The Thief is a fantasy story set in an indeterminate time. It opens with Antares mourning the loss of a parent and the separation of his siblings. It continues to focus on Antares’ journey on his own and the twists and turns of his plot line. We follow Antares as he is forced to learn new skills and coping mechanisms to survive his journey. It is full of surprise characters and new locations with different cultures and people.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story once I got into it. I was confused at the beginning trying to keep the different characters straight because the names were so foreign to me. But by the second chapter I had found a rhythm and I could follow each character as they were mentioned without having to go back and remind myself who was who.
There are some parts of the story when the characters talk in a language foreign to Antares (and to me!). It was a language that appeared to be created for this story. I quickly got bored with these paragraphs as there was little contextual information for me to understand these conversations, and no interpretation from any other characters to compensate. They did little to add to the story and I found myself skimming these sections and moving on to the rest of the story.
The story moved quickly enough to hold my interest but there was also adequate character and plot development. There was decent development of each new culture to help show similarities and differences of the surrounding areas and people that would overlap.
The introduction of magic was a little rough. It had no lead in and then just lingered in the background mostly undiscussed for a few chapters. It did add to the story but seemed a bit choppy.
The author did an excellent job conveying emotions and conflicts without excessive verbiage. I found myself rooting for the good guys and despising the bad guys with ease.
This appears to be the first in a series. Even with the few flaws mentioned, I had a hard time putting it down and I hope to have the opportunity to read the rest of Antares’ story.
Review by P. Farrington