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A few weeks ago I posted about the first part of my Great Queen's Thief reread. And then I reread The King of Attolia, which meant I FINALLY could read Conspiracy of Kings a;ljsdkfds.
Verdict: reread has confirmed for sure that The King of Attolia is still my all-time favorite! It is also the one that I can talk about in a non-spoilery fashion, so I'm going to do that first.
Basically, The King of Attolia is Megan Whalen Turner getting her Dorothy Dunnett on hardcore. The main POV character is Costis, a young and enormously honorable guard who opens up the book by punching his new king in the FACE. Because the king is a foreign JERKFACE who came in and forced himself on their SUPER HOT AND TERRIFYING queen and now thinks he can get all up in everybody's business, like, what the hell. And then instead of getting killed, or demoted, Costis has to face a fate worse than death: becoming the Jerk King's personal guardsman.
Needless to say, there's a whole lot going on behind the scenes that Costis doesn't know about; the whole thing is complicated and full of intrigue and really deftly done. (My favorite part is the bit where Costis is utterly and totally overcome by embarrassment at being in the same room as the king and queen showing affection to each other. IT'S LIKE WATCHING YOUR PARENTS MAKE OUT. >.<)
Aaaand now for the way spoilery first reaction part:
THE THINGS I LOVED:
- omg, Attolia! And her being like "um, sorry Gen and Eddis, but I am clearly THE MOST HARDCORE and therefore Sophos is going to have to take my advice here, sorry." And everyone else is like ". . . yeah, well, I guss that's fair." Or, in more thinky terms: that Attolia is not becoming softer, that the things she did because she had to do them are not devalued now that there's A Better Way, but are recognized as things that are sometimes necessary.
- Gen being a stupid dorkface about his ~friendship~ with Sophos in the middle of all the intrigue, and everyone going around facepalming at him. (Man, the monarchs of this country are such an OT4. THEY ALL LOVE EACH OTHER. I mean, they love their spouses the mostest, obviously, but there is a lot of love going around. Maybe they can be a sedoretu, that way Eddis and Gen stay comfortably platonic and Sophos can keep his slightly-terrified distance from Attolia.)
- Sophos' sisters! I want to know everything about them. They are composed entirely of awesome. I am very glad they are not dead.
- Sophos' character development, how he has to lose his idealism - it breaks my heart, but it's amazingly well done.
THE THINGS I DID NOT LOVE AS MUCH:
- WHERE WAS COSTIS? >:O
- as I said, I loved Sophos having to lose his idealism and paralleling Attolia, to balance out Gen and Eddis as the trickier, more pacifist-minded, easy-to-love rulers - but I am not sure how I feel about the message that this was The Only Way, and even Gen couldn't think up another. I really wish that message had been more complicated than it was.
- I also really hope she humanizes the Medes in a later book. But I do have confidence in her ability to do it, rather than leaving them as The Big Ominous Bad
- I missed the gods coming down to tell Gen he was stupid :(
It isn't my favorite of the four. But a MWT that is not my favorite is still, like, head and shoulders above most other books, so I am not really complaining!
Verdict: reread has confirmed for sure that The King of Attolia is still my all-time favorite! It is also the one that I can talk about in a non-spoilery fashion, so I'm going to do that first.
Basically, The King of Attolia is Megan Whalen Turner getting her Dorothy Dunnett on hardcore. The main POV character is Costis, a young and enormously honorable guard who opens up the book by punching his new king in the FACE. Because the king is a foreign JERKFACE who came in and forced himself on their SUPER HOT AND TERRIFYING queen and now thinks he can get all up in everybody's business, like, what the hell. And then instead of getting killed, or demoted, Costis has to face a fate worse than death: becoming the Jerk King's personal guardsman.
Needless to say, there's a whole lot going on behind the scenes that Costis doesn't know about; the whole thing is complicated and full of intrigue and really deftly done. (My favorite part is the bit where Costis is utterly and totally overcome by embarrassment at being in the same room as the king and queen showing affection to each other. IT'S LIKE WATCHING YOUR PARENTS MAKE OUT. >.<)
Aaaand now for the way spoilery first reaction part:
THE THINGS I LOVED:
- omg, Attolia! And her being like "um, sorry Gen and Eddis, but I am clearly THE MOST HARDCORE and therefore Sophos is going to have to take my advice here, sorry." And everyone else is like ". . . yeah, well, I guss that's fair." Or, in more thinky terms: that Attolia is not becoming softer, that the things she did because she had to do them are not devalued now that there's A Better Way, but are recognized as things that are sometimes necessary.
- Gen being a stupid dorkface about his ~friendship~ with Sophos in the middle of all the intrigue, and everyone going around facepalming at him. (Man, the monarchs of this country are such an OT4. THEY ALL LOVE EACH OTHER. I mean, they love their spouses the mostest, obviously, but there is a lot of love going around. Maybe they can be a sedoretu, that way Eddis and Gen stay comfortably platonic and Sophos can keep his slightly-terrified distance from Attolia.)
- Sophos' sisters! I want to know everything about them. They are composed entirely of awesome. I am very glad they are not dead.
- Sophos' character development, how he has to lose his idealism - it breaks my heart, but it's amazingly well done.
THE THINGS I DID NOT LOVE AS MUCH:
- WHERE WAS COSTIS? >:O
- as I said, I loved Sophos having to lose his idealism and paralleling Attolia, to balance out Gen and Eddis as the trickier, more pacifist-minded, easy-to-love rulers - but I am not sure how I feel about the message that this was The Only Way, and even Gen couldn't think up another. I really wish that message had been more complicated than it was.
- I also really hope she humanizes the Medes in a later book. But I do have confidence in her ability to do it, rather than leaving them as The Big Ominous Bad
- I missed the gods coming down to tell Gen he was stupid :(
It isn't my favorite of the four. But a MWT that is not my favorite is still, like, head and shoulders above most other books, so I am not really complaining!