Having read The Thief, I started reading this sequel expecting it to be another nimble, first-person adventure by Gen (a.k.a. Eugenides), the Queen’s Thief of Eddis. In the former book, Gen pulled a fast one on the crowned heads of two kingdoms in order to bring a certain stone to his cousin and queen – a stone that solidified her hold on the throne of Eddis. How do you follow up on such a caper, and such a perfect book?

Why, with something surprisingly different, of course. The Queen of Attolia is a third-person novel that, for a good proportion of its pages, pulls back from the personal affairs of its characters and views a complex and portentous march of historical events. The characters, in these passages, are not people so much as nations: the three kingdoms of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia, whose delicate balance of peace and security is upset by a single decision by the titular Queen. And if Gen doesn’t somehow steal peace between at least two of the countries, the nearby Medean Empire will soon have a foothold and all three kingdoms will be lost.

If the subtlety of the shifting political situation, the fortunes of war, and the perilous high-wire-walk of diplomacy with the Mede go over your head, have no fear. For Gen is still, after all, the hero of this story. Only now, he must come to grips with a shattering, life-changing loss. He must leave behind his old role as the irreverent, self-reliant boy-hero and become a grown-up hero of a completely different type. He must risk more than he has ever risked, including his very soul.

Even with its intervals of “zooming out” and taking the more “panoramic view” — passages that you welcome because they relieve the tension a bit — The Queen of Attolia is an increasingly suspenseful and emotionally powerful book. The closer Gen gets to stealing the seemingly unstealable, the more you fear for him and for his entire world. Meanwhile, the two queens that share center-stage with Gen are contrasting studies in the twin mysteries of ruling power and the female heart. In the end, this journey into Ms. Turner’s captivatingly original ancient-Greek-cum-medieval-Europe fantasy world hinges on a spiritual truth that touches the root of any and every faith.

The third book in the series, The King of Attolia, is due to be released in June, 2007. I am intensely looking forward to it. My prediction about it, based on the first two books in the series, would be that somehow, Gen must bring a new kind of stability to the third kingdom in the region, Sounis; and that until he does, the threat of the Mede will not be relieved. If you just read that and wondered, “Huh? What’s he going on about?” then you should read The Thief and this book. You’ll see.

Robbie Fischer
USA

Recommended Age: 13+

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