I loved this book so much as a teenager, and I wondered if it would hold up to everything I remembered. I think I loved it even more as an adult. It's in the style of Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief and Jennifer Nielsen's The False Prince, but a little older and more violent (not terrible, just a bit).

What I loved best was Theo. As a teenager, I'm sure I would have wanted to marry him. As an adult, I want to be him. The way he wrestles with the ideals and reality is so real. "Who decides what's right?" he asks, as he notes good people on both sides and bad people as well. He believes that killing is wrong, but when someone has a gun pointed at his friend, he also wonders does his inability to shoot make him a good person or a coward. I want to wrestle with these questions. I want our society to wrestle with these questions. In this book, Theo stands in the middle of an increasingly polarized society, and sees reality, and asks questions of the people on both sides, and I love him for it.

I also loved how throughout the entire book, you see Theo making choices. He isn't just thrown into his fate. He chooses to stay or leave. He chooses to speak or be silent. And while he always seems surprised at the outcomes of his choices, the outcome doesn't determine what choice he makes. He is determined to make the best choices, even when some might seem misguided, and stays true to himself. I think that would make him good.

All of the characters were wonderful and most were over the top, something I have come to expect from and love about Lloyd Alexander's writing. It's an incredibly underrated trilogy, one that I look forward to reading again many more times. ( )

Good. A bit episodic; much left implied; would have liked more connecting tissue.

Lloyd Alexander is an author I have always enjoyed. This is one of his lesser known series but was actually the first one of his that I read and as such will always be a favorite of mine.This series is one of the reasons I enjoy "period fantasy" so much. ( )

really liked Theo. ( )

Whether this counts as fantasy is doubtful --as I recall, it does not have overt magic in it, though it is set in an imaginary early modern country. I read it a long time ago, and I recall, I mildly liked the first story which has a fairly upbeat ending but disliked the later stories in which the situation gets substantially darker --the apparent political compromise et up in the first book falls apart in a bitter revolutionary situation. More mature but less agreeable than Alexander's Prydain stories. ( )