I only sort of believed this day would come. Part of me really thought that Return of the Thief would be like King Arthur returning to save the country in its hour of greatest need. I wasn’t even sad about it. In some ways I thought the promise of Return of the Thief was even better than actually having Return of the Thief in my own two hands. But now Return of the Thief has come at last, and it honestly is like King Arthur returning to save the country (of Queen’s Thief fans) in our hour of greatest need (the Times). And it’s glorious.
If you are not aware of the Queen’s Thief series, I do recommend popping out and purchasing The Thief for yourself. Though you will not be getting the full experience. I, myself, have not had the full experience, because I am a Jenny-come-lately who, despite the best recommending efforts of Legal Sister, didn’t read these books until 2010, which is when A Conspiracy of Kings came out. I did not wait; I did not suffer. Others among us (like Legal Sister) read The Thief when it came out in 1996 and commenced a waiting game for the subsequent five books that only bore full fruit in this, the year of our Lord 2020.
“Stop being weird, Jenny! Tell us what the books are about!” Yes, okay, so, these books are set in a society that’s inspired by classical antiquity, drawing specific inspiration from the Persian Wars and the small Greek states that held out against the Persian Empire despite odds that were, shall we say, daunting. At the center of the series is a boy named Eugenides, who is a thief. That is basically all I can say about the series without spoiling the entire thing. These books are a complicated machine, powered by intrigue and feelings. So many feelings. They also contain the angriest women and the softest men, including perhaps the purest cinnamon roll character in all of literature. Here is a further recap of the series, just so you know what to expect. (Book one: Road trip! Shenanigans! Book two: High-octane emotional devastation!)
Anyway, my non-spoilery review of Return of the Thief is that it was tremendous, there were elephants, it was everything I wanted it to be, and I feel joyful but also bereft to know this amazing series is at an end. What follows below the line is some disconnected and spoiler-filled fangirl screaming.
(I am not doing this to tease you! These books are so extremely serialized that even mentioning certain characters in affectionate terms is a spoiler. I’m so serious. It’s a spoiler to say with affection the full names of, I’m going to say, three? of the seven major characters.)
My opinions are as follows, and I have put them into bullet points:
- I would die for Pheris
- Megan Whalen Turner very clearly has spent the last twenty-four years thinking “What if Thermopylae, but haunted” and now we must all think about that too so thanks a lot, Megan Whalen Turner
- I can’t believe that after twenty-four years of dishing out the most devastating scraps of emotional availability, Megan Whalen Turner has produced a veritable feelings orgy
- Irene buying Gen a horse like the troll she fundamentally is
- Sophos picking out the horse for Gen like the cinnamon troll he fundamentally is
- every single monarch of the Little Peninsula lowkey conspiring to protect Gen from going into battle
- HIERO EARRINGS HELP ME WHYYYYY
- Costis going absolutely feral over the prospect of Kamet being danger
- Eugenides going somehow even more feral over the prospect of Kamet being in danger
- “They do not smile at first, Your Majesty.”
- “Why that orange tree? What that tamarisk bush?”
- It turns out we have been grievously underestimating the amount of murder of which Gen is capable
- Years and years and years and years and YEARS ago Megan Whalen Turner told us that Gen would see an elephant and be like “I want that elephant”
- It happened.
- Also, he fed them melons
- Irene was like “where would you even keep an elephant anyway”
- then, in the truest expression of love, she GETS HIM THE ELEPHANTS
- I thought he was going to steal an elephant
- This was better.
- (because of my feelings)
- Of all the characters I would die for, I would die for Irene the most. Evidence:
- Elephants; op cit.
- “I did not become inappropriate all by myself!”
- “I am not here to cut Sophos’s food him”
- THERMOPYLAE, BUT HAUNTED
- Disaster bisexual Relius (!) and disaster virgin Teleus (!!!!)
- the play to catch the conscience of the king
- I was SO ANGRY at first
- I was UNIMAGINABLY angry, like, I was ready to burn some shit down
- not least because “swayed by a pretty face” like how actually dare you insult Irene Attolia in this manner
- and then? Megan Whalen Turner?
- just?
- changed everything???
- and Cenna said, “But it was funny, Gen, wasn’t it?”
- and actually, it’s not Hamlet’s stupid fucking play plan; it’s someone who knows Gen well enough to call him by his nickname being an absolute dick to Gen
- I know I already did a whole bullet point about emotions but:
- Pheris’s whole strategy of being underestimated
- The King of the Strategy of Being Underestimated, Attolis Eugenides Eugenideides, doesn’t not fall for it
- “To hell with Lader if he thinks I will not trust you” H E L P M E.
- PHERIS
- P H E R I S.
- the moment when Irene is like “you think Kamet is dead?” and Gen is like “yep” and Irene is like “without Costis burning down the entire Mede Empire about it?” and Gen is like “Ah.”
- The whole thing ends with a dance party! Just what you want!
This is the end of my screaming thoughts. But maybe I will add more later. Who knows? I love this fucking series.