Thief / Queen of Attolia
Mar. 10th, 2006 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishMegan Whalen Turner, The Thief
YA fiction, set in an ancient Greece analogue with its own geopolitical problems and authentic-sounding mythology. The viewpoint character's a thief who's been caught; as the story opens, the king hires him to steal . . . something, from somewhere. Nobody's very clear on that. There follow a hundred pages or so of setting and build-up, all very well done, and then they arrive at the secret temple and the story really gets started.
It sounds a lot more trite and trivial than it actually is. Sounis feels like a real place, something much fantasy (and nearly all YA fantasy) fails at. The stories they tell aren't from real Greek mythology, but might as well be, with a dash of good old-fashioned earth-worship thrown in for spice. There are two or three major plot twists; I saw one coming and was so busy congratulating myself that I was completely blindsided by the next two. (Gen's character changes almost completely after he emerges from the temple with the MacGuffin; this is partially explainable by his experiences there but partially, I think, due to a need to keep one of the secrets a secret. This is part of why I feel like the book really got started about halfway in.) Thoroughly enjoyable, and a pretty fast read to boot.
Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia
A sequel to The Thief, in the same way that Speaker for the Dead is a sequel to Ender's Game. QoA is a darker and more grown-up book than Thief. Better, too, I think. It goes further, and if it stumbles a few times, well, better to have tried. It's told in two limited-third perspectives instead of the slightly unreliable first of Thief; there are very very good reasons for this, but I still missed Gen's voice.
Much of the book deals with the struggles of the three kingdoms, against each other and against the Medean Empire across the sea. I must say, this is absolutely the most realistic depiction of fantasy war and politics I have ever seen, with the obvious exception of George RR Martin's Ice and Fire. The rulers are motivated a bit too often by care for their people, I felt; other than that, I could really see the diplomacy and the military tactics and all working, and understand exactly why things happened as they did.
Like Thief, this one starts halfway in; in this case it's when Eugenides kidnaps the title character. The build-up and background are so much fun to read that I forgive Ms Turner for these plot lapses. The Queen's emotional arc is quite believable; Gen's I wasn't so convinced by. Still and all, an excellent story and a worthy successor to Thief.
YA fiction, set in an ancient Greece analogue with its own geopolitical problems and authentic-sounding mythology. The viewpoint character's a thief who's been caught; as the story opens, the king hires him to steal . . . something, from somewhere. Nobody's very clear on that. There follow a hundred pages or so of setting and build-up, all very well done, and then they arrive at the secret temple and the story really gets started.
It sounds a lot more trite and trivial than it actually is. Sounis feels like a real place, something much fantasy (and nearly all YA fantasy) fails at. The stories they tell aren't from real Greek mythology, but might as well be, with a dash of good old-fashioned earth-worship thrown in for spice. There are two or three major plot twists; I saw one coming and was so busy congratulating myself that I was completely blindsided by the next two. (Gen's character changes almost completely after he emerges from the temple with the MacGuffin; this is partially explainable by his experiences there but partially, I think, due to a need to keep one of the secrets a secret. This is part of why I feel like the book really got started about halfway in.) Thoroughly enjoyable, and a pretty fast read to boot.
Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia
A sequel to The Thief, in the same way that Speaker for the Dead is a sequel to Ender's Game. QoA is a darker and more grown-up book than Thief. Better, too, I think. It goes further, and if it stumbles a few times, well, better to have tried. It's told in two limited-third perspectives instead of the slightly unreliable first of Thief; there are very very good reasons for this, but I still missed Gen's voice.
Much of the book deals with the struggles of the three kingdoms, against each other and against the Medean Empire across the sea. I must say, this is absolutely the most realistic depiction of fantasy war and politics I have ever seen, with the obvious exception of George RR Martin's Ice and Fire. The rulers are motivated a bit too often by care for their people, I felt; other than that, I could really see the diplomacy and the military tactics and all working, and understand exactly why things happened as they did.
Like Thief, this one starts halfway in; in this case it's when Eugenides kidnaps the title character. The build-up and background are so much fun to read that I forgive Ms Turner for these plot lapses. The Queen's emotional arc is quite believable; Gen's I wasn't so convinced by. Still and all, an excellent story and a worthy successor to Thief.