jmc_bks

The Queen of Attolia is the follow up to The Thief, which I reviewed here.

FYI - don't check out the reviews at Amazon, because there are MAJOR spoilers in the reviews, both the reader reviews and the publisher/print reviews.

Revenge
When Eugenides, the Thief of Eddis, stole Hamiathes's Gift, the Queen of Attolia lost more than a mythical relic. She lost face. Everyone knew that Eugendies had outwitted and escaped her. To restore her reputation and reassert her power, the Queen of Attolia will go to any length and accept any help that is offered . . . and she will risk her country to execute the perfect revenge.

. . . but
Eugenides can steal anything. And he taunts the Queen of Attolia, moving through her strongholds seeming at will. So Attolia waits, secure in the knowledge that the Thief will slip, that he will haunt her palace one too many times.

. . . at what price?
When Eugenides finds his small mountain country at war with Attolia, he must steal a man, he must steal and queen, he must steal peace. But his greatest triumph -- and his greatest loss -- comes in capturing something the Queen of Attolia thought she had sacrificed long ago . . .

As usual, the summary on the inside flap is a little bit misleading. Factually it is correct, but the timeline isn't quite what it implies. Queen opens with Eugenides hiding in Attolia's castle and being hunted. He nearly escapes, but is caught at the very end of his flight. When he is finally returned to Eddis, he is damaged, body and soul. Although he recovers physically (more or less), his emotional recovery is less assured, as he wonders if he can still be Queen's Thief. The title is given for an entire lifetime -- how hard will it be to still be called Thief but be unable to be Thief? Beyond his fears about being Thief, Eugenides is afraid of being caught again by Attolia, fearing that his treatment may be even worse if he is caught again. But Eddis and Attolia are now at war and Eugenides is needed. (His capture and torture was the precipitating event for war, but it was coming anyway because of tensions growing with Sounis, the Medes interference, and Attolia's anger about the theft of Hiamathes's Gift.)

Queen is different from The Thief in that the narrator does not stay primarily with Eugenides. The reader also spends time with the Queen of Attolia, although the narrator focuses on Eugenides slightly more. We learn how Attolia came to be Queen, about the ruthlessness that it took to become and remain queen, as well as the discord that exists among her power-hungry barons who want either to marry her to assume her power or to supplant her entirely. Attolia isn't the most likeable of characters, which is not a huge surprise - are powerful people, people with huge responsibilities always the kindest or most likeable among us? No.

The concern that the magus expressed in The Thief about the Medes' eventual focus on Attolia, Eddis and Sounis was well-founded -- in Queen, the Mede ambassador plays a significant role, and the Medes seem to be interfering in the war.

The role of religion was a little less noticable in Queen, but not the role of the gods. The messenger for the gods came to Eugenides and other characters, but it was almost always "off-screen" and was described after the fact. The most important points of the book (Eugenides capture, the recapture of Attolia by the Medes) were deus ex machina events, in which the appearance of the messenger of the gods gave away the plans, secrets and locations of the mortals. While I can see the larger picture -- save the countries by sacrificing these things that are the plans of man -- I wasn't entirely thrilled with the gods as a plot mechanism.

In contrast, the role of politics was much, much larger. For Attolia, how to balance the war with Eddis against a war with Sounis while not giving away too much to the Medes? For Sounis, the goal is still unification in order to be able to present a single front to the Medes when they ultimately attack. And for Eddis, squeezed in the mountains between Sounis and Eddis, how to protect the trade they need to survive while remaining independent of Sounis and Attolia? The Thief was the story of a boy thief whose exploits had a political impact; Queen begins with a boy thief whose exploits have a political impact, but who also consciously becomes a political-military figure.

The author does a very good job of giving us information about Eugenides and Attolia without giving away too much. The readers know that an Eddisian expedition to Attolia is occuring, but do we really know the purpose of the expedition? We know that Attolia does not entirely trust the Mede ambassador, but is she aware of all of his machinations?

It isn't until the end of the book that the name of the Queen of Attolia is revealed - Irene, meaning peace, which she finds ironic. Eddis is Helen, more irony because she is not beautiful. But what about Eugenides? Eugenides is the name of the god of thieves. Was Gen named so after his grandfather? Or was he just called that after becoming skilled, as it is the honorary name of the Queen's Thief? Inquiring minds want to know.

I enjoyed The Queen of Attolia a great deal, although perhaps not as much as The Thief. Still, I have the next book, The King of Attolia, sitting in the stack of library books, so I'll be starting it soon.

My grade: B+.