psocoptera (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
psocoptera) wrote2020-10-06 04:47 pm
psocoptera) wrote2020-10-06 04:47 pm
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Return of the Thief
Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner, sixth and final book in the Queen's Thief series.
No spoilers in the first paragraph; definitely spoilers in the later paragraphs behind the cut.
I didn't start reading these books from the first one, I mean, I read it first, but the second one was out by then, so, sometime in the early 2000s. The way I remember it - and this might be a totally fictionalized memory - I picked the second one up off of Kyla's bookshelves (at her parents' house, so, 2001 or later and before she was living somewhere else, which is probably a clue she could use to see whether this makes any sense at all), and she more or less took it out of my hands saying yes I definitely had to read those but I absolutely couldn't even read the back cover of that one until I had read the first one. No, seriously, do not read the blurbs, do not read the inside front covers, book text only, and so of course I followed instructions and am glad I did. This was at a point when things were not so great with grad school, and that's part of what this series means to me, that it came with me all the way from *that*, to the third one coming out when I was at Seahorse and not yet *not* at Seahorse, the fourth one when Junie was a baby, the fifth one in 2017, when I wrote "I read a book so good that everything in the world feels okay right now." (So... spanning more or less my entire adult life.) Here in 2020, I can't say that any book could make everything in the world feel okay, but I did get to spend the day in a different world. And, hey, whatever else happens next, which I can hardly even venture to imagine at this point in 2020, at least I got to read this book.
SPOILERS, NO REALLY, SPOILERS, MAJOR SPOILERS: Last time I didn't even try to write a review ("I can't write a review, because Megan Whalen Turner book", I said here), and Conspiracy was far enough back that I wasn't writing up everything I read yet. But this is the last time, so this seems like the time.
I am so overwhelmed with happiness that these fictional people get their happy ending.
I care about them absolutely as much as any fictional people anywhere, and I feel about them the way I do about Amy and Bran being alive and together, like, I have worried about them! For years! But they're okay! There aren't a lot of series I care about this much and also *like* this much, all the way through. The best Vorkosigan books are so good, and then there was... a definite waning. Nita is one of the very most important fictional characters to me of all time but those books basically stop for me at High Wizardry, I was never able to buy in to the later ones at all, really. Every time Pierce went back to Tortall I liked it a little less. (And don't even get me started on franchise canons.) MWT wrote six perfect books and ended it with everyone *dancing* on the *roof* with the *gods* and I might be crying again a little bit. (They defeated the Mede! They're depopulating Eddis in time for the volcano! Successful baby!!)
And canon Relius/Teleus?? And Gen seriously tried to get Attolia to run away with him on their wedding night?
I was not surprised that the Minister of War died. There clearly had to be a high cost of war and I didn't think MWT wanted to kill any of her main cast (and it's hard to be immune to the trope where the hero isn't really fully done coming of age until they've lost all their mentors). And it was very strongly signaled that Gen would live (Pheris has apparently written many volumes of his history), but "only sleeping" still had me sobbing despite both those expectations. Damn. (Also I was worried that the chase through the Attolian palace was a last hurrah for Gen's agility, and that he was going to come back from war with an even more disabling injury. When the horse was on top of him and then Nahuseresh was damaging his knee, oof.)
Also not surprised about the Brael ambassador. I was very suspicious that he was being set up to be Likable And Not Foreign In A Yucky Way Unlike Those Damn Medes And Pents and it felt like A Point might be coming and then lo.
I was a little surprised in the end that Gen didn't have to struggle more with the temptation to overreach. But I liked how that played out.
I would absolutely like to know why Caeta and Silla are famous, please! And more about Heiro and Agape, who unlike most of the dude secondary characters do not die in the war. I guess this is why we have fanfic. (I might want to write about the last person out of Eddis, and the people who don't want to leave, and how they get them out in time. And maybe about Pheris as he gets older.)
But, overall, wow. What a triumph. Truly matchless.
No spoilers in the first paragraph; definitely spoilers in the later paragraphs behind the cut.
I didn't start reading these books from the first one, I mean, I read it first, but the second one was out by then, so, sometime in the early 2000s. The way I remember it - and this might be a totally fictionalized memory - I picked the second one up off of Kyla's bookshelves (at her parents' house, so, 2001 or later and before she was living somewhere else, which is probably a clue she could use to see whether this makes any sense at all), and she more or less took it out of my hands saying yes I definitely had to read those but I absolutely couldn't even read the back cover of that one until I had read the first one. No, seriously, do not read the blurbs, do not read the inside front covers, book text only, and so of course I followed instructions and am glad I did. This was at a point when things were not so great with grad school, and that's part of what this series means to me, that it came with me all the way from *that*, to the third one coming out when I was at Seahorse and not yet *not* at Seahorse, the fourth one when Junie was a baby, the fifth one in 2017, when I wrote "I read a book so good that everything in the world feels okay right now." (So... spanning more or less my entire adult life.) Here in 2020, I can't say that any book could make everything in the world feel okay, but I did get to spend the day in a different world. And, hey, whatever else happens next, which I can hardly even venture to imagine at this point in 2020, at least I got to read this book.
SPOILERS, NO REALLY, SPOILERS, MAJOR SPOILERS: Last time I didn't even try to write a review ("I can't write a review, because Megan Whalen Turner book", I said here), and Conspiracy was far enough back that I wasn't writing up everything I read yet. But this is the last time, so this seems like the time.
I am so overwhelmed with happiness that these fictional people get their happy ending.
I care about them absolutely as much as any fictional people anywhere, and I feel about them the way I do about Amy and Bran being alive and together, like, I have worried about them! For years! But they're okay! There aren't a lot of series I care about this much and also *like* this much, all the way through. The best Vorkosigan books are so good, and then there was... a definite waning. Nita is one of the very most important fictional characters to me of all time but those books basically stop for me at High Wizardry, I was never able to buy in to the later ones at all, really. Every time Pierce went back to Tortall I liked it a little less. (And don't even get me started on franchise canons.) MWT wrote six perfect books and ended it with everyone *dancing* on the *roof* with the *gods* and I might be crying again a little bit. (They defeated the Mede! They're depopulating Eddis in time for the volcano! Successful baby!!)
And canon Relius/Teleus?? And Gen seriously tried to get Attolia to run away with him on their wedding night?
I was not surprised that the Minister of War died. There clearly had to be a high cost of war and I didn't think MWT wanted to kill any of her main cast (and it's hard to be immune to the trope where the hero isn't really fully done coming of age until they've lost all their mentors). And it was very strongly signaled that Gen would live (Pheris has apparently written many volumes of his history), but "only sleeping" still had me sobbing despite both those expectations. Damn. (Also I was worried that the chase through the Attolian palace was a last hurrah for Gen's agility, and that he was going to come back from war with an even more disabling injury. When the horse was on top of him and then Nahuseresh was damaging his knee, oof.)
Also not surprised about the Brael ambassador. I was very suspicious that he was being set up to be Likable And Not Foreign In A Yucky Way Unlike Those Damn Medes And Pents and it felt like A Point might be coming and then lo.
I was a little surprised in the end that Gen didn't have to struggle more with the temptation to overreach. But I liked how that played out.
I would absolutely like to know why Caeta and Silla are famous, please! And more about Heiro and Agape, who unlike most of the dude secondary characters do not die in the war. I guess this is why we have fanfic. (I might want to write about the last person out of Eddis, and the people who don't want to leave, and how they get them out in time. And maybe about Pheris as he gets older.)
But, overall, wow. What a triumph. Truly matchless.