same experience as you did!!!

I read KoA first and really liked it, even though I was really confused about Gen at first and really embarrassed for Costis when Gen made fun of him. I think I had an inkling of how cool Gen was right from the beginning starting when he manipulated Costis into yelling at him just as Attolia walked in, so I wasn't too surprised when Gen turned out to be amazing.

I read The Thief next, and I was actually absolutely shocked when I realized that Gen had two hands. It's really strange, but it was a very traumatic experience for me to realize how much Gen had lost in KoA, even though I had read the entire book without ever feeling too upset about him only having one hand. By the time I got to QoA, I was all out of really strong emotions and was pretty much happy just seeing the transition between the two extremely different Gens that I knew.

Now the really strange thing about my reading experience is that, even though I read KoA before TT, and I knew that Gen would end up as a king, I somehow still was absolutely shocked by the ending. Maybe I was just so into the book that I was swept away by the big reveal? (or maybe my memory is just really, really strange?), but I was still absolutely breathless at the end. And that's when I fell in love with this series.

[star-aesh.livejournal.com]

Yay! Hello!
I know right? It's like my power of remembering went away.