3.5* out of 5*

I tore through this book in about a day, which surprised me, the enjoyment factor was definitely there.

The author has some good ideas, and although the execution at times could be a bit better, the overall story is pretty enjoyable.

Interesting "magic", a main character that you can feel for and an ending that isn't a cliffhanger. The book also packs in a decent amount of action. ( )

Doubt I'll bother with the rest of the series though... too many others that interest me more. ( )

The Skewed Throne sits in the palace of the city of Amenkor, from where the Mistress guides the city. However, since the White Fire swept through the city more than six years ago, Amenkor has been degenerating, and the current Mistress's directions seem to be more and more detrimental than beneficial. From long habit, her orders are carried out and never questioned, but now the survival of the city is at stake. So she must be replaced; but it seems that the Skewed Throne will not accept a replacement for a Mistress who is still alive ...

We follow Varis as she steals through the Palace on a mission. As she moves through the corridors avoiding the guards, we learn her story, and the reasons and events in her hard life leading to this point.

Varis has been a child of the streets since the age of six. Not just any streets, but the streets beyond the Dredge, which separates the city of Amenkor from the slums where every day is hand to mouth survival. At fourteen, she killed a man in self-defence (not for the first time), and was found by Erick, the Seeker for the Mistress, whose job it was to find and assassinate criminals as directed by the Mistress. But the slums were getting tougher and more crowded, so he recruited her as his eyes and ears and dubbed her varis, which means 'hunter', when she was unable to tell him her name.

Though Erick trained her properly in knife fighting to defend herself and rewarded her with food whenever she found a mark for him, life was still tough for Varis. She had one more trick to survival, however; she could sense her surroundings, like being submerged in a river where everything was gray, but red indicated danger. She was surviving, but Varis wanted something more. She didn't want to turn into a killer.

Usually, violence will turn me away from a book, especially if it is gratuitous. Here, though, it is absolutely integral to the story. There is an ethereal sadness haunting the story, of what might have been. Varis is layered in wariness and grime, but underneath her suspicious nature, and unrecognised by her, she still hungers for the family she lost long ago.

This is Palmatier's fantasy debut, but it is a very strong novel, tightly woven and intense. I found it not so much a page-turner, where I couldn't wait to find out what happened next, as totally engrossing. The story pulled me in and swept me along until I emerged reluctantly much later; the pages turned themselves.

(Just one comment, though (minor point); it would have been nice to have had a map of the palace.)

Read it.

5 stars
( )

http://fantasycafe.blogspot.com/2008/01/review-of-skewed-throne.html ( )

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I think for a debut novel it was terrific, and I'm looking forward to finishing up the rest of the story, and seeing how Palmatier's voice develops.
The first half of the book is a little slow, but at the same time, I really liked the way the real environment was set up. Despite having something of a set of morals, Varis is no "thief with a heart of gold." The reader gets a very good sense of what it's like to grow up on the streets of the Dredge, one step away from starvation.
It seemed that the end happened all in a rush, after many pages of slow setup. For me, the book didn't really start to move until Varis met Borund.
There were a few things that bugged me. Varis seems to get her face mashed into people's chests rather frequently. I don't know if this was an attempt to make her small size and fragility more apparent or what, but it did seem to happen a lot.
Also, I would have thought that, growing up an uneducated guttersnipe as she did, that she would be mostly ignorant of the greater city and what lay beyond it. Yet she seems awfully aware and knowledgeable about "the real Amenkor." Most children I have read true accounts of, who grow up in that sort of poverty, are too concentrated on where their next bit of food is coming from to have any sense of the rest of the world. Palmatier did such a good job of describing and making me really feel Varis' world of the Dredge and what her life was like, that her knowledge just struck me as slightly incongruous.

All in all, I did enjoy this, and I am looking forward to reading the next one! ( )