"The King of Attolia" 15 Days.

15 days. This time I'm sure. I promise. March 23rd is the day. (the one good thing about not actually having any readers is I don't have to be embarrassed about counting almost all the way down to the wrong date.)

Its been almost a week since I finished The King of Attolia so some of my enthusiasm will have worn down. Sad but true. I do, however, think it was a fabulous book. The first time I read it I remember being frustrated that it was from Costis' point of view mostly instead of Eugenides but, maybe because I was forewarned this time around I liked it.
In the first book Turner tricks us by not telling major pieces of information about the character even though it is first person. As fabulous as that was she can only get away with it once. So, the Queen of Attolia is told in third person. All very well. That way you have more characters' heads to sort out and we are still surprised. Still, after those surprises we know more about those characters as well and can sort out what they'r really thinking much faster. It King of Attolia she needed another angle to come from because even if we aren't entirely surprised with all of Eugenides' escapades Costis is and we can enjoy his confusion. it also helped to show Gen proving himself --which is mostly what the plot is based around. If we were in his head the entire time we would never have seen him as the whinny little guy who doesn't want to be king and at the end, because so much of Eugenides' character is a mixture of extreme vulnerability and amazing prowess, we wouldn't have seen the strong leader that his guards learn to recognize him as.
That said, I don't think the book is quite as amazing as the first two. Don't get me wrong. It is good, and a necessary link between the Queen of Attolia and, I'm guessing, Conspiracy of Kings. We need to see how he gain the loyalty of his subjects, but most of the book is more antics than a heavy plot. Not to say for a moment that those antics aren't entertaining or that there is not plot at all. Still, it is not quite the riveting compilation of events that just fit together so perfectly by book's end that The Thief and The Queen of Attolia are.