The Thief's Gamble (Tales of Einarinn, Book 1)

by Juliet E. McKenna

Book Overview

The Secrets of the Shadow-Men Magic? It's for the rich, the powerful...the Archmage and his elite wizards and cloud-masters. Livak is not among them. She haunts the back taverns of the realm, careful... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061020362
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Length: 495 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 1.3" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

The Thief's Gamble. Female lead character

excellent writing. strong story well told. new take on magic. ordering the next book

Refreshingly excellent fantasy book

I used to really enjoy fantasy books, but increasingly I found that the vast majority were very poorly written, very predictable and very shallow, both in terms of the characters and the storylines. For quite a long time I didn't read them at all, moving on to better-written genres.Then recently, having run out of books to read, I noticed the Thief's Gamble, which I had bought a few months previously and never read. Once I started it, I was immediately hooked. It is SO well written. Both the first- and third-person sections work really well, and the characters have true human depth. You really feel that you know them after a while. In addition, you find yourself understanding all the details of the world - the gods, the seasons, the countries, the political situations - without any cumbersome appendices or boring sections of unnecessarily deep explanations, like you get in many fantasy books.Anyway, the extremely high quality and enjoyability of this book has set me back onto fantasy, and I can't wait for a sequel. Highly recommended. Go buy it now.

The Thief's Gamble

I found this book terrific.I can't believe its her first.and I loved the first person approach,and the fact that the heroine is of sterner stuff than the usual helpless,hapless,faint hearted sweet young thing,is a wonderfully refreshing approach.I highly recommend this book and can hardly wait for the sequel.This is an author that is definitely worth waiting for.READ!

Be Sure to take this "Gamble"

Strangely, I don't read much heroic fantasy, since I have never been able to identify with the many trolls, elves gnomes and the like that populate the genre. But, I love a human story. So it was with great pleasure that I sat down to read this book. It's great! The characters, especially, Livak seem to be real people in a fantastic situation. There's maturity in the storytelling. These are all grown up people and they act that way. There's a mad villian, but, he's not cackling like a maniac, which only makes him all the more frightening. There's enough action, romance and suspense to satisfy any reader. I can't wait for the sequel!

"The Thief's Gamble" was excellent.

I read a lot of books and this was one of the best. McKenna's fantasy world is wonderful. It may have things like wizards and the likes but the way she portrays everything is spactacular, very original.McKenna's leading character, Livak, is a wounderful example of a female "hero" or "heroin" as I should say. A well rounded character is very hard to achive and I feel that McKenna did an extrodinary job at it. The supporting characters were also good but more female ones were needed considering that the main character was female.The book also has an extremly good storyline and McKenna cleaned up the lose ends that most books leave you to wonder about. I feel this is a good thing because it makes the book a complete book and not one that relies on following books to tell what happened.McKenna you are a very good writer and keep the books coming.I will be looking for another book about Einarinn because the book did say it was "The First Tale of Einarinn"I recomend this book to anyone that like to read well constructed books with a dynamic storyline.The book was excellent.

Okay so I go to the bookstore needing a book fix....

And I pick up a book by an author I haven't heard of....And I LOVE it! So often you can pick up a book and find the promises made by the marketing people on the back cover are full of 'it'. This books stays true to the back cover's promises. Finding female characters that are worthwhile in Fantasy are hard to find at the best of times. They are usually dumb but pretty - fine. People buy this stuff and lap it up. The Thief's Gamble however has a gutsy female lead character supported by some rather interesting male characters (okay so some more lead female characters would have been a little better). The story is good and original - no dragons thanks! The plot is fluid and compact - and best of all the auther has a true stamp of personality coming through - this is her work - not a publisher.I loved every part of this - I want to see more - I hope she continues. Being someone who has read Janny Wurts and become disappointed with the trivial rubbish that seems to fill some of her later books, and the never ending epics of other like authors, I think this author has the promise of breaking the epic multi-volume plauge ridden book series style of writing - I hope so.