How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse

October 27, 2020 7:44 PM - by Eason, K.

Rory Thorne is a princess with thirteen fairy blessings, the most important of which is to see through flattery and platitudes. As the eldest daughter, she always imagined she’d inherit her father’s throne and govern the interplanetary Thorne Consortium. Then her father is assassinated, her mother gives birth to a son, and Rory is betrothed to the prince of a distant world.

Described by the tagline "The Princess Bride meets Princess Leia."

Young Rory is the first girl born to the Thorne family, and is visited by 13 fairies on her naming day. Space opera/fantasy about the political machinations of arranged marriages, the importance of having a plan, and practicing arithmancy while playing the harp.

The sequel, How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge is out today. (Which I completely spaced on until now.)

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Author's page

posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit (4 comments total)

I grabbed this one based on the title alone, and was not disappointed. It's getting tough to keep track of all the good authors hitting my radar in the past couple of years, especially those that use initials (thankfully I can free up headspace previously taken by notorious terf jk rowling).
posted by Marticus at 2:32 PM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

I really don't remember what prompted me to add this to my wishlist, but I'm so glad I did! This is a really charming book, and I was rooting for Rory and her band of friends. Plus, the mix of fantasy and space opera is pretty fun, and you can never go wrong with an entire planet of not-Scotland.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 3:53 PM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

I really liked this book though, to be clear, there was no actual multiverse in the book, which was a disappointment. But the science fictional Sleeping Beauty story was a great deal of fun. I'm not sure a sequel is entirely necessary, but I'm up for it.
posted by jeather at 4:36 PM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yeah the closest thing to the Multiverse is one brief reference to multiverse theory and maybe, if you squint, the way arithmancers descend through levels of reality when performing their craft. I feel like the author did a find/replace to change things like "Lightbulb" to "Tesla" and "Computer" to "Turing" and "Handgun" to "Slinger" and "Universe" to *Multiverse." Not the worst sort of world-building but perhaps a bit unimaginative.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:55 PM on November 29, 2020