Welcome to the SPFBO Champions’ League! As you know, this is a special edition where we try to find out who will be the ultimate Champion among the last 10 SPFBO winners. Check out our SPFBO Chamopions’ League page for more info! SPFBO Champions’ League ends on December 20th, and we’ll post our reviews every 3 weeks or so.
Our 7th SPFBO Champion review is for The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung, the winner of SPFBO 1. The reviews within a post will be in alphabetical order.
A quick reminder about how we are proceeding in this edition: our judges had the freedom to opt out of reading any of the books due to personal interest, time restrictions, unforeseen life events, etc. Our aim is to have at least 4 reviews/scores for each Champion.
Once again, we’ll have a DNF rule in place: if a judge reads a book (if they didn’t opt out beforehand), they have to read at least 25% of it, although encouraged to read at least 50% since we are talking about champions. At whichever point they DNF, they’ll have to write a review and put a score in our spreadsheet.
As per the new rules for the SPFBO Champions’ Editidon, there aren’t going to be any public scores, but we’ll have them to help us decide the ranking. However, they won’t be shared anywhere. We will also have a mixed set of old and new reviews, meaning that if any of us reviewed a book before, we can reuse that review. Therefore, we’ll mark our reviews at the beginning as old or new.
For The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, we have 6 reviews for your reading pleasure.
So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at our 7th Champion!
Table of Contents
| Series: | Amra Thetys #1 |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Publisher: | self-published |
| Date of Publishing: | October 8, 2012 |
Amra Thetys lives by two simple rules: take care of business, and never let it get personal.
Thieves don’t last long in Lucernis. When a fellow rogue is butchered on the streets in a deal gone bad, Amra turns her back on burglary and goes after something more precious than treasure: revenge. Revenge, however, might be hard to come by.
A nightmare assortment of enemies-including an immortal assassin and a mad sorcerer-believe Amra is in possession of The Blade That Whispers Hate, the legendary, powerful artifact her friend was murdered for. And Amra’s enemies will do anything to take it.
Trouble is, Amra hasn’t a clue where the Blade actually is. She needs to find it, and soon, or she’ll be joining her colleague in a cold grave, rather than avenging his death.
Arina
Read: 100%
Review: New
A fun fact about Michael McClung’s The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids, that I learned from the teammates, is that it was actually not the first book in the series to be written.
Maybe that’s why it was so polished, and it absolutely landed with me. Toe to toe with The Sword of Kaigen, this was one of the two strongest books in a competition of SPFBO champions.
Does “standing on the shoulders of giants” still apply, if the giant is yourself only a few years ago?
Because that’s what The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids does, standing taller with every page.
The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids is the story of Amra Thetys, a thief who is living a relatively calm life for someone with such a high-risk job until a friend, also a thief, asks her to keep safe a stolen artifact after he suspects his contractors will slip the rug from under him. He also asks Amra to keep his dog safe, which immediately endeared him to me.
Needless to say, Amra’s friend, as expected of a good thief, has sharp instincts and soon Amra is entangled in a web of ancient gods, outstanding magic, demons summoned from the deepest pits of hell, and an exciting battle of shadowy intentions.
Thus, The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids began warming its way into my heart by introducing dog-loving characters.
This short book brings many a mammoth to shame with the way it builds such compelling foundations of its world’s lore and characters, fleshing out a world where once gods walked and are now thought lost, leaving behind cultural shards I loved to read about.
McClung sets the stage for a longer series with a fun, rompy, game-ish first installment filled with charismatic characters, memorable villains, and complex dynamics that have only just started to flourish and promise many interesting developments and paths in the subsequent books.
After finishing book one, I immediately bought the entire series on ebook, and I can’t wait to find out what’s next.
Drew
Read: 100%
Review: new
The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids begins with a simple and oft used premise. A friend of the main character comes to them for help and is killed shortly thereafter. The MC then sets out to discover what really happened and to avenge their friend.
The good news is that The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids does it well, with an engaging, if slightly morose, lead in Amra. Told from her perspective, we get to experience a well drawn world, moving between the criminal underworld that she is familiar with and the more fantastical realm of mages, gods, ghosts and demons.
If there was a drawback for me, it was that despite the title, there wasn’t all that much shown of Amra being the eponymous thief of the title. Instead, she acts more like a private detective, following whatever lines of questioning are available to her.
There are enough possibilities left open and a lot of areas that could bear further exploration that the sequels could go in a number of directions. It also moves at a good steady pace, making this feel like a quick but definitely satisfying read.
Filip
Read: 100
Review: New
I was taken off-guard by how much I enjoyed this novel, the first in Michael McClung‘s Amra Thetys series and the first ever SPFBO winner. I say this not because I had negative expectations but because The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids hooked me three-four short chapters in, and didn’t let go; I blazed through it during a day of air-travel, and now write this review with the very last of my strength, because it’s the kind of book that I just have to gush about after finishing.
Reading The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids I am reminded of nothing so much as Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels. Many comparisons can be drawn: for one, deeply personal stakes draw professionals into situations well beyond their comfort zone, where their preference for carefully planned out operations goes to hell in a handbasket. For another, much like Vlad, Amra doesn’t realise just how many close friends she has, or how far they’re willing to go to bat for her. Amra is also funny, even–especially–in the face of untold otherworldly horrors and threats. And there are plenty of those, let me tell you – our girl’s luck is worse than you’d believe.
What a satisfying narrative arc the novel offers, too. Amra Thetys’ quest for revenge turns out at once so much more and less complicated than it at first appears. I won’t go into detail, of course, but McClung sets a brisk pace that at no point failed to hold me enraptured. Revelations are delivered with stark blows of violence, reversals of fortune claw at Amra’s heels, and fate looms heavy over the poor dear.
The friends and foes Amra makes are an excellent cast, all told: from the dastardly daemonist Bosch whose tendency to lose his head in flare-ups of furious, impotent anger has really stayed with me, to Amra’s most stalwart ally, the mage Holgren, these are characters I enjoyed reading about, characters who felt driven by motivations that made them feel that much more human. (Don’t get me wrong, some of them are really nasty pieces of work (re: Bosch) but hey, if there’s anything that’s become glaringly obvious in the history of our species, it’s that the human being can be one nasty wee critter!) In a sentence: I loved the character work. It not only complemented the plot but served as an ideal vessel to the worldbuilding.
I can’t find a single major thing to fault The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids over; not even a minor complaint comes to mind, just now. This is the easiest recommendation I’ve given yet, in part because I favour short works of fantasy fiction nowadays and at ~250 pages, McClung has packed most everything I love about this genre in such a neat package as to leave me well and truly delighted. I know for a fact I’ll be returning to Amra Thetys in the weeks and months to come.
Rari
Read: 100%
Review: New
I read this as part of the SPFBO Champions Edition and enjoyed it a lot.
Amra is a thief who is asked for help by Corbin, another thief and a friend. Corbin was paid to retrieve certain items by a client who took the items and refused to pay. Corbin has kept one item—a golden toad statuette—as a bargaining chip and wants Amra to hold on to it, while he goes to negotiate with his client.
However, Corbin turns out dead the next day, and Amra is questioned by the police, one of whom places a tracking spell on her. For help, Amra turns to Holgren, a mage and someone with whom she has worked before.
As she delves into Corbin and the trouble he was in, Amra realises she may have bitten off quite a bit more than she can chew.
This was a fun read, which is not to say light. The world is dark and grim, and despite the enlivening prose of Amra’s narration, it’s a bleak world and a bleak life. Amra’s situation– as a woman, a thief, a foreigner, an outsider—is pitiable though she doesn’t see it that way. The world building is excellently done in a way that makes it feel lived in without a whole lot of exposition. The characters and the lore are all intriguing, and though I would really like to read the rest of the series, I’m too broke to afford them.
If you love fantasy with a touch of darkness, a witty narration, and well fleshed out world and characters, you will love this book.
Timy
Read: 100%
Review: old
Firstly, I propose a showdown between Benedict Patrick and Michael McClung so we can decide who is the true king of “Oh My God Why Is This Title So Long” competition. I take bets.
Anyway. I’m not completely new to the Amra Thetys series as I had the pleasure to read the 5th book, The Thief Who Went to War before anything else – which in itself was an interesting experience. At that point, I already had The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids on my TBR for a while. Which, in case you didn’t know, was the first winner of SPFBO. And deservedly so.
The plot of The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids is not very complicated – a thief gets killed, Amra gets in the thick of it against her wishes, and what starts as a murder mystery quickly becomes something more complex as the supernatural gets involved. And boy, they do get involved. One thing I like about the world of Amra is that the deities aren’t only passive bystanders. Sure, they have their limitation and they are present in different ways than their human counterparts. That being said, I would have liked to learn a bit more about the world itself, about the gods, but since the book is just about 208 pages long and it’s filled to the brim with action, there wasn’t enough space for that too – which is not saying that the world is lacking. Because it’s not, it’s just me nitpicking here.
If one thing can be said about The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, is that it’s definitely character-driven. First, we have Amra, a well-accomplished thief who seems to find trouble wherever she goes. She doesn’t seem to have many filters between her brain and mouth, and pretty much says what she thinks. Behind the tough facade, she has a softer side, too. She is not one for trusting anyone easily, and Holgren is not an exception – even though they worked together in the past. By the way, I liked that they didn’t partner up out of the blue, but they had some history, and that their friendship builds slowly without rushing anything. It has a more natural feel than many more in-story friendships. Plus, I love their banter. You know what? I love the humor in this book, period.
“Good. I want to be around to see what’s inside, Kerf knows why. But I have some errands to run. You sure this bracelet is good for another day or so?”
“If any knives sprout from your back I’ll give you a full refund.”
“Comforting.”
Though a minor character, I definitely have to mention Lhiewyn, the priest of Lagna, the God of Knowledge. A grumpy old man who is just a pure joy to read about. I love everything about his interactions with Amra, and I was really happy to find out he already makes an appearance in book one of the series. I really, really have to read The Last God featuring him.
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids will take you on a fun rollercoaster ride. McClung created a world brimming with magic, gods, and highly entertaining characters you’d love to hang out with in real life. You really shouldn’t miss this series, as I know it only gets better and better, and OMG I can’t wait to follow these characters as they keep pulling on trouble’s braids.
Tru
Read: 100%
Review: new
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids is a classic fantasy heist/revenge story centred around Amra, a woman with scars who isn’t your average sexy thief, but rather a practical woman that gets shit done. When a fellow thief comes to her place seeking shelter and dropping off a mysterious idol, her instincts rightly leave her concerned, and then when he turns up dead, she’s left with a mystery on her hands and revenge in her heart.
Thus begins her investigation across the city to find her friend’s killers, but also discover the origins of the idol and why someone would kill for it. Along the way, we’re introduced to different parties that could have been involved, and Amra picks up a bunch of new enemies that threaten her life and cause her no end of trouble. It’s a short story at just over two hundred pages, but it packs a lot, including politics, religious cults, and a dash of magic.
Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t really connect with Amra’s character. I usually hate that as a criticism, because I don’t personally feel like I need to connect with characters or relate to them to enjoy a story, but Amra felt flat to me. Despite discovering her friend’s body and beginning an ill-fated quest for revenge, she didn’t really show any emotion, usually coming up with a quip in the face of danger. She also gave me ‘not like other girls’ vibes, especially when criticizing other female characters, and for that, I just wasn’t sold on her character. For a thief, there wasn’t much thieving going on either. My favourite character, however, was the mage, who would turn up and vaporise things effortlessly.
The mystery behind the idol and her friend’s death didn’t really satisfy me either, and by the end, I wasn’t really sure where the story was going, but it was clearly setting up a sequel.
If you like heists and revenge stories with characters that spout one-liners, you may be at home with this one, but it wasn’t really for me.
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