The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Gen, the professional thief, is recruited by a King to steal an ancient, mythical artifact with the power to grant immortality and make or break kingdoms. The worldbuilding is pseudo-Hellenic, which is a refreshing change from the usual, generic Medieval Europe.
I saw the ending of this one a mile off, but that probably means it's hard to predict. I only get fooled by generic twist endings, the ones that everyone else sees through. If they're novel? I nearly always see through them. I thought The Usual Suspects was the most boooooring movie ever, and the book Speaker for the Dead? Knew the ending right from the first mysterious murder. So, yes, I suspect a lot of people will find this book delightfully surprising. I truly enjoyed it, despite feeling like the rest of the characters were pretty dim for not figuring out what would happen.
Oh, yeah, I loved this book, too, even though I didn't see the ending coming. And Gen is such a character! I didn't enjoy the other books in the series as much because they weren't told in his delightful POV. Ah, well.
ReplyDeleteOh? Which POV are the other two in?
ReplyDeleteThe Queen of Attolia is told in third person, from Eugenides' POV, from Attolia's, and from Eddis's as well. It was more about politics and less about the character, or so I remember (I haven't read it for a while.) The King of Attolia is written from the POV of Costis, who is promoted to lieutenant-at-large and assigned to the King (Eugenides.) They both just had a different feeling than the first book, less tongue-in-cheek, I think.
ReplyDeleteThey still sound worth a read. I'll put them in my queue. It's nice to have so many good books to read that it feels hard to keep up!
ReplyDelete