Looking forward to the next book by MWT

Here’s a column by Natalie Zutter for Megan Whelan Turner’s next book, Return of the Thief, which is now looking at a release date in 2020 rather than this spring.

Anyone who has been astounded by the twists and revelations in the past five volumes would agree that Return of The Thief will be well worth the time it takes to craft. And in the meantime, we readers can craft our wishlists for the series conclusion twenty-plus years in the making!

We sure can. Let me see what Natalie Zutter would specifically like:

a) More emphasis on friendships.

Sure, yes. I am particularly in the relationship between Gen himself and Sophos, and between the two queens.

b) No Deus ex moments.

Well, I don’t know. I kind of like it when we have a very small deus ex moment in this series. I particularly liked it when the god of thieves caught Gen when he started to fall off the roof that time.

c) More visions.

Yeah, no, not me. I prefer fewer visions, really, even though the one of the mountain erupting is a super important plot point. I really dislike precognition-type tropes.

d) Please don’t kill my favorite characters

Hah, yes, I’m dead sure we can all agree on this. Last thing any reader wants to lose a favorite character.

Though it’s way worse if the author appears to throw in a gratuitous character death in order to jerk the reader around. Suzanne Collins, looking at you. Also Stephen King. I don’t really expect MWT to do this? I sure hope not.

Plus of course readers are going to disagree about which characters’ survival are most important. Mine: Irene. I don’t want anything dire to happen to Irene. Also Gen himself. Among other reasons, I would count that as something dire happening to Irene.

And I really have a soft spot for Sophos.

d) Fool me one more time.

Oh, I expect we can count on a surprising twist in there somewhere. Yeah, this I’m not remotely worried about.

What I most look forward to: MWT has done really amazing things with pov in this series. In the next one, I am dying to see how she uses pov to influence the reader’s emotional reactions to the characters and manipulate the reader’s understanding of what’s going on.

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