Posts Tagged ‘Book Reviews’

Circle of Magic Book 4: Briar’s Book


Finally I’ve reached the last book in the Circle of Magic series!! There are more books about our friends, the Circleteers, but I’m hoping they take place when the Circleteers are older and therefore ready to have ridiculous romantic drama. Once again, the main antagonist in this book is NATURE, this time in the form of an epidemic called Blue Pox which no one has ever seen before. Briar is the main character since 1) one of his street urchin friends contracted one of the first cases and 2) plant magic is ALL ABOUT finding cures for stuff since all medicine is made from plants. Most of this book is descriptions of sick people and Briar trying to help them, which was not really enjoyable since it made me vaguely queasy. I also realized for the first time that Briar’s teacher, Dedicate Rosethorn, is not an old lady, since a bunch of people remark upon her beauty and call her “young lady”. This discovery makes me wonder how old she really is, and whether or not this heralds a Daine/Numairesque relationship between them. The truth is anyone’s guess, since I also suspect that Dedicates Rosethorn and Lark are already in a secret relationship with each other.

The problem with these books is that all the characters love each other so much it’s impossible to tell if there’s supposed to be subtext or just “EVERYONE IS BFF WITH EVERYONE ELSE.” That is, except Dedicate Crane, Rosethorn’s chief rival and the guy in charge of finding a cure. He’s totally devoted to his work, but also totally grumpy and annoyed with every other character. Much like Tris, towards whom he is relatively cordial. Needless to say, Crane is my new second favorite character, and I secretly hope he and Tris get together later, leaving Winding Circle and its insufferably self-righteous spirit forever.

The other funny part of this book is how much of the plot is furthered by the simple truth that the Water Temple and its dedicates are apparently way stupid. Other books have included people remarking in passing about how everyone in Water Temple is an airhead and causes extra work, but in this book pretty much everything that goes wrong does so because someone at the Water Temple screwed up. There’s only one Water Temple dedicate portrayed as competent, but then she uses too much of her healing power and dies.

Briar’s Book by Tamora Pierce

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
Briar and Rosethorn are going to the slums! Rosethorn is going to give medicines to the free clinic and Briar is going to hang with his streetrat friends! Alleypup leads Briar into the sewers where his friend Flick is totally sick with blue spots.

Chapter two
Sandry’s appraisal of Tris: still fat and a bitch, but at least now she’s wearing nice clothes. Rosethorn, Briar, and Flick all go into quarantine because blue spots are an unknown illness! Usually during an epidemic, Rosethorn and her chief rival Crane work together to find a cure, but now she’s in quarantine!

Chapter three
Of course the stupid Water Temple is low on metal sample boxes so Daja and Frostpine go into box-making frenzy. Also, they’re low on magical gauze masks and gloves, so Lark and Sandry weave up a storm.

Chapter four
A few more people are brought to quarantine! Plus, Henna, the one competent person from the Water Temple, comes to help Rosethorn and Briar nurse. Lots more sick people are being found, mostly in the slums. Henna explains to Briar that if he’s not a healer he can’t use his powers to heal. All of the free clinic is now in quarantine since there are so many sick people!

Chapter five
Niko asks Tris to make the rain stop, because apparently WATER is spreading the disease! Tris points out that he has spent the last three books telling her not to mess with nature, but he pretends that this time is totally, totally different. She uses her Dopler 90000 powers to tell him that there is a 100% chance of rain for the rest of the book and there’s nothing she can do. Also, the Blue Pox has spread outside the slums! Read the rest of this entry »

Circle of Magic Book 3: Daja’s Book


The most interesting thing about this installment in the Circle of Magic series is that we get to learn more about Trader culture. Daja, the metal-working Circleteer, used to be a Trader until a storm killed her entire family. Then the other Traders declared her “Trangshi” or “cursed” and exiled her forever. As trangshi, other Traders don’t even acknowledge her existence and stay well away from her for fear of catching her bad luck. In this book, Daja comes across a caravan of Traders who are forced to deal with her since she has something they want to buy. Everyone learns a lesson about acceptance and how to prevent forest fires!

Daja’s Book by Tamora Pierce

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
The Circleteers and their teachers are on a field trip to the north! Daja is making some nails at the local smithy when a Trader woman comes in wanting work done for her caravan. Then she realizes Daja is a trangshi, and basically puts her hands over her ears shouting “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!” Daja is being attacked by a metal plant she accidentally made! Meanwhile Sandry accidentally burns some threads on this guy’s jacket, even though she doesn’t have fire magic!

Chapter two
We discover Frostpine the Smith Mage was (is?) a total player! The Traders inspect the magical metal plant thing and want to buy it! Daja demands that they acknowledge her presence before she’ll sell, and they grumble away. Apparently this valley is all about growing crocuses, and Brian accidentally kills one with lightning? Lark says this weird mixing of magic has to stop, and Sandry has to weave a map of their powers!

Chapter three
Sandry commands the circleteers to keep some thread with them for the next few days so it can absorb their essence or something. Lady Inoulia, who owns the land this field trip is on, is a total bitch. Her mage, Yarrun Firetamer, keeps all fires except grass fires out of the valley, and is kind of a jerk about it. To prove this, some cottage sets fire, and he finally puts it out, after wasting time taunting Niko about how he can’t. Rosethorn yells at him that the forest NEEDS fire sometimes; Briar loves it when Rosethron talks mean, if you know what I mean. Niko yells at the Circleteers for using magic to eavesdrop, and tells them they are BANNED FROM MAGIC until further notice.

Chapter four
Polyam, the original Trader who found Daja, comes back in a crazy yellow get up, which apparently is supposed to keep her safe from Daja’s bad luck. She is still super rude, and the Circleteers demand she come back with all the proper bargaining paraphernalia, like food, music, cushions, and a gift. Rosethorn makes them start making burn ointment, either to piss off Yarrun or because she’s seen the cover of this book.

Chapter five
Everyone gets food poisoning! Which is a weird set up to get Briar and Daja off by themselves, where they accidentally cause a fissure in the earth to open up, magically dive down to check it out, find some lava, hot springs, and a glacier! Read the rest of this entry »

Circle of Magic Book 2: Tris’s Book


This week I read the second book in the Circle of Magic series, Tris’s Book. Even though “Book Two” would be the only less imaginative title that springs to mind, this installment is the one I enjoyed the most out of the Circle of Magic series! Partly because Tris is the main character, and she is definitely my fave Circleteer! Not only is her weather power the most badass, but we also have a love of books and fat kid solidarity to pull us together. Plus, she always seems vaguely annoyed with most of the other characters and their relentless, cheery “let’s work together and we can change the world!” attitude (I’m looking at you, Sandry). It’s not that I have anything against the Circleteers combining their powers, I just wish they could do it without being so heavy handed about how inharmonious people cause natural disasters. Maybe it’s just because, like Tris, I’m pretty contentious by nature, and, also like Tris, I find most of the other characters (okay, mostly Sandry) really irritating.

This book is also clearly the best because it has an actual bad guy! And that bad guy is a pirate queen! And her brother, a pirate mage! Pirate magic attack, you guys! The other books have messages like “Some people are vaguely annoying, but you’ve still got to work together with them to defeat the real threat: nature” when our characters face earthquakes, forest fires, and an epidemic. Tris’s Book is the only one where the Circleteers are actually fighting against other people, which gives me hope that Circle of Magic Land is not just full of incredibly self-righteous people entirely. Usually I’m not so bloodthirsty, but I was beginning to doubt that actual villains existed in these books, so the pirate attack made me really happy!

Other than those two differences, the plot of this book basically follows the general theme of all Circle of Magic books: we learn some things about Tris’ past, everyone learns more magic, and the Circleteers combine their powers to save Winding Circle Temple from an exterior threat. Plus, Tris’s CLEARLY treacherous cousin comes to visit, and it takes them an annoyingly long time to figure out that he is totes a spy.

Tris’s Book by Tamora Pierce

The ReCap

Name: Sandry
Class: Noble
Power: Thread and weaving
Teacher: Dedicate Lark

Name: Tris
Class: Merchant
Power: Weather
Teacher: Niko the Mage

Name: Daja
Class: outcast Trader
Power: Metal and fire
Teacher: Frostpine the Smithmage

Name: Briar
Class: street urchin
Power: plants
Teacher: Dedicate Rosethorn

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
It is super hot so the Circleteers are up on the temple complex walls to catch a breeze. They magically here a conversation and a murder on the wind, and then two watchtowers in the harbor explode!

Chapter two
Niko the Mage needs Tris to solve the Mystery of the Exploding Watchtowers! She’s psyched to get out of chores, until she realizes what he really needs is to suck her power out of her for magic amplification! Not cool, man. Plus, all they end up figuring out is that some guys used magic to blow up the temple. Niko: clearly a medieval fantasy Nancy Drew. Tris finds an orphan starling and determines to nurse it back to health, despite having almost no empathy for other living things.

Chapter three
Daja is helping the smith Frostpine find the pieces of a buried magical metal net that was damaged in the last book’s earthquake. The net basically makes anyone who comes near it hallucinate wildly, thus somehow protecting the temple from pirates. But now it’s all broken up on this side! And Daja keeps seeing a disappearing ship out in the harbor! Pirate scout? Nah, it’s probably fine. Lark teaches Sandry to magically weave bandages. It’s just as unexciting as it sounds.

Chapter four
Rosethorn apparently knows all about birds because that has something to do with gardening? She sends Briar to get supplies for the bird and dinner for the cottage from the main temple kitchens. Briar is chilling in a semi-secret passage eating a possibly stolen pastry from the kitchen when he smells cinnamon and poppy which apparently automatically equals an invisibility spell! Sure enough, some doors open mysteriously when there’s no one there. Daja finally mentions her sort of invisible ship to Frostpine, who confirms that it is obvs a pirate scout, thanks for the heads up, Daja.

Chapter five
Duke Vedris, Sandry’s great-uncle, visits and tells Sandry that her parents were the most pathetic humans ever, but maybe she’s not as useless, despite the fact that at the start of this chapter she has passed out from EXTREME WEAVING. Vedris says that a pirate queen called Pauha is prowling around with her fleet looking for easy pickings after the earthquake, and–OMG–her brother Enahar is a powerful pirate mage! Aymery Glassfire, Tris’ cousin and a student mage comes by to ask Niko some stuff, and is unpleasantly shocked to find Tris there. Aymery starts acting super sketch and tells Tris her dad is dying and that she should probably go home. Tris is all “No one’s told me that so clears they don’t want me, thanks for making me feel bad jackass”. Then every magical crystal and mirror and bowl of water for telling the future cracks all of a sudden!!

Chapter six
Tris wakes up in the middle of the night and ends up on the walls staring at So Totally Not a Storm. Oh noes! Pretty sure a large pirate fleet is right outside the harbor, and now Frostpine wants Daja to help him strengthen the spells on the harbor chain asap. The pirates start shooting at the watchtowers anyways, and they have more exciting things than canonballs that explode on impact!

Chapter seven
The surrounding towns and villages start fleeing inside the temple walls since there’s, you know, a pirate fleet in the harbor. The Circleteers freak out a little about the pirates’ new “thunder-weapon”.

Chapter eight
Briar and Tris get sent on errands to Moonstream, the head of the Temple, and the kitchens. Briar calls skirts “flap-rags”, which is awesome. Moonstream is on the walls and at first all the soldiers and warrior mages are all “No kids allowed” before realizing that they’re talking to the main characters. Niko is on the walls too and tells them they have to wait for the navy to come rescue them, and that the pirates will shoot cannonballs at them, and then land once they figure out the magical LSD net is gone. The pirates start shooting thunder-weapon-balls at them, but Tris uses some wind magic to keep the walls safe–for now. The kitchens are super crowded since they’re cooking for all the refugees too! But the cook still gives them pastries. They meet Aymery coming out of the kitchens, and Briar thinks it is THE MOST SUSPICIOUS THING POSSIBLE that he got out of the kitchens without speaking to the cook. Aymery is moving into the cottage with them!

Chapter nine
All the senior mages are up on the walls, trying to use their magic to work in place of the LSD net. Rosethorn and Briar start doing some serious magic to build a giant Sleeping Beauty-esque thorn barrier. Pirates are landing and attacking with magical battlefire! Something happens to Rosethorn, but Briar calls to the other Circleteers telepathically and they help him finish the huge spell, but–ruh-roh–they’re psychically trapped in it! Luckily Aymery yells in Tris’ mind in the voice of their bitchy aunt and that somehow saves the day.

Chapter ten
Briar snoops through Aymery’s stuff and finds more SUPER SUSPICIOUS things: 1) he is a fancy guy, but only has a few sets of fancy clothes despite supposedly staying for weeks, 2) he has a magic mirror, somehow not cracked like the others, and 3) invisibility potion ingredients! That night Briar sneaks out and tells Tris his findings. His main argument is “Students are poor, but he’s got fancy shit! Where’s he getting that money? VILLAINY?” Aymery starts sneaking around at midnight and Tris and Briar follow. They discover a lot of drugged soldiers–presumably what Invisible!Aymery was doing in the kitchens. They follow him to the gate before Tris calls out to him. Aymery owes the pirates money, but still seems totally cool with them killing and pillaging. He shows Tris his Pirate Blood Contract Earring, and admits that her dad’s not really dying at all. He opens the gate for the pirates, who, of course, then kill him. Tris is PISSED and attacks everyone with hail, which also helps to wake up all the drugged soldiers.

Chapter eleven
Tris starts learning to get lightning to strike on command. One of those exploding thunder weapons hits the carpentry shops and starts massive fires, so all the adults run off to help. The Circleteers realize the earring Tris took from her dead cousin is still totally linked to pirate mage Enahar, like a cursed half of a Best Friends Forever heart charm.

Chapter twelve
The adults start talking about evacuating the kids, and the Circleteers throw a tantrum and decide to solve this war on their own. They start making a plan for how, during which Tris sneaks off alone. Luckily, Tris is fat so the Circleteers catch up pretty fast. Tris makes a cyclone to attack the ships, Daja starts taking apart all the metal pieces in the ships, Briar attacks them with seaweed, and Sandry has a protective circle around them to prevent enemy mages/the soldiers on the wall from interrupting them. Tris explodes a ship!

Chapter thirteen
Unfortunately, Enahar is still alive, and Tris uses her cousin’s bling to find him. Too bad Enahar has trapped them all in a “mage trap” and is stealing their magic! By this time, Niko, Lark, Rosethorn, and Frostpine have made it to the wall, and now they give their strength to the Circleteers. They break out of Enahar’s trap and Enahar dies! Also, the navy is finally here! Tris’ baby starling is healthy and annoying! She names it Shriek.

Next: Circle of Magic Book 3: Daja’s Book
Previously: Circle of Magic Book 1: Sandry’s Book

Circle of Magic: Sandry’s Book

I’ve decided to take a break from Tortall for awhile, not because I’m trying to avoid the series about Alanna’s daughter, but because I’m hoping it will be a SPECIAL GROUP PROJECT BOOK REPORT. We’ll see. Either way, I’ve had to turn to the Circle of Magic series, which follows the fates of four children gathered together by a powerful mage for their own unique powers. They’re basically a fantasy-medieval version of the Planeteers without the bling. Middle School Patricia read all of the Circle of Magic series, but she didn’t like it very much. Possibly having four main characters instead of one makes it harder to care about them, and, since they start out at 11, Middle School Patricia was clearly WAY TOO OLD for this book. There weren’t any love connections or anything. I really don’t remember much about how the other books go, but this one, at least, has a very meandering plot, given over to long descriptions of the children learning to control their magic and having lessons. The main antagonist is MOTHER NATURE in the form of a sudden earthquake two chapters from the end. Luckily the four children work together with magic to save themselves. The end. Yeah, I’m not really stoked to read the sequel, either, but I will power through. Here is the Planeteer Circle of Magic roster:


Sandry
Real Name: Lady Sandrilene fa Toren
Rank: Noblewoman, almost royalty
Magic: Thread-working. Basically, sewing and weaving
Tragic Back Story: Parents killed by small pox, survived by locking herself in a creepy cellar
Why I Hate Her: 1) she pretty much has a mullet on the cover, 2) it’s clear she’s supposed to be the “sweet one”, which means she has no personality, 3) she just wants everyone to get along. Boring, 4) it seems already like she and the boy are going to be an item, 5) thread magic is lame


Briar
Real Name: Roach, until he gave up his life of crime; now it’s Briar Moss
Rank: Thief/street urchin
Magic: Plants
Tragic Back Story: Orphaned street urchin on his third offense
Why I Hate Him: I know singling out Sandry as your eventual love interest gives it that cloying “We’re from two different worlds!” aspect, but could that BE any more cliche? Besides, Briar, you are kind of spunky and Sandry is SO BORING. You could do better.


Daja
Real Name: Daja Kisubo
Rank: Trader; trangshi
Magic: Metal
Tragic Back Story: Sole survivor of a shipwreck; cast out by her people as a trangshi, or bad luck
Why I Hate Her: Daja is actually pretty cool. The Trader class are looked down on by everyone, and now she’s even avoided by them because of her “trangshi” status. Like all Traders, she carries a big staff everywhere with which she kicks butt, and I like seeing a girl doing blacksmithery. The only reason Middle School Patricia was not her BFF was her constant whining about being all alone when clearly she has three besties.


Tris
Real Name: Trisana Chandler
Rank: Merchant Class
Magic: Weather
Tragic Back Story: Assuming she’s possessed by evil spirits, her family passes her around for awhile, eventually abandoning her at various temples
Why I Love Her: Tris was the one character Middle School Patricia was really rooting for because 1) weather magic is clearly the best, 2) she has red hair, 3) she likes books and libraries, 4) she’s the most adventurous magically, even if it means getting in trouble, 5) people tease her for being fat

The Play-By-Play

Chapter One
Trapped in the dark cellar hiding from small pox, Sandry somehow makes her embroidery thread glow for light. Adrift at sea, Daja makes a chest of supplies move towards her across the water. Later, she’s rescued by Numair Niko Goldeye. Roach asks some moss to grow in his usual prison cell to get a good night’s sleep. It’s his third offense, but before he can be sentenced to hard labor, Niko Goldeye tells the judge he’s taking him to Winding Circle Temple. Tris is at another temple where everyone is mean to her. She gets mad and it starts hailing. Niko agrees to take her to Winding Circle. He also rescues Sandry from that cellar. Read the rest of this entry »

Protector of the Small Book 3: Squire


Reading this book was a little bit weird because I know middle school Patricia stopped at Book 2, but I also vividly recalled the last few pages of this one. I’m pretty sure I was just so desperate to see if Kel finally, finally got to meet Alanna, the only Tamora Pierce heroine I cared about, that I went to the library and read the end. I know, it’s a little bit shameful. Reading the end before the rest of the book is considered a dueling offense in many librarian circles.

Anyway, for the first time since starting this project, I went into a book not really knowing what to expect. Obvs Kel must become a knight at the end since the next book in the series is called >Lady Knight, but beyond that I had no clue what would happen! In case you’ve forgotten from Alanna’s quest for knighthood, the way you become a knight in Tortall is:

1. Be a page
2. Be a squire
3. Take a ritual bath and get instructed in chivalry by two knights
4. Stay up all night in vigil in the chapel without speaking
5. Go into the magical nightmare chamber of the ordeal and quietly survive whatever it throws at you
6. KNIGHTED!

This book covers steps 2-6 for Kel, plus her first boyfriend, a lot of jousting, and near constant insults from random jerks. Some of the loose ends from Book 2, Page are tied up when the noble who paid hitmen to kidnap Kel’s maid and ruin her Page SATs is caught, his identity a surprise to no one. This book also starts to foreshadow what is going to go down in the sequel, Lady Knight as Scanra, the country on Tortall’s northern border, starts getting restive, sending raiding parties and creepy magic metal monsters to wreck up the place. At the beginning of the book, Kel is worried that no knight will choose her as a squire since Alanna is forbidden to speak to her in case someone tries to call shenanigans on her legit skillz. Luckily, Alanna’s old friend Raoul, Commander of the King’s Own, steps in, finally becoming a main character after two books of reminding us who he is. Raoul is pretty tough, but practical and fun, which pretty much describes Kel too.

I can see why Middle School Patricia got fed up before reading this book since, at the time, Kel and Co. were just not dramatic enough for her. She was frustrated when people who were mean to Kel were not SWIFTLY and IMMEDIATELY punished or shown the error of their ways, as would have happened in Song of the Lioness. I think she was annoyed that Kel and her story were a little too much like how things go in the real world. She probably should have just stuck to fanfiction. Now, of course, I really appreciate Kel’s forthright attitude, and the fact that not everyone is immediately her friend or even agrees with her in the end. It doesn’t stop her from kicking ass. Oh, she also briefly gets a pet griffin. It’s way annoying.

The Checklist

Animal Companions: Peachblossom (horse), Jump (dog), Griffin Baby, Sparrows
Magical Bling: Some griffin feathers!
Love Interests: Neal, briefly, leftover from Page; Cleon, for real reals; Dom, a slight unrequited crush
Old Friends: Raoul, of course, and Daine shows up a lot to help with this baby griffin problem

The Play-By-Play

Chapter one: Knight-Master
Welcome to the brooding practice court of backstory! Kel is sad because no knight will pick her as squire, but then Raoul picks her! Neal has been picked by Alanna because she can also teach him to heal with his magic. Kel is totes jeal, but Neal complains about Alanna’s temper. She’s just mad that no one can be as awesome as her, Neal!

Chapter two: The King’s Own
Flyndan, Raoul’s second in command, is annoyed that Raoul now has to “babysit” Kel, but everyone else seems pretty nice, especially Dom, Neal’s cute cousin! You know what they say, Kel, if you can’t have the guy you want, his cousin is almost as good. Lerant, the standard bearer, is also jealous because he thinks Kel will usurp his jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

Protector of the Small Book 2: Page


I finished this book the day I heard about the first women serving on submarines! Of course my first thought was, “JUST LIKE KEL!!!!” Hopefully the Protector of the Small series is required reading in Naval Nuclear Prototype Training, because I think it will really get them ready for the challenges ahead! And, you know, teach them some finer points of jousting. Hopefully no one will pee on their doors or do other mean things to drive them out like Kel is still having to put up with here in Book 2.

You’d think being finally made a “real” page and not on probation would shut everyone up, but, alas, Joren and his friends are still tormenting poor Kel. She bears it stoically as usual, and continues to work hard at being awesome. One of my favorite things about Kel is that she’s not great at anything right away. Girl works HARD to earn her spot at the top. She gets up earlier than anyone to practice and exercise, adding other exercise routines in among her duties throughout the day. Kel is Rachel’s favorite Tamora Pierce heroine and in this book I discovered why: Kel is super tall! Since this book covers ages 11-14, Kel not only grows way tall, but also gets boobs and her first crush! I’d tell you more about the plot, but it’s mostly “school hijinks, puberty, SUDDEN KIDNAPPING ADVENTURE” as if the book remembers it should have a climax only in the last chapter.

The Checklist

Animal Companion(s): Peachblossom (grumpy horse), Jump (mangy dog), a flock of sparrows
Magical Bling: Kel is not really into magic, but she does have an awesome stash of weapons and gear thanks to her mystery benefactor
Love Interest(s): Natch Kel starts crushing on Neal, her BFF, since he’s handsome, funny, and 5 years older, the recipe for a perfect crush; Cleon’s fake flirting may have turned into something more!
Song of the Lioness/Immortals Character sightings: Raoul shows up once to remind to you he exists

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one: Page Keladry
Kel saves a really ugly, sausage-stealing dog from being meat-cleavered to death by a butcher. Her gloomy servant begs Kel to hire his niece Lalasa as a maid since she keeps being sexually harassed by nobles and other servants. Apparently this will stop once she’s a personal maid? Joren is still a jerk.

Chapter two: Adjustments
Kel tries to give the dog, Jump, to Daine, but Jump just wants to follow Kel around. Kel discovers Joren and Co. hazing a first year named Owen and starts a fight. Owen helps out, mostly by bleeding, and thinks it’s “jolly”. Read the rest of this entry »

First Test: Protector of the Small Book 1


I am super excited to be starting Tamora Pierce’s third Tortall series, Protector of the Small, and not just because The Immortals Quartet makes me a little queasy. Protector of the Small starts a year after the events at the end of The Realms of the Gods and ten years after our beloved King J passed a proclamation saying girls can train to be knights. Finally someone takes up that challenge! Keladry, or Kel as she is called, faces a lot of the same challenges as Alanna did in her training, although without having to pretend to be a boy. In a lot of ways, this is worse, since she faces constant prejudice and unfair treatment both from her peers and some of her teachers. Though Kel looks up to Alanna, she’s very clearly Alanna’s opposite. Where Alanna has a temper, Kel strives to constantly “be as stone” and not let her emotions show. Her biggest pet peeve is anyone picking on someone smaller–hence “Protector of the Small”–and then she doesn’t hesitate to stoically kick some ass. Possibly because I’m more like my homegirl Alanna, it took me awhile to warm up to Kel, but I think by the end of Book 1 we are now BFFs. Middle School Patricia was less forgiving. Plus, by the time she read First Test, it was 8th grade, she was older, wiser, and had largely moved on to longer though not necessarily better literature. In consequence, I hardly remember anything about the two Kel books I know I did read, besides being constantly annoyed that nobody stepped in to make things more fair. Stupid boys.

In this first book, Lord Wyldon, the stodgy guy in charge of pages, insists that Kel serve a “probationary” year even though no boys have to, supposedly because he wants any excuse to send her home. Kel is pretty pissed at this, and the many other, injustices she finds waiting for her at the palace, but she grew up in Ancient Japan the Yamani Islands, where she was taught that to show emotion is to show weakness so she just shuts up and deals. Unlike Alanna, she has to earn most of her friends, since almost all the other pages hate her on sight. You know, because boys suck. Where Alanna feared cold most of all, Kel fears heights (future plot point, I’m sure). Kel is also the first main character in a Tamora Pierce series that doesn’t have some kind of magic, which Middle School Patricia thought was pretty boring, but I think is pretty cool.

The Checklist

Animal Companion(s): Peachblossom (bitchy horse), Crown and her flock (sparrows)
Magical Bling: None yet, but she does have some lucky cat charms
Love Interest(s): None yet, she’s only 10!
Song the Lioness/Immortals character sightings: King J and Healer Baird’s sons are both pages and Kel’s friends; Daine and Numair each make a brief appearance; Sir Myles, Lindhall, and Tkaa the Basilisk are all teachers; Sir Raoul shows up at the end to kick some spidren ass. Alanna is pouting somewhere else because everyone wants her to stay away from Kel.

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one: Decisions
Lord Wyldon doesn’t want to let a girl page in, but King J makes him. Alanna has to stay away because people will say Kel helped her cheat her way through. Kel wants to say no because probation is so totally not fair, then she is attacked by a spidren in the forest and realizes she needs any training she can get. If they send her home after a year, “I’ll still know more than I do now”(17).

Chapter two: Not so Welcome
Kel’s room is wrecked by mean boys her first day so the head servant gets her a special lock. Older pages have to sponsor younger pages and no one wants to sponsor Kel, I assume because they fear her raw girl power. Finally Neal of Queenscove, son of Duke Baird the chief healer, is all “Whatevs, I’ll do it.” He’s 15, not 10, because he started late after dropping out of healer college. He also sasses the teachers pretty much always. Read the rest of this entry »

Immortals Book 3: Emperor Mage


Daine definitely goes on field trips a lot more than Alanna got to. The third book in her series takes place in Ancient Egypt Carthak, where King J has sent a peace delegation to negotiate with the Emperor Mage Ozorne despite all the shit he pulled in the last two books. Daine is ostensibly there to heal the Emperor’s sick parrots, but really the gods want to use her as an instrument of their displeasure with Ozorne. Specifically, the Graveyard Hag, patron god of Carthak. She’s an awesome cantankerous old woman who enjoys rats, hyenas, and raising the dead, a power which she briefly passes on to Daine.

Numair is also along on this mission, despite having fled Carthak years ago after betraying Ozorne in some vague way. It’s pretty obvious that Ozorne is still super-pissed, but Numair doesn’t worry about it because he has old girlfriends to fool around with, while jealously stopping Daine from having any kind of love connection with the teenage crown prince. Plus, there’s this moment, which, as Alanna’s BFF, I am just not going to stand for:

“Mithros bless. You look very pretty.”
Kitten chortled while Daine blushed. “You think so really?” she asked, feeling shy. “I know I don’t hold a candle to Alanna, or the queen–”
He held up a hand. “That isn’t strictly accurate. The Lioness is one of my dearest friends, but she is not an exemplar of female beauty. Years and experience have given her charm, and her eyes are extraordinary, but she is not beautiful. Queen Thayet is astoundingly attractive, it’s true, but you have your own–something.” He scrutinzed her. “You should wear blue more often. It brings out matching shades in your eyes.” (15)

Oh, Numair. Nothing makes girls like you more than explaining why they are not being “strictly accurate” about their looks. And is Alanna “not an exemplar of female beauty” because she is smart enough to spurn your creepster advances, unlike the 15-year-old you are currently perving on? It’s comments like these (and the nickname “sweetling” he uses on her towards the end) that give this book a creepy rating of 3 out of 5.

The Checklist

Animal Companion(s): Kitten (dragon baby), Zek (monkey)
Magical Bling: Silver Badger Claw
Love Interest(s): Prince Kaddar!
Song of the Lioness Character Sighting: Alanna, Gary, and Duke Gareth are all getting their diplomacy on!

The Play By Play

Chapter one: Guests in Carthak
The badger god is pissed that Daine is in Carthak because the gods are about to lay the smackdown on Ozorne. But, since she can’t leave, he gives her raising-the-dead powers. Duke Gareth repeats to Daine over and over to behave herself, but she ends up jumping into the river to save a monkey.

Chapter two: Imperial Welcome
Daine meets: Master Reed, Nuamir’s old magic teacher, Varice, Numair’s old girlfriend, and the Emperor. Emperor Ozornse is one suave cat who loves his jewelry. Daine heals his birds.

Chapter three: Hall of Bones
Everyone goes on a tour of the menagerie! Daine meets some hyenas who think the Emperor is hilarious, and then discovers the “Immortals” section of the zoo! She thinks it’s weird that there are Stormwings in cages here, even though Ozorne is allied with them. She has a confusing encounter with an old slave woman, and briefly brings a dinosaur skeleton to life in the hall of bones.

Chapter four: Strange Conversations
Lord Rikash, the head Stormwing from the last book, is here! He is full of sarcasm, and is shocked when Daine tells him there are stormwings in the menagerie! Apparently it’s the old stormwing queen the new king claimed to have killed. Daine meets some animal-trainer slaves from some animal-worshiping tribe who insist that she must be the child of a god. Rikash gives Ozorne a gift of one of his steel feathers, saying if he’s ever in peril, he should plunge it into his skin and he will be spirited away safely. Numair yells at Ozorne when he can’t find Daine one morning, and Ozorne is all “Yeah, it is totes sketchy that you are probs sleeping with her” It hurts because it’s true. Read the rest of this entry »

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