Book Review

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason

I adored this book, but the title is misleading. As far as I can tell, “multiverse” is an exaggeration. This book is really about how Rory destroys galactic peace. Not even in the whole universe. Just a little bit of it. She does a really great job of it though. This character, and the supporting characters, and the narrator, and the entire book made me happy for every single second of the story and I’m kind of bummed out now that it’s over. The story is told as a history, written by an omniscient third-person narrator who is far from neutral. It’s wonderful.

We commence this story with a futuristic version of Sleeping Beauty. Rory, the new princess of Thorne, has a traditional Naming ceremony, to which twelve fairies are invited. The first eleven fairies give her various innocuous gifts – the ability to play the harp for instance, which turns out to be surprisingly useful later on. Naturally the thirteenth fairy shows up and curses her with “finding no comfort in illusion or platitude, and to know truth when you hear it, no matter how well concealed by flattery, custom, or mendacity.”

Happily there’s one fairy left (the littlest, natch) who gives Rory the gift “that you will always see a path through difficulties, and you will always find the courage to take it.

With that impressive combo duly given, the kingdom goes back to normal. Unlike Sleeping Beauty, Rory does not sleep for the next sixteen years, except for the amount that a growing child would be expected to sleep. Instead she grows up and gets a good education in the basics as well as arithmancy, martial arts and weapons, and statecraft. She also meets her young fiance, Ivan, who appears to be terrified of everything. They are scheduled to wed (in a political marriage) when Rory turns eighteen.

After a considerably amount of politicking, a bomb, a war, the passage of time, and the birth of Rory’s brother, sixteen year old Rory is sent to Urse, a space station, to marry Ivan. Ostensibly Ivan is the Prince and Minister Moss is the Regent. However, with Ivan doing “military service on the planet” and Ivan’s parents both having died violent accidental deaths, Moss is essentially the Lord of All He Surveys (my phrasing). He even has two sons who could inherit should anything untoward happen to dear old Ivan, leaving Moss the uncontested ruler of Urse.

Luckily Rory is not alone. She has her Vizier, and her body-maid, Grytt. Grytt, an ex-marine, has several cyborg components and supervises security staff, including Thorsdottir and Zhang (both of whom are women). I will here take a moment to point out that this book abounds in strong female characters, by which I mean characters who are intelligent, stubborn, and complex, as well as often, but not always, being very good at physical combat. I will also state, for neither the first nor the last time, that I adored this book, and one reason I adored it is that it deals with the difficulties of being a female ruler while also taking completely for granted the fact that Rory’s security staff, the heads of several countries, and Urse’s Ministers, with the exception of Moss, are all women.

Lately I’ve been criticizing half of the books I read for being too rushed and the other half for dragging. This book was paced juuuust right. There’s plenty of time to establish characters. There’s more diplomacy and strategy than fisticuffs. The narrator’s commentary allows the reader to feel immersed in a real history, with a touch of irony along the way. Rory’s gift makes every conversation a delightful play of what is being said and what is actually meant. Characters often surprise, but never break plausibility with regard to their characterization.

Most of the story involves Rory trying to save Prince Ivan, herself, the younger son of Minister Moss (Jaed, who has truly phenomenally well-done character growth), her staff, and two kingdoms from disaster. It’s a political thriller, a science fiction story, a retold fairy tale, a romance (although not primarily a romance), and a coming of age story. Everything is exquisite from the world-building to the snark.

It can be difficult to write a review of something that was so great without just listing off qualities that were good, which were all of them. I’ll close with a word from the narrator (who we never meet but who clearly has opinions about events):

A fairy’s gift is not a miracle. It can shape a person, delineate trends and tendencies, prescribe a set of preferences. But it cannot make a person bea certain thing. It is a gift, not an imposition. As with any gift, it is subject to wear, to damage, to displeasing its recipient. It can be ignored and stuffed in the back of a metaphorical wardrobe.

In that moment…Rory wavered. The thirteenth fairy’s curse loomed large in her awareness. She knewthat her future, the one to which wiser, more patient heads had counseled her, was only the beginning of a longer, more complicated dance. The curse would allow her to see the steps. She might gain sufficient skill to outmaneuver the Regent. She might see the jaws of the trap closing and be unable to stop them. But at least she would knowwhat was coming, and why.

The littlest fairy’s gift was a lonelier prospect. Courage always is, because it takes us into the unknown.

May all of us use our gifts as wisely as Rory, and when we fuck up, may all of us have as great a team as Rory watching our back.

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How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason

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  1. HeatherT says:

    I don’t get it — why is the thirteenth fairy’s gift called a curse?

  2. Ren Benton says:

    @HeatherT: As someone who finds no comfort in illusion or platitude and has a bullshit alarm that rings pretty much incessantly these days, it has been my observation that people who are able to accept whatever they want to hear as the truth live much happier lives. “Ignorance is bliss” is an idiom for a reason.

  3. Star says:

    @Ren Benton – Some people who refuse to accept anything they don’t want to hear eventually start drowning in cognitive dissonance when what they want to be true (very often specifically about themselves or things very very personal to them) becomes too obviously non-true, and they can’t cope with it. I’ve known a few people like that, and it’s… not pretty. But them aside, yeah, totally agree.

  4. Lisa F says:

    Sounds like a fun tweaking of Hitchhiker’s Guide.

  5. HeatherT says:

    I also find no comfort in illusion or platitude — only annoyance. I can’t imagine why anyone EVER would want to find such comfort and for people who might find such comfort (I don’t know anyone like that, but I do know they exist), I would think that having that taken away would be a blessing, not a curse.

  6. Kareni says:

    This sounds wonderful, Carrie. Thanks for your enthusiastic review.

  7. Rosin says:

    Sometimes it can be a comfort to hear someone say “it will be ok” and being unable to accept that offer of comfort and support would make the world a lot darker, for me.

  8. Floating Lush says:

    I’m reading (via audiobook) the sequel now, and it’s just as delightful as the first. 🙂

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