Gen is a thief who bragged too loudly after stealing the king’s seal and is now languishing in the king’s jail. He also bragged that no jail could hold him, but he languishes until the king’s magus sends for him.
“I want you to steal something.”
I smiled. “Do you want the king’s seal? I can get it for you.”
“If I were you,” said the magus, “I’d stop bragging about that.” His voice grated.
My smile grew. The gold ring with the engraved ruby had been in his safekeeping when I had stolen it away.”
We’re initially given the impression that maybe Gen isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. It does appear that his stay in jail was harder on him physically than he anticipated. Gen isn’t who he seems to be, but he knows quite well who he is and what he’s doing. Gen is an astute observer, allowing the reader to get to know the other characters and the world they live in without huge amounts of exposition and explanation. There is some of that, of course, but it doesn’t feel like a slog.
The Thief is the first book of a four part fantasy adventure series. I’m really looking forward to reading the next three books. For a fantasy adventure, The Thief is relatively quiet and character driven. I hear that the next three books are even better, so I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest this for fun summer reading.
Cannonball Read V 