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2013 Book Review #126: The Spirit Thief
Title:The Spirit Thief
Author: Rachel Aaron
Genre: High fantasy
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Eli Monpress is a wizard thief with a plan, and that plan starts with increasing the bounty on his head. For that, he's going to need to steal a lot of stuff. How about starting with a king?
Thoughts: While the breezy, sarcastic dialogue hardly screams "high fantasy", it's certainly entertaining. Aaron has an interesting magic system in which everything has a spirit that can be commanded or cajoled, and gives a lot of her scenery enough personality to be entertaining. If the characters seem a bit modern in their outlook, well, it's far enough divorced from this world, who's to say that flippancy and ancient monarchies can't coexist?
What's irritating, though, is the lack of depth that flippancy fails to cover. Every character is two dimensional. There are some hints that maybe Eli and his crew have more to them, but she never actually gives us any backstory. Maybe that comes out in later books. I'm not sure I have faith that it will, though, and I haven't decided whether or not I'm willing to risk it. While I understand preserving some of the mystery for later novels, it seems unfair to end a book without giving us pretty much anything in the way of character development or backstory.
The ending also feels a little pat. But the writing is entertaining all the way through, at least.
Author: Rachel Aaron
Genre: High fantasy
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Eli Monpress is a wizard thief with a plan, and that plan starts with increasing the bounty on his head. For that, he's going to need to steal a lot of stuff. How about starting with a king?
Thoughts: While the breezy, sarcastic dialogue hardly screams "high fantasy", it's certainly entertaining. Aaron has an interesting magic system in which everything has a spirit that can be commanded or cajoled, and gives a lot of her scenery enough personality to be entertaining. If the characters seem a bit modern in their outlook, well, it's far enough divorced from this world, who's to say that flippancy and ancient monarchies can't coexist?
What's irritating, though, is the lack of depth that flippancy fails to cover. Every character is two dimensional. There are some hints that maybe Eli and his crew have more to them, but she never actually gives us any backstory. Maybe that comes out in later books. I'm not sure I have faith that it will, though, and I haven't decided whether or not I'm willing to risk it. While I understand preserving some of the mystery for later novels, it seems unfair to end a book without giving us pretty much anything in the way of character development or backstory.
The ending also feels a little pat. But the writing is entertaining all the way through, at least.