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sophia_sol) wrote2017-08-29 09:13 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2017-08-29 09:13 pm
The Queen's Thief series, by Megan Whalen Turner
I decided to reread the whole series so I could then do a reread of the newest book! My opinions of The Thief and Queen of Attolia and Conspiracy of Kings remain largely as they've always been: enjoyable but imperfect. Though I noticed this time around that Queen of Attolia involves a lot more, like, talking about the specific strategies of war than I remembered, possibly because I always just skim over those sections because I find them boring, so they didn't stick in my mind.
King of Attolia is still a very good book, but for some reason I didn't love it as much this time around, idk. Part of it might be that I read the majority of it while sleep deprived and extremely stressed. But I think part of it as well is that it struck me a little more this time that the main plot of the book is Make Eugenides Act As King, and I'm just increasingly uncomfortable with applauding the development of unchecked power. And when you tie that to the idea in Conspiracy of Kings of there being a different set of ethics for rulers than for normal people, and I'm just noping away into a corner.
Also: I'd always liked the ending of King of Attolia where Costis forces Eugenides to show his hand as being a capable king, but now I've got a question: why does showing he's a good swordsman somehow equal showing he can be an effective and respect-worthy king?????? So the ending doesn't work as well for me as it used to, which is disappointing.
At any rate then I picked up Thick as Thieves again and was DELIGHTED the whole way through it. Definitely my favourite in the series now. What a good everything. I love it.
The way in which my reread of the other books most changed my reading of Thick as Thieves was in realizing the extent of the sudden broadening of scope. The first four books are very narrowly focused on the three countries of the Little Peninsula, whereas book five only spends a very brief portion near the end in the Little Peninsula. Adding to this the outsider pov - Kamet's pov is very clearly one of someone for whom the Little Peninsula and its wars and politics are not personal to him at all and not of any particular interest - and it makes for a rather an abrupt-feeling alteration of the focus of the books. Not in a bad way, just an odd way. And I'm not complaining about it because the wider scope is one of the things I love about this book!
But at the same time that there's a broadening of scope in the world, there's a narrowing of personal scope. For Kamet, the plot of the book is fairly small in focus: it's about Kamet's life. The first four books have main characters with goals which are very much about the directing of nations. Kamet had thought he was going to have that life, in Mede, and in fact does unknowingly have that life in this book in that everything is according to Eugenides' plan to get information from Kamet to aid in war, but from Kamet's perspective, this book is simply about him personally trying to stay alive and free.
I like stories about fictional politics a lot, but I also like really personal stories like this one. I care about Kamet a lot! And of course the other main character in the book, Costis. (COSTIS IS SO GREAT.) And I love the way that this book takes you in and out of the lives of all sorts of small, politically-unimportant people over the course of the road trip. I love getting to meet the people whose pot Costis re-tins, and the escaped slave who both helps them and betrays them, and the Braeling guard who dreams of going home but probably never will, and on and on and on. We've spent a lot of time over the previous books with only middle- and high-class people (other than the interlude where Sophos was briefly a slave, and even then we don't really get to know any of the other slaves because Sophos is so inwardly focused) and I appreciated getting to really see this other side of the social hierarchy via all these interactions Kamet and Costis have over the course of their road trip (as well as of course via Kamet's pov).
Anyway I'm VERY curious where the next book in the series is going to go. In terms of focus and scope, and in who the main character will be, and in how the series plot arc will be resolved (since I understand the next one is supposed to be the last one). I can't wait!
King of Attolia is still a very good book, but for some reason I didn't love it as much this time around, idk. Part of it might be that I read the majority of it while sleep deprived and extremely stressed. But I think part of it as well is that it struck me a little more this time that the main plot of the book is Make Eugenides Act As King, and I'm just increasingly uncomfortable with applauding the development of unchecked power. And when you tie that to the idea in Conspiracy of Kings of there being a different set of ethics for rulers than for normal people, and I'm just noping away into a corner.
Also: I'd always liked the ending of King of Attolia where Costis forces Eugenides to show his hand as being a capable king, but now I've got a question: why does showing he's a good swordsman somehow equal showing he can be an effective and respect-worthy king?????? So the ending doesn't work as well for me as it used to, which is disappointing.
At any rate then I picked up Thick as Thieves again and was DELIGHTED the whole way through it. Definitely my favourite in the series now. What a good everything. I love it.
The way in which my reread of the other books most changed my reading of Thick as Thieves was in realizing the extent of the sudden broadening of scope. The first four books are very narrowly focused on the three countries of the Little Peninsula, whereas book five only spends a very brief portion near the end in the Little Peninsula. Adding to this the outsider pov - Kamet's pov is very clearly one of someone for whom the Little Peninsula and its wars and politics are not personal to him at all and not of any particular interest - and it makes for a rather an abrupt-feeling alteration of the focus of the books. Not in a bad way, just an odd way. And I'm not complaining about it because the wider scope is one of the things I love about this book!
But at the same time that there's a broadening of scope in the world, there's a narrowing of personal scope. For Kamet, the plot of the book is fairly small in focus: it's about Kamet's life. The first four books have main characters with goals which are very much about the directing of nations. Kamet had thought he was going to have that life, in Mede, and in fact does unknowingly have that life in this book in that everything is according to Eugenides' plan to get information from Kamet to aid in war, but from Kamet's perspective, this book is simply about him personally trying to stay alive and free.
I like stories about fictional politics a lot, but I also like really personal stories like this one. I care about Kamet a lot! And of course the other main character in the book, Costis. (COSTIS IS SO GREAT.) And I love the way that this book takes you in and out of the lives of all sorts of small, politically-unimportant people over the course of the road trip. I love getting to meet the people whose pot Costis re-tins, and the escaped slave who both helps them and betrays them, and the Braeling guard who dreams of going home but probably never will, and on and on and on. We've spent a lot of time over the previous books with only middle- and high-class people (other than the interlude where Sophos was briefly a slave, and even then we don't really get to know any of the other slaves because Sophos is so inwardly focused) and I appreciated getting to really see this other side of the social hierarchy via all these interactions Kamet and Costis have over the course of their road trip (as well as of course via Kamet's pov).
Anyway I'm VERY curious where the next book in the series is going to go. In terms of focus and scope, and in who the main character will be, and in how the series plot arc will be resolved (since I understand the next one is supposed to be the last one). I can't wait!