Summary: The Queen takes a larger role in the final book of this trilogy.
It is unfortunate that this series is out of print and not yet on kindle It does not make sense to me why publishers are either not working faster on moving out of print books into ebooks, releasing books to authors to turn into ebooks, or authors claiming back their out of print books and turning them into ebooks on their own.
There are some books that are not good enough to re-release. But many books released in the 60s to 90s are good enough. I know the real reasons are often complicated (capital, not wanting to cannibalize current sales, technical know-how). But as someone that has formated three books for kindle for friends, it is not that hard. I think most books could be converted and formatted for less than $2000. Because of copyright, many will need new covers, which can cost just as much. But this is way less than actually writing a new book.
Open Road is an ebook publisher that has focused on taking older released by well known authors that are out of print and moving them to ebooks (and maybe new print editions.)
None of that has anything to do with The Beggar Queen other than the fact that this is a very good young adult series that is out of print. The paperbacks are easily available used and some new copies of the 2002 edition are still available.
In this book, Queen Augusta has spent two years trying to work out a new government. Her ‘counselors’ (Theo, Justin and Florian) have been working on a constitution but there is a number of road blocks. Augusta (or Mickle as we know her) is working to find a way to break the impacts.
And then Carabas finds a new way to try to take over the kingdom. Theo again has to face the fact that a man that he saved is going to try and kill him and Mickle and take over the kingdom. And Theo is needed to once again take on the role of military leader. People are going to die because he asks them to fight.
One of the interesting things about this book is that Alexander is not pushing a particular political ideology. He is not really advocating for or against the monarchy (at least through Theo or Mickle’s voices). They are against Carabas, but that is because he is a bad ruler and a tyrant. So there is not really a political ideology that is running through the book as political ideology.
Rather the theme of the series is duty. There is love of course. But duty, as least sometimes, trumps love. Such an unexplored theme in modern young adult literature.
The Beggar Queen by Lloyd Alexander Purchase Links: Paperback
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