Moiras Pen: A Queens Thief Collection By Megan Whalen Turner
Practically perfect. I loved this. Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy This is a nice addition to the series, but doesn't work for readers who haven't read all the books, ideally more than once. I've read them all and couldn't remember some of the details.
The stronger stories are mostly available in other places, so if you're on a book budget check that you haven't already got them.
3.5 rounded down because I was hoping for more substance. May round up if the almond cake recipe is above average. Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy A glimpse into Megan Whalen Turner's mind
Moira's Pen: A Queen's Thief Collection arrived at a good time for me. Every now and again my back decides to torment me with muscle spasms, and I get to spend several days at home immobile until the capricious God of Muscle Spasms frees me. Thus the release at midnight last night of Moira's Pen could not have been better timed. I'm not going to tell you you need to have a bad back to enjoy Moira's Pen, but if you do, it is almost perfect. Almost perfect, but it suffers from one grave fault -- it is far too short. I read it from cover to cover (including even the glossary) in about three hours.
Moira's Pen consists, aside from front and end-matter, of 34 chapters. Since I just told you I read the entire book in three hours, you will immediately deduce that the chapters are quite short. About half the chapters are stories from the World of The Queen's Thief. You must absolutely read the novels before Moira's Pen -- most of the stories will make little sense unless you have done that, and besides, they are very good novels. Being so short, many of the stories are barely stories -- often they are just vignettes, revealing glimpses of key characters of The Queen's Thief at key moments. We are often privy to their thoughts. For instance, two of the stories are about Melheret, whom we met in the series as the Median ambassador to Attolia, in which capacity he did not show to advantage. Seen from behind his own eyes, he is a more sympathetic figure.
I said that about half the chapters are stories. The others tell of Turner's personal recollections and experiences. She describes to us several artworks that inspired items in the novels, for instance, some of the earrings with which Eugenides (Gen) is so obsessed. (We learn a bit more about why that is, too.) Sometimes she also tells us of how she encountered these things. One chapter is a recipe for almond cakes that play a role in the novels. Many of these things are illustrated in drawings by Deena So'Oteh.
There is one thing I was very much hoping for, and I mostly got it, but not as I expected. At the end of the last novel, Return of the Thief, Queen Irene gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Gen named the girl Eugenia, recognizing that she was the new Thief of Eddis, thus his heir in that god-ordained role. I really wanted a story of Eugenia. We get that in the final story, Gitta. But it is not quite that, and I will leave it to you to find out how Turner handled the descent of the Thief of Eddis.
Blog review. Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy 12/12/22
Jennie and I reviewed this for Dear Author a week ago. Here’s an excerpt from our review.
Janine: Megan Whalen Turner completed her Queen’s Thief series two years ago, and the essays, stories and vignettes in Moira’s Pen, a new collection of set in the same world and featuring some of the same characters, are a bit like the big crumbs and smears of ganache left on your plate when you’ve finished an amazing slice of chocolate cake. The cake was so good that even the crumbs are tantalizing and you can’t let them go uneaten.
This is my perspective as a huge fan of the series. With that said, the book feels padded and it is short to begin with, just 180 pages if you don’t count the glossary (I don’t).
Jennie: The book did feel surprisingly slight to me.
Janine: I expected some slightness but I do wish there was more.
Of the works of fiction, I recognized a number of reprints. Here is a rundown of those. “Eddis Goes Camping,” “Knife Dance” and “Alyta’s Missing Earrings” are bonus short stories from previous print editions. “Breia’s Earrings” could be considered either a short story or a vignette and appeared in a publication many years ago. “The Destruction of Hamiathes’s Gift,” and “Wineshop,” are paperback edition bonuses that I would characterize as vignettes. “A Trip to Mycenae” is a travelogue that and a rather boring one for me (it was also an extra in one of the paperbacks). “Envoy” is the last chapter / epilogue in Thick as Thieves and “The River Knows,” a poem, was part of Thick as Thieves as well.
(The poem makes its appearance during a private conversation in palace gardens of Attolia, when Irene asked Kamet to recite it to. Its themes run along Ecclesiastes 3’s (“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven / A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted […]). Turner’s version is just as lovely IMO and it broke my heart all over again, because that scene in Thick as Thieves takes place after Irene’s miscarriage and the poem is written as a dialogue between mother and child. Rereading it moved me so much that I opened my copy of Thick as Thieves and reread these lines: “The queen looked down at her hands, stroking the soft velvet of a cushion, and said, ‘It was not her time. We will welcome her when she comes again. […]’”)
Of the reprints my favorite is probably “Alyta’s Missing Earring” and after that “Eddis Goes Camping” and “The River Knows.” “Alyta’s Missing Earring” is the first is a magical half timeless myth, half-story that takes place in Gen’s time, and a meditation on the nature of fate. The ending circles back in a resonant and romantic way. I loved this one the first time I read it too.
Jennie: I love “Alyta’s Missing Earring” precisely because of the resonant and circular nature of the story and characters.
Janine: I also thought it was delightful that there four pieces about earrings—it was fitting since they were Gen’s favorite item to steal.
I’ve read “Eddis Goes Camping” more than once in the past. We see Helen’s first encounter with the gods as a child of nine. I’ve always loved stories where a child forgets something magical and important that they once knew and the memory is lost to them for a long time or even forever.
I am glad to have the reprints collected in one place with nice illustrations but I was disappointed that there wasn’t more new material. Did you feel that way too?
This is a partial review. You can find the rest at Dear Author, at this link:
https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/j...
11/15/22
Rating and a longer review to come.
In brief, this is a short book and fans of the Queen’s Thief series will have read some of this material before. There’s some original material too, essays about antiquities and short works of fiction. I would not call most of these short stories, they are more like vignettes, a couple of pages long, and a couple of them are written in play or screenplay format, just dialogue and nothing else.
The last couple of chapters “The End of Eddis” and “Gitta,” especially the latter, provide a lot of information about what happened after the ending of Return of the Thief, and these have left me with complicated feelings. Some of it casts a shadow over the joyous ending of Return of the Thief. In all honestly though, I think the major issue here is that “Gitta” isn’t a short story but the prologue to a much longer work and I haven no idea if MWT plans to write that novel (or series?) anytime soon. In one of my interviews with her she said she wanted to move on to a new world and story. So then why open this whole new chapter about Gitta and her future and her family’s past? It brings up a lot of questions and answers very few. Exactly as a good prologue should. But now I want the rest! Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy Missing from this volume is a story about the live-in woodworker that I assume the Attolian palace staff eventually had to hire to repair and remake all the furniture their king and queen damage whenever they have one of their blow-out fights--which, according to the series as written, happen on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
Also missing--to my huge disappointment, even though I knew we wouldn't get any--is any Sophos/Eddis stories, or any Sophos at all, really. I think this affected my mood when I eventually finished the book.
I'll be curious as to everyone else's thoughts...but upon first reading (an important distinction for a mwt book), I found the two concluding short stories to be really sad. They were also full of so many obscure details that you will have to reread them several times to understand and connect it properly to the original series--and yeah, I get that sometimes this is the *point* of the books, a game we all agreed to play and all that. But with these particular stories, even if you put in the time and effort to connect all the dots, you'd still be without a lot of information, simply because MWT doesn't give it to you. What she does give is a lot of nagging hints about things that happened, and then stops short of telling the full stories that her audience probably wants most to hear. It just felt...so deliberately obtuse. I was left with a lot of questions, and I didn't really want to have questions when I finished this. I especially didn't want to be left confused and sad.
Everything before the last two stories was good, though. I love that we finally have Breia's Earrings in print. I always had to look that up as a PDF online (I think it was called Thief! in its original published form?) I also love that we have all her short stories here together in one volume--though I'm a little bit irritated that I spent so much money and energy collecting all the different book editions just so I could have access to all the short stories.
This review makes it sound like I didn't like this book. Obviously I loved it. I worship everything mwt writes, lick her shoes, etc. However, my overall feeling after I finished this is still...sadness. Heavy-hearted. Though I suspect that if there had been at least one (happy) Sophos/Eddis story, my mood might have been different.
Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy
I won't be able to review this until I reread it a few times. It's definitely a collection for existing fans, because I have no idea how a new reader would make sense of this.
Parts of this book felt a little bit like an epilogue for the series. I got weirdly choked up during the first story, and openly cried during the last couple. Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy What a pleasure it was to read this excellent collection! It was full of short stories, microfiction, character quotes, poetry, anecdotes, and a slew of illustrations.
The Queen's Thief series has always been one of my favorite series, and I loved revisiting with Gen, Helen, Irene and other characters both old and new. This puts me in the mood for a re-read of that series, now. If you are a fan of the series, this is well worth your time!
Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy Probably for fans only, a revisit of the Little Peninsula, some short stories, and vignettes, and many earring pictures, and some context on her inspiration. Made my fangirl toes curl. Made me feel all fangirl-y in every single page. Very very satisfying, but probably for rabid fans only, it will be meaningless to people who have not read ALL the other books (the short story collection is not the same universe, not required). It is not a good starting point at all. Go start with the The Thief and keep in mind that is different, more YA in tone (the only proper YA book actually) than all the later books.
According to the final word this volume includes reprints of some short stories included in paperback editions (surprisingly I only knew of one of those... That is good, I have little shelf space, good thing I did not know of extras in redundant paperbacks!), but there are a lot of never published stories and vignettes (some of these very satisfying despite being very short) and 2 new, set generations after the end of the Return of the Thief which seem to have caused a lot of complex feelings in other readers, but I liked those very much despite adding complexity to the what happens next. .
Incidentally MWT calls her books the Geniad. That is going to stick in my mind.
One recipe included - and metric measurements, included, oh thank you! I get a terrible mind blank at recipes in cups and sticks and all, where I look at it and my mind just blanks.
And about sequels, Pheris' missing volumes, oh come on, Megan, come on...Not even for my sake, you know you want to. Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy Need to re-read/finish the series desperately, as I was a bit lost through some of this. Would not recommend reading as an intro to the series, or if you haven't completed the series. One thing I would have appreciated greatly was a timeframe or something telling if each story was before/during/after which book.
I really shouldn't be complaining but I'm gonna....GOOD GRIEF COULD YOU NOT HAVE THE COVERS MATCH????? At least the spine seems to match the new spines. Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy *Not gonna spoiler tag this because the spoilers are pretty vague, but be warned that there are vague spoilers in the sense that I mention who and what shows up in the book, as well as who does not! >:( *
I can review this. I can. I can do it. I’m sitting here trying to formulate something coherent and it’s painful but I’ll come up with something.
Let’s start with, did I like it? Yes, except for the last two stories. Does that mean the last two stories are bad? No, it just means they make me want to lay face down on the floor and cease to exist.
The delightful part of this is that there’s lot of things in here that I didn’t know I wanted to see, ie: what happens after Attolia’s first husband dies, more of Melheret, Melheret’s wife. There were even a few things I did want to see, namely, more Pheris, Relius and Teleus flirting, Gen visiting the kitchens in TaT, and, most importantly, STENIDES MY MOST BELOVED OFF-SCREEN CHARACTER. (The piggyback ride? A+ exactly what I wanted 10/10 no notes)
The bad part is that it has almost nothing I knew I wanted to see: very little about Costis and Kamet’s future, almost no Laela, absolutely none of the twins???????, absolutely NO COSTIS???????????? (he’s mentioned but where is he!!! I want him here!!!), ALMOST no Kamet, NO Sophos (not even a name drop), no explanation of what happened to Aulus and Boagus, no Minister of War. I had a small but persistent hope that Gen’s mama might make an appearance, but to no avail. And then there’s reveals about the future of the Little Peninsula that make me sad so I am trying valiantly and failing to expunge them from my memory. So is it bad? No. Am I going to tactfully avoid parts of it in a way that I haven’t done since I learned the ending of all King Arthur stories as a child? 100%.
One of the things I loved most about Return of the Thief was that it had a very open and very hopeful ending. Many series – especially fantasy – end bittersweetly, with just a hint of hope. I LOVE that RoTT swung more to the hope end of the spectrum. But as much as the introduction claims MWT wants to leave room for imagination but not giving everything away, I think the last two stories in this book partially undermine that and undermine the hopeful and perfect ending of Alyta’s Missing Earring. It's a much more fitting bookend to the series – returning to Gen and Moira and the link between the mortal and immortal planes. Gen dressed as his god but more human than he’s appeared in ages. It returns to a Gen who doubts, rather than the infallible thief people in his time see him as, or Eugenides the Great that Gitta reads about in her history books. For me, the humanity of the characters – the mix of good and evil in everyone, even dislikable people like Sejanus - one of the series's best features. I think Attolia’s line about war turning people into monsters encapsulates it well – they are the beloved characters we know, but they have also done terrible things. It is virtually impossible to read this series if you are one of those people who thinks the ‘good guys’ should do no wrong. It reminds me too of Kamet’s stories about Nahuseresh. Certainly he has a lot of denial and repression going on, but Marin remains a sticking point in the argument that Nahuseresh is completely incapable of basic human decency. I’m rambling, but what I’m getting at is that the humanity of the characters has always been the best part of this series. The vague but very present family/royal drama in the last two stories of this book shift the focus away from the hopeful humanity of the whole series, so while I don’t really like the content of the final story, I can appreciate it as a sort of alternate ending, because it shows me how GOOD the real ending was. That story would have undermined the humanity of the rest of the series, but Alyta’s Missing Earring highlights the humanity of it. Viewed that way, I like it. If I view it as actual canon in the storyline of the series? I hate it.
If I were judging the first 90% of the book, I'd give it four stars. But the last two stories kind of kill it for me. The only way I can put up with them is if I view them as deleted scenes, or like the different versions of stories in Tolkien's legendarium: an interesting alternative, but left out or changed because they don't quite work.
Basically, the book as a whole is an exploration in worldbuilding that gives a bit more context to the main series, without any huge revelations except for a few devastating ones that hit you in the end. I very much doubt I'll reread it the way I constantly reread the rest of the series. It must be said that MWT is SO great at creating background characters that draw you in, but it just wasn’t what I was hoping for. BUT! I don’t know why I’m surprised: yet again, Megan Whalen Turner is Not Telling you what you really want to know. Young Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy
Journey to the world of the Queen’s Thief in this beautifully illustrated collection, featuring bestselling and award-winning author Megan Whalen Turner’s charismatic and incorrigible thief, Eugenides. Discover and rediscover friends old and new, and explore the inspiration behind Megan Whalen Turner’s rich world. A stunning and collectible volume to return to again and again.
This collectible companion to the New York Times–bestselling Queen’s Thief series is ideal for longtime fans, as well as readers discovering Megan Whalen Turner’s epic and unforgettable world for the first time. The collection includes all of the author’s previously published short fiction set in the world of the Queen’s Thief, as well as never-before-published stories, vignettes and excerpts, poetry and rhymes, a guide to inspiring objects from museums around the world, and a very special recipe for almond cake. Moiras Pen: A Queens Thief Collection