I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason Series: The Thorne Chronicles #1
Published by Daw Books on October 8 2019
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 416
Format: Finished hardcover
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: A perfect mash-up of fantasy and science fiction, this book is an ambitious tale full of sparkling characters, political maneuvering, a cool magic system and much more. Oh, and Kreshti ferns!
OK, I was not prepared to love this as much as I did! I’ve read several reviews where the reviewer did not like Eason’s choice of narrative style, and so I went in cautiously, knowing that I might have the same problem with the story. Luckily, that was not the case for me. While I did find the omniscient POV quite different from what I normally read, this story grabbed me from the first page and didn’t let go until the end. I will talk more about the narration a little later in this review, but rest assured Eason’s story felt nearly pitch perfect to me, and I’m thrilled that this is only the start of a duology.
This is the tale of Princess Rory Thorne, the first girl born to the Thorne Consortium in two hundred years. After her birth, her father follows the old custom of inviting fairies to Rory’s official naming day, so that they can bestow blessings on her. But a thirteenth fairy shows up as well, quite annoyed that she hasn’t been invited to the ceremony, and instead of blessing the child, saddles her with a curse. The curse promises that Rory will be able to hear the truth whenever anyone speaks to her, even if they’re lying. Thus blessed and cursed, Rory grows up to be a smart, curious and happy child, that is until her seventh birthday.
At Rory’s seventh birthday party, tragedy strikes in the form of a suicide bomber and hundreds are killed, including the visiting King Sergei Valenko of the Free Worlds of Tadesh. Rory and the King’s son Ivar are unhurt, but the incident sends the multiverse spinning into war. Vernor Moss, the newly appointed Regent of the Free Worlds, has taken Ivar as his ward, and he facilitates an agreement with Rory’s mother, the Regent Consort, that Rory and Ivar will marry when they come of age. When she turns sixteen, Rory dutifully agrees to relocate to the space station Urse to be closer to Ivar, but when she arrives, Ivar is nowhere to be found. Teaming up with Moss’ younger son Jaed, her loyal body-maid Grytt, and two guards assigned to protect her, Rory sets out to discover the truth about Ivar’s absence and Vernor Moss’s nefarious plans.
You may have noticed some parallels to Sleeping Beauty (the fairies attending the birth of the princess and granting her blessings) and you would be right. I thought this was a great way to set the stage, especially with the humor Eason brought to the scene, as the thirteenth fairy is pissed off and decides to curse Rory instead of blessing her. But you will see as the story progresses, that this “curse” isn’t really a curse at all. Her “fairy gift,” as she calls it, actually helps Rory and gets her out of some tough situations. I also loved the way the author shows us when her curse is working (the italicized lines are the truth that Rory hears behind what the character is actually saying):
Prince Ivar was
terrified
“—pleased to meet you, and—”
I want Mr. Buttons
“—happy to be here—”
Probably the most surprising thing about this story was the way Eason combines rollicking space opera with fantasy and fairy tale tropes. It’s a combination I’ve seen before, but never done in quite this way. On the fantasy side, we have royal courts and princesses who have to wear ball gowns with corsets and follow strict protocols. And on the sci-fi side, the story is set in a “multiverse” full of planets and moons, space shuttles, and such familiar SF elements as drones, ‘bots and mecha implants. Tying these together is arithmancy, a wonderful blend of math, computer hacking and magic. Arithmancers can send their minds deep into the aether and use hexes to manipulate computer code. It comes in very handy, especially when Rory and Jaed are trying to sneak around and break into various off-limits areas.
This is a female-centric story, I’m happy to say. Rory herself is a delight, a bright and cunning girl with the weight of a kingdom on her shoulders, and she’s torn between doing the right thing—whatever is best for her family and kingdom—and trying to solve the mystery of the missing Prince Ivar. She definitely has a Princess Leia quality to her, a comparison I’ve seen in other reviews, and I was even more happy to find that romance is the furthest thing from her mind, even when she makes friends with Vernor Moss’ younger son Jaed. Rory’s teacher, the Vizier, has secretly been teaching her arithmancy, and she’s become quite talented at hacking into the turing network, casting hexes and disabling spy bots when she needs to.
Then there is Grytt, Rory’s body-maid (bodyguard) from infancy who has become a dear and loyal friend. Grytt was seriously injured during the birthday party bombing and now has several mecha implants, including a metal eye that gives her the ability to see hexes. Thorsdottir and Zhang are guards assigned to Rory when she relocates to Urse, two women who couldn’t be more different from each other, but are both equally protective of their young charge. Rounding out this tight-knit group is the Vizier, the Consort’s confidante and advisor, a talented arithmancer who ended up being one of my favorite characters. I couldn’t help but think of Julie Andrews and Héctor Elizondo from The Princess Diaries whenever the Consort and the Vizier were together!
I loved Jaed and Rory together as well. Rory agrees to teach Jaed arithmancy, which was a great deal of fun, as the two outsmart just about every adult on the station. I loved seeing Jaed gain confidence, since he’s often bullied by his older brother and looked down on by his father. And as I mentioned before, there isn’t much romance to speak of, which was a refreshing change of pace!
The only reason for the half star deduction in my rating is that at times, the narration dragged the action down. The narrator calls herself/himself the “chronicler,” which tells you that someone is recording these events for posterity. The chronicler has a tendency to start chapters with a history lesson, going off on a tangent about various world-building elements. And while these were interesting, I wanted nothing more than to be back with the characters in the thick of things. Luckily these asides were short and ultimately didn’t detract much from the story.
And I absolutely loved the ending! Events didn’t unfold the way I was expecting, which was a nice surprise, and Eason ends her tale with a nice lead-in to the next book, by wrapping things up—sort of—but also forcing the reader to wonder what the heck will happen next. I couldn’t be more excited for the sequel! Highly recommended.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.
Oh my goodness, I need this! It sounds brilliant — and the mish mash of scifi and fairy tales especially sounds like so much fun!
It’s fantastic, I hope more people read it:-)
I am running to the library on my lunch break and if I see this one, I’m definitely grabbing it this time around! Great review and it sounds like such a good read.
Oh cool, hope you can find it!
Oh another one for the TBR pile. Thanks Tammy, lol. This sounds great
Your TBR sounds like mine;-)
Sounds amazing! *adding to TBR list*
Yes! Hope you enjoy when you have time to read it:-)
I’ve been very interesting in this one. Great review!
Thanks Paul!
I have been so curious about this one and I haven’t seen much about it anywhere! The POV style really does sound interesting, I’m curious how I would like it. It sounds like the author has really done a great job of brining some new ideas and stylistic elements to her story, I’m definitely going to try harder to pick this one up soon now! Fantastic review. 🙂
Jordan Rose recently posted…Review: Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender
It’s definitely a narration style that you have to get used to, but the characters and the worldbuilding really sealed the deal for me and I grew to really enjoy the style!
Oooo, I do enjoy a good SF/Fantasy mash-up….I’ll have to check this out!
Caitlin G. recently posted…Review: BINTI: HOME by Nnedi Okorafor
It’s great!
I was totally taken by your review and the amazing blend of genres of this story: this goes straight to my “wanted” list, and it will probably become soon one of my next reads. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…Sci-Fi Month 2019: BROTHERS IN ARMS, by Lois McMaster Bujold #SciFiMonth
I hope you get the chance to read it, lots of fun and she’s such a good writer:-)
Oh, this looks FUN. I think I remember wanting to read this one before. Glad you had a good time with it!
Super fun! I read some “meh” reviews and I’m glad I didn’t let them turn me off the book:-)
I haven’t read yer review for this because this is another to read blind. But I am glad to see that ye really liked it.
x The Captain
Enjoy Captain! It’s a fun one.
Interesting. I was initially skeptical of this one when I saw it was a fantasy / science fiction mash-up. But you make it sound far more entertaining than I’d imagined. Perhaps I’ll have to give it a try. Great review, thanks much!
It was really entertaining, I had a hard time putting it down:-)
Wow, I love that there are fairy tales included in this one. How clever. I am adding it to my list. Lovely review, Tammy!
Thanks Jennifer, definitely worth reading:-)
This sounds really good. Think I’ll have to see if the library have got a copy. My poor TBR list is huge! 😀
Pages and Tea recently posted…Book Review: Bone China by Laura Purcell
Ha ha I know what you mean…
It’s amazing in your review how seamlessly it sounds like the science fiction and fantasy elementss are blending- princesses with mech enhanced body guards?! Plus- I adore a good retelling. I’ll definitely have to add this. Great review!
Thanks Sarah, it was so good!
You know, I was at the bookstore yesterday and had this in my hand but then put it back. I wish I had seen your review sooner because I never would have set it back down if I had. This sounds fabulous!
Oh wow! Well, maybe next time? Or hint hint, I am going to have an Instagram giveaway next week and this will be one of the books:-)
I’ve been so curious about this book since I saw it on your site, and I’m happy to see that you enjoyed it! I’m definitely gonna have to check this one out. It sounds like something I’m going to love.
Oh drat! Wish I’d asked for a copy of this one now. Although it’s probably just as well that I didn’t because I’m a bit behind at the moment.
Lynn.
Lynn recently posted…Tis the season for these sort of stories
This book sounds amazing! The title alone drew me in!
digicats {at} sbcglobal {dot} net
I’m definitely going to be reading this because the fantasy sounds so good. But I must be very superficial because part of my wanting to read this is because of the incredibly cool cover!
Hallo, Hallo Tammy,
I am still aggrieved about my own showcases for #SciFiMonth this past November,.. I never had the chance to visit with anyone and half my content is still in queue to be released. No pressure. Its not like the year is ending,.. lol I routed over to this review via your monthly bookaway as this is one of two titles which has intrigued me the most to seek out to read. Whenever that happens, I try to get the book through my local library – either directly if its currently owned, requested if not and/or seek it through ILL channels (when their in service as my state ATM is bonkers and is trying to erase those options).
Thinking I might have seen you tweeting about this in November.. I might have felt full of angst and woes this year but I was still reading my feeds for the tag #SciFiMonth and trying to stay engaged though failing rather miserably! 🙁
You might not realise it but you literally had me search online for ‘Kreshti ferns’!! Until I realised its a ‘world-building’ inclusion for this novel / world and NOT an actual IRL fern! Interesting though how it feeds off your emotional state of mind and changes colours… love details like those in worlds like these! 🙂
I also love you’ve mentioned this is a duology – those are harder to source and they happen to be one of my guilty pleasures because I am a serial junkie – I love staying within world longer than a one-off and I love revisiting characters,.. duologies have so much work to accomplish in a smaller expanse of time and space… that’s why I ache after them and finding wicked good ones takes time!
I can’t remember how you approach blogging about books – thus, I was thoroughly engaged and curious to know MORE about this story because of the way you blogged its heart. You’re writing reviews the same way I approach writing them myself. Dissecting the story, introducing your readers to the characters and the central arc of their journey whilst disclosing elements and components of how the world in which they live are built and/or where the setting takes place. Towards this end — what I now love and curiously so about this novel is how its a dual-focused SpecLit book spilt between two of my loves: Space Opera & the Fey! I read copious amounts of Urban Fantasy and most of those are centred round the fey in one capacity or another,… (ie. E. Chris Garrison, Jennifer Silverwood, Seanan McGuire, and others)
The concept behind the Arthimacers really held me at ‘hallo’ as that is something I was never good at but am constantly curious about… mathematics and coding. Ooh dear my… you’ve enthralled my curiosity now to the breaking point!! This definitely has moved up a notch on my #mustread in New Year selections!! Its because of how inclusive it is to all those elements I love in genre-benders and Speculative Fiction worlds of wonderment. There is just enough to tease you into a frenzy of bookish joy and then, as you said – by the conclusionary chapters you’re already in full ache for the second half of the duology!!
#JustWow.
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Rory Thorne sounds like a fascinating and fun mashup of fairy tale and space opera. I think I’d love it. Thanks.