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Owen King

The Curator Kindle Edition

by Owen King (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.9 234 ratings

Editors' pick Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

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*Named a MOST ANTICIPATED Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of 2023 by Polygon, Tor, and Men's Health!
*Named a MUST-READ Book of March 2023 by CrimeReads and Gizmodo!

From New York Times bestselling author Owen King comes a Dickensian fantasy of illusion and charm where cats are revered as religious figures, thieves are noble, scholars are revolutionaries, and conjurers are the most wonderful criminals you can imagine.

It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest”, it is distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.

Dora, a former domestic servant at the university has a secret desire—to find where her brother went after he died, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be. Set against the backdrop of a nation on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth behind the mystery she’s long concealed will unravel a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.

Praise for Owen King:

“King writes with witty verve.” —Entertainment Weekly

“[Owen King] has a captivating energy, a precision and a fondness for people that are rare…King loves people as well as words.” —The New York Times

Print length

476 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Scribner
Publication date

March 7, 2023
File size

5419 KB
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Curator

“The Curator has its own smooth lyricism and evocative imagery, helping the book’s pages turn quickly. King has a knack for colorful metaphors and thoughtfully considered perspective. This novel is richly imagined.” —The New York Times

“Sprawling, densely populated, intricately plotted... with vivid prose, excellent minor characters, and a scrappy, every-which-way inventiveness. Dickens novel meets Hieronymus Bosch painting—dark, chaotic fun.” —Kirkus, *starred review*

“A fantastical panorama of twists and turns… King’s latest is a masterpiece of storytelling.” —Library Journal

“The Curator begins like an alternate-world history, with the rich detail and varied cast of characters giving it an almost Dickensian tone. A tempting brew of realism, fantasy, whimsy and terror.” —The Guardian

“King’s world is part moody Victorian, part Terry Pratchett, with a lot to discover alongside its plucky main character. The Curator is a true curio of a book.” —Tor.com

“A delightful new fantasy... King’s novel feels like the heir to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.” —Crime Reads

“The Curator sweeps us away to a unique fantasy world… a leisurely paced ride through the back alleys and canals of King’s fertile, creative mind. If you’re the kind of person who visualizes the settings of books as you read, you’re in for a treat.” —The Bangor Daily News

“An impeccably crafted, wildly imaginative world… at once fantastical and yet grounded in a too-familiar reality of corrosive greed and power grabs. With dark humor and a keen eye for detail, King invites readers into a genre-defying narrative that asks readers to imagine what might be and what could be, as a woman stands between two worlds of her own, asking the same.” —Shelf Awareness

“King’s strange, terrifying novel is part gothic thriller and part absurd, Bulgakovesque government satire. Wildly creative, this novel weaves and dips into class struggle and resentment, dark comedy, and bittersweet romance that will delight fans of twisty dark fantasies.” —Booklist

"It’s a complex, engaging, surprising historical fantasy that I applaud King for keeping under 500 pages, as it could have easily run twice as long in the hands of a less focused writer." —Polygon

“King expands his 2014 short story of the same name with arresting results in this Victorian-esque fantasy that contains moments of both horror and humor.” —Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Owen King is the author of The Curator, Double Feature, and We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Sleeping Beauties and Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories. He lives in upstate New York with his family.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B3Y8V4PJ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner (March 7, 2023)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 7, 2023
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5419 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 476 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #38,181 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #175 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
- #241 in Historical Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #351 in Historical Literary Fiction

Customer Reviews:
3.9 234 ratings

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Owen King is the author of Double Feature, and We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Sleeping Beauties and Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories. His next novel, The Curator, will be published in March 2023. He lives in upstate New York with his family.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

234 global ratings

5 star		44%
4 star		25%
3 star		18%
2 star		6%
1 star		7%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Melisa

What a great book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 25, 2023

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this fantasy,mystery, adventure. It's well crafted and a comfortable read. The main character was enjoyable and smart. There was a decent amount of scare, I really loved the mysticalness of it.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kent D. Reed

The great ride

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 10, 2023

Verified Purchase

I really didn't think I would be having all these twist and turned in the plot. Which, in fact, was what kept me reading.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

lee fritz

Good story !

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2023

Verified Purchase

The characters seem a bit " ridged " .

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Elaine Rodriquez

Looking forward to this book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 7, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book will arrive today. I just want to say how excited I am for this new young writer. Sleeping Beauties was written with his father, but I could hear a new voice as I read and it was a gentler voice, a voice I am sure I will enjoy listening to more of. I have read everything his father has written over the last almost 50 years (yes I am old), and I feel like his father is an old friend who has seen me through good times and bad. His voice is so familiar to me. His son will have his own voice, a voice that will see future generations of people through their own life struggles, a companion when they most need it. For those who read, they will understand and will support this new young writer. Buy books folks!!

20 people found this helpful

Helpful

ruth b.

Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 8, 2023

Verified Purchase

Great book.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kim Carpenter

Great book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 30, 2023

Verified Purchase

I love anything by you he King family or Joe Hill

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Ann

Great prose . . . and that's it

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 23, 2023

Verified Purchase

The book was interesting at the start, and then alternately devolved and evolved . . . into a mess. There was no "resolution" to bring together the message of the book. What did I miss? The descriptions, stage-setting were delightful but other than that, I was disappointed that so much was left hanging and unexplained. The abrupt shift of the dead inhabiting wax bodies was silly. What the heck with the cats? Zero resolution for anything. Again, what did I miss? I do not recommend this book unless you simply want to read some well-written descriptions of scenes/setting a stage.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

A decent book... but kind of muddy/confusing.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 24, 2023

Verified Purchase

It has a good story but the characters lack depth and are difficult to connect with. There are multiple storylines that just seen to trundle along only barely connecting to the main plot. The ending leaves SO MANY questions. Most of the way through the book, you're not sure who's good or who's evil. I had to trudge my way through it. I can see him maybe becoming a great author but only when he learns not to wander so far from his plots.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

LiseyP

Sci-fi, fantasy, satiric oddity

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 17, 2023

Verified Purchase

In the aftermath of the revolution Dora leaves her job as a maid at the university and becomes the curator of a forgotten museum. But with the screams of tortured people coming from one neighbouring property and museum artefacts which seem to link to an organisation her beloved brother was a member of before he died, Dora’s new life isn’t simple.

How do you review a book like The Curator?

It doesn’t follow any genre structure I’m familiar with, although there are fantasy and sci-fi elements. The whole thing is set in a semi-feudal society in a world similar to ours, but not ours. There is a plot, but the context behind it all only becomes clear in the final 20 per cent. The characters often border on the farcical. It’s readable, but slow-going, yet is sub-500 pages.

The only thing I’m sure about is that I liked the main character of Dora. She’s strong and determined and much more sensible than any of the people supposed to be setting up a new government.

It reminds me a little of War and Peace. There’s the war, or revolution in this case, based around big ideals. Then there’s the reality for the everyday people the revolutionaries claim to be fighting for. And for a lot of the book we’re just following the stories of the former maid, the street kid, the idealistic revolutionary and the career soldier who feels patronised by him. All set in the limbo of no stability or sense of order to replace the overturned regime.

But, then you’ve got the mysterious Society for Psykical Research, the torture chamber in the Embassy next door to Dora’s museum, a floating ghost ship and lots and lots of cats.

An interesting read.

4 people found this helpful

L. Young

Incredibly disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 20, 2023

Verified Purchase

Very much wanted to like this. The novel's premise was interesting and sounded right up my street. Sadly it was verbose, meandering to nowhere, with weak characters and very little in way of an actual plot. I could see what the author was hoping to do but the execution wasn't there, nor was the narrative style engaging enough. Disappointed.

3 people found this helpful

lorraine edgar

Boaring, nothing happens.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 1, 2023

Verified Purchase

So disappointed, had to give up less than halfway. Story goes no place.

Anders Thomasberg

Well as Stephens son It Can't be all bad

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 28, 2023

Verified Purchase

Bought it just on the fact that he's Stephens son. But it ain't Stephens type of book, though it ain't bad it's more fairytale than ghoststory.

Elaine

Didn't much like Sleeping Beauties, didn't much like this one either.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 9, 2023

Verified Purchase

It was an easy read, with likeable enough characters, but god was it slow. It's taken me days to read it as I kept putting it down and coming back to it. Determined to read it because of the price of it! Definitely a waste of money. Boring, pointless, dull. I really didn't like it, as you can probably tell 😊

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