Book Review: Thick as Thieves
Feb. 18th, 2022 07:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI mentioned in my review of A Conspiracy of Kings that one of Megan Whalen Turner’s themes in the Queen’s Thief series is power, not just power between nations but power between individual people, and the way that a seemingly powerless person will use whatever scraps of influence they can pick up to try to influence their fate.
Thick as Thieves picks up where A Conspiracy of Kings left off to consider this question at much greater length and from more angles. Sophos, the protagonist of A Conspiracy of Kings, has spent most of his life trying to avoid power struggles entirely, and ends the book still something of a novice (although an unexpectedly effective one, to his own surprise as much as anyone). Kamet, the protagonist of Thick as Thieves, has not had that luxury. He has been a slave since he was kidnapped as a child, and not just any slave, but the secretary of Nahusuresh, one of the most prominent men in the Mede Empire, who is training Kamet to make him a fit present for the emperor himself.
Kamet has therefore lived his life swimming through power currents that run like a powerful and deadly set of rapids, which has made him “wholly attentive to any detail that might someday be used to my advantage.” He is a slave, and in some ways powerless to protect himself; the book starts with Nahusuresh hurling a statue at Kamet’s face in a fit of pique. And yet Kamet also has great power, too: he is in charge of Nahusuresh’s household, controls the accounts that pay the tradesman and free servants, and someday, he will be in a position to pull the strings of empire.
At any rate, that’s where Kamet thinks his life is going until some random Attolian shows up and offers to take him to freedom if Kamet shows up at the docks that night.
“Costis is back!” I screamed, more or less instantly upon making the acquaintance of this Attolian, followed by anxious murmurs of, “The Attolian is Costis, right? RIGHT?” Because Kamet continues to call Costis “the Attolian” until, oh, the second to last chapter or so, partly because he is trying to keep Costis at arm’s length emotionally and partly because Megan Whalen Turner is a great big tease who loves to keep her readers dangling by a string.
However, yes, it IS Costis, just as Costis-y as he was in The King of Attolia, which is especially fun given the gamut of reactions Kamet has to him over the course of the book. He starts off basically scoffing at him as an idiot Attolian: why on earth would Kamet run away to live in squalid little Attolia, land of illiterates (Kamet was there as Nahusuresh’s secretary on the diplomatic mission in Queen of Attolia and was NOT impressed), when if he stays in Empire he will one day be one of its most powerful men?
But then Kamet hears that Nahusuresh has been poisoned. And when a master has been poisoned, it’s customary that all his slaves will be put to death…
So Kamet meets the Attolian and they run for it, over which time Kamet is forced to admit (1) the Attolian is not actually as stupid as he looks; (2) in fact, the Attolian can be pretty crafty when he wants to be; (3) actually, the Attolian is distressingly loyal to Kamet and it makes Kamet feel icky because he is planning to ditch the Attolian as soon as he can because otherwise he’ll have to go to ATTOLIA, the cesspit of the earth; (4) the Attolian just fell in a well during a fight with some brigands and he’s probably dead and Kamet is free and clear of him and OH FINE Kamet will go back for him EVEN THOUGH it means Kamet will probably be killed by brigands too, GOD.
Kamet helps the Attolian climb out of the well, at which point they scare the sole remaining brigand who thinks the Attolian is a ghost, and Kamet and the Attolian hurry away cackling while the Attolian makes ghost sound effects. This scene never fails to make me cackle, too. The sheer vibes are just *chef’s kiss*.
(This scene highlights the fact that Costis contains multitudes. He seems so simple on the surface - I’m sure he’s convinced that he is a simple person, really - and yet what you see is not, in the end, exactly what you get. Kamet is simultaneously surprised that Costis is smart enough to have a sense of humor and that this sense of humor is so silly.)
And through their harum scarum road trip through the Mede Empire, Kamet is telling the Attolian snatches of the Epic ofGilgamesh Ennikar and Immakuk, which he translated into Attolian to while away the many boring hours in that squalid cesspool Attolia.
(I will never stop finding Kamet’s anti-Attolia diatribes hilarious, because he’s supposedly writing this account after the fact, while he’s in Attolia, by which time he’s realized that the Attolians are not as illiterate as he thought… but at the same time he can’t resist getting in a few digs.)
Kamet's translations are the most mythology we’ve had in the books since The Thief, and I am here for it. (Also loved Kamet's little talks about how he's chosen THIS variant of the story, but there's also that one and that one and THAT one.) I was a little less jazzed about the occasional appearances/interventions of people who are PERHAPS Ennikar and Immakuk - they don’t have the same otherworldly feeling of most of Turner’s appearances by gods - but then they are not gods, just mythological heroes, so in a way that makes sense.
I’m not sure when the Attolian decides that he and Kamet are basically modern-day Ennikar and Immakuk - he doesn’t actually SAY this to Kamet till the end of the book - but I suspect it happens, oh, maybe about the time that they leave the caravan? Whereas Kamet refuses to fully accept that he even likes the Attolian until after he goes back to save him from the well.
(Oh God, I've kind of talked myself into shipping it? Damn. Look, it's not my fault! Kamet keeps telling us how good-looking the Attolian is.)
Kamet has hitherto taken what you might call the Murderbot view, that SecUnits/slaves can’t be friends, and even though he’s no longer a slave he is not on board with this whole friendship thing. Does he really want to get entangled in a friendship, he thinks, as he follows up saving the Attolian from a well by tenderly nursing the Attolian through a fever at great personal risk to himself.
Kamet, buddy, pal, I don’t know how to break this to you but Costis is ALREADY your friend.
Costis, meanwhile, would clearly be doodling “Kamet + Costis = BFF 4EVER” on the corner of his notebook if he had one. When they arrive in Attolia and he realizes that Kamet is not totally on board with this whole friendship thing, he’s devastated, and also mad as hell - and so is Kamet, because, it turns out, Nahusuresh is not dead. Eugenides sent Costis to lure Kamet away in the hopes of learning something about the upcoming Mede invasion, which indeed he does, and arranged for Kamet’s friend Laela to lie to him about Nahusuresh’s poisoning to ensure Kamet actually leaves. So you see what friendship does to you!
We also discover that Eugenides spent some time masquerading as an errand boy in the kitchen of the palace of Attolia, during which time he struck up an acquaintance Kamet and asked him to translate the stories of Ennikar and Immakuk into Attolian, which is how Kamet happens to be able to recount it to Costis… Which is all very sweet, but WHEN did Gen have the time? It must have been before Attolia cut off his hand (I know Kamet is short-sighted, but surely he would have noticed a whole entire missing hand). He just spent hours upon hours lolling around in her kitchen?
Anyway. Kamet works through his complicated feelings about friendship, and Costis presumably works through his complicated feelings about Kamet, and at the end of the book they’re on the road to Roa in Magyar where (everyone devoutly hopes) they will be beyond the reach of the vengeance of the Mede Empire.
”Immakuk and Ennikar,” he said.
“Where?” I snapped my head around to scan the dock, and he nudged me with his elbow.
“Idiot. Us,” he said.
Thick as Thieves picks up where A Conspiracy of Kings left off to consider this question at much greater length and from more angles. Sophos, the protagonist of A Conspiracy of Kings, has spent most of his life trying to avoid power struggles entirely, and ends the book still something of a novice (although an unexpectedly effective one, to his own surprise as much as anyone). Kamet, the protagonist of Thick as Thieves, has not had that luxury. He has been a slave since he was kidnapped as a child, and not just any slave, but the secretary of Nahusuresh, one of the most prominent men in the Mede Empire, who is training Kamet to make him a fit present for the emperor himself.
Kamet has therefore lived his life swimming through power currents that run like a powerful and deadly set of rapids, which has made him “wholly attentive to any detail that might someday be used to my advantage.” He is a slave, and in some ways powerless to protect himself; the book starts with Nahusuresh hurling a statue at Kamet’s face in a fit of pique. And yet Kamet also has great power, too: he is in charge of Nahusuresh’s household, controls the accounts that pay the tradesman and free servants, and someday, he will be in a position to pull the strings of empire.
At any rate, that’s where Kamet thinks his life is going until some random Attolian shows up and offers to take him to freedom if Kamet shows up at the docks that night.
“Costis is back!” I screamed, more or less instantly upon making the acquaintance of this Attolian, followed by anxious murmurs of, “The Attolian is Costis, right? RIGHT?” Because Kamet continues to call Costis “the Attolian” until, oh, the second to last chapter or so, partly because he is trying to keep Costis at arm’s length emotionally and partly because Megan Whalen Turner is a great big tease who loves to keep her readers dangling by a string.
However, yes, it IS Costis, just as Costis-y as he was in The King of Attolia, which is especially fun given the gamut of reactions Kamet has to him over the course of the book. He starts off basically scoffing at him as an idiot Attolian: why on earth would Kamet run away to live in squalid little Attolia, land of illiterates (Kamet was there as Nahusuresh’s secretary on the diplomatic mission in Queen of Attolia and was NOT impressed), when if he stays in Empire he will one day be one of its most powerful men?
But then Kamet hears that Nahusuresh has been poisoned. And when a master has been poisoned, it’s customary that all his slaves will be put to death…
So Kamet meets the Attolian and they run for it, over which time Kamet is forced to admit (1) the Attolian is not actually as stupid as he looks; (2) in fact, the Attolian can be pretty crafty when he wants to be; (3) actually, the Attolian is distressingly loyal to Kamet and it makes Kamet feel icky because he is planning to ditch the Attolian as soon as he can because otherwise he’ll have to go to ATTOLIA, the cesspit of the earth; (4) the Attolian just fell in a well during a fight with some brigands and he’s probably dead and Kamet is free and clear of him and OH FINE Kamet will go back for him EVEN THOUGH it means Kamet will probably be killed by brigands too, GOD.
Kamet helps the Attolian climb out of the well, at which point they scare the sole remaining brigand who thinks the Attolian is a ghost, and Kamet and the Attolian hurry away cackling while the Attolian makes ghost sound effects. This scene never fails to make me cackle, too. The sheer vibes are just *chef’s kiss*.
(This scene highlights the fact that Costis contains multitudes. He seems so simple on the surface - I’m sure he’s convinced that he is a simple person, really - and yet what you see is not, in the end, exactly what you get. Kamet is simultaneously surprised that Costis is smart enough to have a sense of humor and that this sense of humor is so silly.)
And through their harum scarum road trip through the Mede Empire, Kamet is telling the Attolian snatches of the Epic of
(I will never stop finding Kamet’s anti-Attolia diatribes hilarious, because he’s supposedly writing this account after the fact, while he’s in Attolia, by which time he’s realized that the Attolians are not as illiterate as he thought… but at the same time he can’t resist getting in a few digs.)
Kamet's translations are the most mythology we’ve had in the books since The Thief, and I am here for it. (Also loved Kamet's little talks about how he's chosen THIS variant of the story, but there's also that one and that one and THAT one.) I was a little less jazzed about the occasional appearances/interventions of people who are PERHAPS Ennikar and Immakuk - they don’t have the same otherworldly feeling of most of Turner’s appearances by gods - but then they are not gods, just mythological heroes, so in a way that makes sense.
I’m not sure when the Attolian decides that he and Kamet are basically modern-day Ennikar and Immakuk - he doesn’t actually SAY this to Kamet till the end of the book - but I suspect it happens, oh, maybe about the time that they leave the caravan? Whereas Kamet refuses to fully accept that he even likes the Attolian until after he goes back to save him from the well.
(Oh God, I've kind of talked myself into shipping it? Damn. Look, it's not my fault! Kamet keeps telling us how good-looking the Attolian is.)
Kamet has hitherto taken what you might call the Murderbot view, that SecUnits/slaves can’t be friends, and even though he’s no longer a slave he is not on board with this whole friendship thing. Does he really want to get entangled in a friendship, he thinks, as he follows up saving the Attolian from a well by tenderly nursing the Attolian through a fever at great personal risk to himself.
Kamet, buddy, pal, I don’t know how to break this to you but Costis is ALREADY your friend.
Costis, meanwhile, would clearly be doodling “Kamet + Costis = BFF 4EVER” on the corner of his notebook if he had one. When they arrive in Attolia and he realizes that Kamet is not totally on board with this whole friendship thing, he’s devastated, and also mad as hell - and so is Kamet, because, it turns out, Nahusuresh is not dead. Eugenides sent Costis to lure Kamet away in the hopes of learning something about the upcoming Mede invasion, which indeed he does, and arranged for Kamet’s friend Laela to lie to him about Nahusuresh’s poisoning to ensure Kamet actually leaves. So you see what friendship does to you!
We also discover that Eugenides spent some time masquerading as an errand boy in the kitchen of the palace of Attolia, during which time he struck up an acquaintance Kamet and asked him to translate the stories of Ennikar and Immakuk into Attolian, which is how Kamet happens to be able to recount it to Costis… Which is all very sweet, but WHEN did Gen have the time? It must have been before Attolia cut off his hand (I know Kamet is short-sighted, but surely he would have noticed a whole entire missing hand). He just spent hours upon hours lolling around in her kitchen?
Anyway. Kamet works through his complicated feelings about friendship, and Costis presumably works through his complicated feelings about Kamet, and at the end of the book they’re on the road to Roa in Magyar where (everyone devoutly hopes) they will be beyond the reach of the vengeance of the Mede Empire.
”Immakuk and Ennikar,” he said.
“Where?” I snapped my head around to scan the dock, and he nudged me with his elbow.
“Idiot. Us,” he said.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 02:19 pm (UTC)Kamet, buddy, pal, I don’t know how to break this to you but Costis is ALREADY your friend.
*snerk*
Their whole everything is just such a delight.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 02:47 pm (UTC)ETA: I laugh in part because this is basically me doing anything I know is the right thing but I don't want to do. "No I won't no I won't I most definitely won't Nuh-uh, not never, Oh GOD OK I'M DOING IT"--all that in my own head, mind.
This review was tremendous fun to read.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 07:59 pm (UTC)I am pretty sure they are Immakuk and Ennikar from this point on, because it is the goofiest form of rescue from the underworld I can think of and therefore completely on brand for Kamet and Costis. Also speaking of the underworld, I enjoyed the near-verbatim quotation from Ištar's Descent in the retelling of Ennikar taken by Death to the grey lands:
ina bīti etê šubat dIrkalla
ana bīti ša ēribušu lā aṣû
ana ḫārrani ša alaktaša lā tayyarat
ana bīti ša ēribušu zummū nūra
ašar epru bubūssunu akalšunu ṭiṭṭu
to the dark house, the seat of Irkalla,
to the house whose entrants do not come out again,
to the road whose way is without return,
to the house whose entrants are deprived of light,
where dust is their nourishment and clay their food.
which means I regret only that Immakuk does not threaten to unleash zombies if he doesn't get Ennikar back. I really enjoyed the Mesopotamian remix in this book as much as I had enjoyed the Greek remixes of the rest of the series.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-19 02:54 am (UTC)The Mesopotamian remix is great! I don't think I've ever seen a Mesopotamian remix before (I'm sure it's out there - just not as common as Greek remix) on top of being so well-done and echoing their story (but not so closely that it ever felt contrived), it had the charm of novelty.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-19 01:29 pm (UTC)Also I just think Costis deserves a nice vacation after everything that's happened and while I realize this trip is very stressful for Kamet, Costis loves road trips and outdoorsy activites and frienship and is truly just having a lovely time. It's what I want for him. And yes, you are extremely right about how this book showcases Costis' intelligence and complexity, in the way that Kamet initially mistakes his genuine honesty and kindness for foolishness because he still has to learn that a person can choose to be those things.
(I definitely understand what you mean about Ennikar and Immakuk being less numinous than the Attolian gods, but
no subject
Date: 2022-02-19 03:14 pm (UTC)Now I'm wondering how Kamet looks through Costis's eyes! Is Kamet another one of those devastatingly attractive and impressive people that he's surprised to always find himself surrounded by? "I'm so lucky to get to have a whole road trip with such a brilliant storyteller," Costis thinks, dreamily gazing at Kamet over the campfire. "And he's so cute in his glasses, too! I have no idea why I'm always surrounded by such brilliant, beautiful people when I'm so absolutely average."
My impression is that Kamet sort of sees himself (because he has largely been treated as?) a brain on legs. Perhaps even more so because his one love affair blew up SO hard in his face, so he's sort of fenced himself off from the possibility, just as he has from the possibility of friendship? He may have to ease into it the same way he eased into the realization that (in safe circumstances) one can be honest and kind on purpose and not just because one is too stupid to be otherwise.
Costis would perhaps like SLIGHTLY less deadly peril on his Road Trip of Friendship, but OTOH he knew what he was getting into when he joined the Guard. Deadly peril is just part of it!
It's TRUE, though, Ennikar and Immakuk totally ship it, whereas what did Gen's gods ever do for his love life? They GOT HIS HAND CUT OFF. Such is the price of numinosity!
no subject
Date: 2022-02-19 09:07 pm (UTC)Anyway, one thing that struck me reading through all of your MWT reviews and the comments is that Kamet probably comes to realize that Costis ain't never gonna give him up and will always return for him. On the gripping hand, Kamet makes all kinds of excuses for Nahuseresh and I think slowly changes his opinion of their relationship. N would have no loyalty to Kamet.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-19 10:38 pm (UTC)And definitely Kamet rethinks his relationship with Nahuseresh in light of his relationship with Costis. Yes, Nahuseresh relied on him and could be indulgent in little things - but he had no loyalty to Kamet; he treats him basically like a very expensive tool. There's a part where Kamet recalls Nahusuresh dragging Kamet, who can't swim, through the water as they flee Attolia - not because he wants to protect Kamet, but because he wants nothing that belongs to him left on Attolian soil. That pretty much defines his attitude toward Kamet.