Today I finished reading How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, by K. Eason, and I have to say, it was one of the best SF fairy tales I’ve read in a long time.
Rory is the first daughter born to the royal family of Thorne in generations. Tradition demands that the fairies be invited to her naming ceremony. No one seriously believes the fairies will appear, because everyone knows fairies don’t really exist. After all, Thorne Consortium is a star-spanning kingdom, technologically advanced, and fairies are… well, myth.
Then the fairies do show up, and each bestows on Rory a gift, last but not least of which is the ability to always see past the lie to the truth.
Time will tell if that’s a gift or a curse, though.
This is a novel full of surprises. Rory’s life is not an easy one, and she’s got to deal with assassinations, arranged marriages, a would-be usurper, a not-terribly-brave prince, a fern that can read her emotions, learning how to hack computer systems, surviving in a hostile space station, political maneuvering, and stealing a spaceship.
And that’s all before she turns seventeen.
I highly recommend this novel. It’s a collision of space opera and fairy tale, told with just the right amount of snark, and it works. It’s compulsively readable; I think I read the last 200 pages in about two sittings, last night and this morning.
I look forward to the second half (it’s book 1 of a duology), which I hear is titled How the Multiverse Got its Revenge.