Skip to main content

The Queen of Attolia: "Nothing mortals make lasts; nothing the gods make endures forever."

Wtf is in that vial? Is that in the book?

Our journey through the Megan Whalen Turner series continues! With The Queen of Attolia. I was assured by certain parties that this would be much better than The Thief, despite me liking The Thief muchly. I HAVE SOME THOUGHTS.

Different thoughts from that

So The Thief was pretty much a big road trip book, and this is more a sitting around, plotting & scheming book. THE SCHEMES ARE COOL, but I do like me some road tripping, so that was a lost element IMO. Along with the road trips came the made up mythology stories (more made up than normal since they came from Megan Whalen Turner's mind and not the zeitgeist of an entire nation), and in this book there is only ONE made up mythology story. It's a really good one. But still. One.

In Queen of Attolia, we're still in the place that is basically Ancient Greece, with the kingdoms of Eddis, Attolia, and Sounis. This book obviously has a pretty big focus on Attolia, but the series overall focuses on the dynamics between these countries (kingdoms? places? city-states? I don't know). Eugenides (the Thief) is still doing his thieving and pissing off kings and queens, BUT ALSO, the Medes (aka Persians) are trying to sneakily get in and take over everything because that's what they do. Damn Persians.


THAT'S YOU, PERSIANS

I will say that I had a hard time putting it down last night when I was a third from the end, and I am someone who can put down a book when I have eight pages left ("I'll just get to that later on..."). I very much enjoy reading about the queen of Attolia, and I hope the next books in the series fill her out even more, because Imma need that. 

I'm not saying this is my favorite, but it feels like MWT's building to something big in this series, and I am super-into putting in a lot of effort along the way to make the final part way more satisfying (I did not mean for that to sound sexual but it did and now I'm not taking it back). Like with soap operas. You watch them for YEARS and then something finally happens that you want to happen and you're like "YES I HAVE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME WITH THESE PEOPLE." Same thing happens in a Dickens novel. So what I'm saying is I'm totally here with you, Megan Whalen Turner, and I will keep reading your books. So just keep writing them and don't die before they are done.

constant face while looking at the author
of an unfinished series I am enjoying

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar

Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020

The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us. The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini readathon, as opposed to the lovely Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and 24in48, both of which you should participate in, but both of which are a longer commitment than this, the Busy Watching Netflix person's readathon. By 'read for six hours' what's really meant in the minithon is "read a little bit and eat a lot of snacks and post pictures of your books and your snacks, but mostly your snacks." We like to keep it a mini theme here, which mainly means justifying your books and your snacks to fit that theme. Does your book have children in it? Mini people! Does it have a dog! Mini wolf! Does it have pencils? Mini versions of graphite mines! or however you get graphite, I don't really know. I just picture toiling miners. The point is, justify it or don't

How to Build a Girl Introductory Post, which is full of wonderful things you probably want to read

Acclaimed (in England mostly) lady Caitlin Moran has a novel coming out. A NOVEL. Where before she has primarily stuck to essays. Curious as we obviously were about this, I and a group of bloggers are having a READALONG of said novel, probably rife with spoilers (maybe they don't really matter for this book, though, so you should totally still read my posts). This is all hosted/cared for/lovingly nursed to health by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) because she has a lovely fancy job at an actual bookshop ( Odyssey Books , where you can in fact pre-order this book and then feel delightful about yourself for helping an independent store). Emily and I have negotiated the wonders of Sri Lankan cuisine and wandered the Javits Center together. Would that I could drink with her more often than I have. I feel like we could get to this point, Emily INTRODUCTION-wise (I might've tipped back a little something this evening, thus the constant asides), I am Alice. I enjoy