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Book Review
Nov. 27th, 2018 11:24 amAlphabet of Thorn
by Patricia A. McKillip
It's been a while since I have read one of Patricia McKillip's beautiful, fairy-tale like books. Alphabet of Thorn did not disappoint. The story concerns Nepenthe, a young transcriber and translator working in the vast royal library in the citadel of the Twelve Crowns. On the day of the new queen's coronation, Nepenthe receives a mysterious book in an unknown script from a student at the nearby Floating School of magic. As she translates it, Nepenthe becomes more and more drawn into and obsessed with the book, its tale of magic and conquest from the distant past, and the secrets it contains.
Alphabet of Thorn, like many of McKillip's books, emphasizes character, setting, and atmosphere over plot, moving slowly until the final couple of chapters. I love how she can make a world so rich and lovely and strange with such economical means - an evocative sentence or paragraph here and there accomplishes what many other authors take pages of exposition to achieve. The characters were wonderful, too. I love Nepenthe for her skill with translations and her ability to navigate her relationships and choices with clarity and purpose. I also enjoyed seeing the way the Queen came into her own.
by Patricia A. McKillip
It's been a while since I have read one of Patricia McKillip's beautiful, fairy-tale like books. Alphabet of Thorn did not disappoint. The story concerns Nepenthe, a young transcriber and translator working in the vast royal library in the citadel of the Twelve Crowns. On the day of the new queen's coronation, Nepenthe receives a mysterious book in an unknown script from a student at the nearby Floating School of magic. As she translates it, Nepenthe becomes more and more drawn into and obsessed with the book, its tale of magic and conquest from the distant past, and the secrets it contains.
Alphabet of Thorn, like many of McKillip's books, emphasizes character, setting, and atmosphere over plot, moving slowly until the final couple of chapters. I love how she can make a world so rich and lovely and strange with such economical means - an evocative sentence or paragraph here and there accomplishes what many other authors take pages of exposition to achieve. The characters were wonderful, too. I love Nepenthe for her skill with translations and her ability to navigate her relationships and choices with clarity and purpose. I also enjoyed seeing the way the Queen came into her own.
