The Thief's Gamble: Book One: The Tales of Einarinn (A tale of Einarinn) [Paperback]

One of the problems those not already besotted fans have with genre heroic fantasy is the real vagueness of its settings. One answer to this is to slot it somehow into real time--another, more interesting one is to provide the imagined world with a past of its own. McKenna does this less through the provision of endless chronologies and king-lists than through her characters' sense of what has been lost--her magicians, scholars and thieves are all aware of how little they know of the past and how much there is to find out. All the chasing around, sword fighting and hair-breadth escapes of the plot relate closely to the quest for knowledge, for understanding of the strange dreams that come to scholars who own ancient artefacts. Livak starts off supplementing her income from gambling with a little judicious burglary of the sort of thing she knows scholars are buying; she finds herself first blackmailed, and then more willingly recruited, into a cause which comes to be her own. And who are the mysterious blonde thugs who dog our heroes at every turn? McKenna's debut has areas of clumsiness, but real charm and excitement to overcome them.

One of the problems those not already besotted fans have with genre heroic fantasy is the real vagueness of its settings. One answer to this is to slot it somehow into real time--another, more interesting one is to provide the imagined world with a past of its own. McKenna does this less through the provision of endless chronologies and king-lists than through her character s' sense of what has been lost--her magicians, scholars and thieves are all aware of how little they know of the past and how much there is to find out. All the chasing around, sword fighting and hair-breadth escapes of the plot relate closely to the quest for knowledge, for understanding of the strange dreams that come to scholars who own ancient artefacts. Livak starts off supplementing her income from gambling with a little judicious burglary of the sort of thing she knows scholars are buying; she finds herself first blackmailed, and then more willingly recruited, into a cause which comes to be her own. And who are the mysterious blonde thugs who dog our heroes at every turn? McKenna's debut has areas of clumsiness, but real charm and excitement to overcome them. (AMAZON.CO.UK )

A wonderful debut (J.V. Jones )

A brilliant new British fantasy storyteller has arrived.

In Einarinn, the secret of magic is known only by an elite few. They live in deliberate isolation, under the watchful eye of the Archmage. But nothing last for ever. Livak is a part-time thief and a full-time gambler, long accustomed to living by her wits and narrowly avoiding serious trouble. When she attempts to sell a stolen antique to a passing merchant, she finds herself pulled into a new and dangerous world of political intrigue in which the stakes are higher than anyone involved can imagine. For the antique she has acquired dates from a particular period in the history of Einarrin about which little is known, but much has been speculated. And when the truth begins to emerge, Livak decides to take the greatest gamble of her life.

What I was thinking when I wrote this book
I wrote this book because I was wondering if anyone else wanted to read fantasy with characters who had lived lives of their own, whose personal concerns were at least as important to them as whatever epoch-shaking events they might be caught up in. On a purely personal level, I was also finding much of the fantasy I was reading unrealistic; I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms but think about if for a moment. Other things I was getting tired of included heroines who went through their adventures untouched by human hand until ending up as the hero's reward in the final chapter and even more so of farm boys who turned out to be princes (unaccountably mislaid) or wizards (hugely powerful but not wishing to take over the world on account of being such darn nice guys) without anyone realising. Some writers can tell these tales extremely well but I was finding a limit to what event the most inventive author could bring to the traditional hero tale. I wanted to write about a world where things like politics, religion and sex are facts of everyday life, rather than cosmos shaping forces. After studying history at school, university and latterly just out in interest, I wanted a fantasy world where there is change, progression, advances in science and technology, literature and philosophy, where the world goes on its way quite independently of whatever it is has the wizards and heroes running around in circles. The more I worked on it, the more the ideas came together and The Thief's Gamble was the result.

Juliet E McKenna has worked as a bookseller, but is now a full-time mother and writer. THE THIEF'S GAMBLE is her first novel, and she is currently working on her second, set in the same world.