Author: cherylmahoney
I'm a book review blogger and writer. I have published four novels, The Wanderers; The Storyteller and Her Sisters; and The People the Fairies Forget; and The Lioness and the Spellspinners. All can be found on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. In my day job, I'm a Marketing Specialist. Find me on Twitter (@MarvelousTales) and GoodReads (MarvelousTales).
Fascinating Political Intrigue, Just Outside Tortall
Regular readers know that I’ve been re-reading my way through Tamora Pierce’s Tortall series for the last several months. I’m finally down to the last two–the Tricksters series, a set of two books about political intrigue, revolution and of course some romance.
These books focus on Aly, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Alanna, heroine of Song of the Lioness. Aly takes after her father more, George Cooper, former King of Thieves and current Assistant Spymaster to Tortall’s king. Aly knows all about picking locks and picking apart codes, about hiding her thoughts and manipulating a situation. She needs those skills when she’s captured by pirates and sold into slavery in a neighboring kingdom. The stakes get higher when Kyprioth, the Trickster god, arrives to offer her a wager.
This series, unlike any of the others, is set almost entirely outside of Tortall, in the neighboring Copper Isles. The isles’ natives, the raka, were conquered some three hundred years earlier, and have been living as slaves and second-class citizens ever since. But there’s a prophecy that their royal line will one day be restored, and Aly finds herself in the midst of a brewing revolution.
This is maybe the most fascinating Tortall sub-series. The intrigue and the plot twists and the thousand and one pieces Aly has to keep track of, especially in the second book, are all, well, fascinating. It’s probably the most plot-driven series, and in some ways the most focused.
All that fascinating intrigue, however, also comes with some costs. With a few exceptions, the characters aren’t as good. The members of the Balitang family, which Aly is striving to protect, are all good, especially Dove, who’s wonderful. And there’s Nawat, my favorite favorite favorite part of the book. He’s a crow who turns into a man, and is just adorable and delightful and my favorite Pierce love interest (except George, because I also love George). But there are also a lot of secondary characters who feel under-developed. They’re fine for what they are, but when I compare them to secondary characters in other Pierce series, I feel like they could have been better.
As to Aly, similar to Keladry, I like her but don’t love her. I also find her a bit less believable than the other heroines. That’s two issues, so let me start with the first one. Not loving her–I think she gets a poor introduction, and that first impression may be the biggest issue. When the book opens she’s sixteen and frivolous and doesn’t get along with her mother. That ought to be fine; plenty of sixteen-year-olds don’t get on with their mothers. But her mother is Alanna the Lioness who I love and admire and spent years of my childhood wanting to be. I admit, Alanna may be a very difficult mother, but if it comes to taking sides, I’m still never going to be on Aly’s side. She is a really good, strong character and I enjoyed reading about her…but I don’t love her nearly as much as her mother.
As to believability, we meet Aly older than most of Pierce’s other heroines, and more established in her skills than any of them. Usually, heroines go through a book or two (or three) of learning their abilities, of direct or indirect training, and only really come into their power by the end of the series. Aly already knew everything she was going to know about spying and intrigue when we met her–and there we have a believability problem. First, she is incredibly skillful for someone who has no actual experience. It might be easier to believe if we had watched her learn all the theory, but we didn’t. Second, George doesn’t want her to be in the field, and Alanna doesn’t want her to be a spy at all. And yet…apparently George and Numair and Myles and all sorts of other intelligent characters we know from other books have been teaching her how to be a spy her whole life. Some of it I’ll believe was meant to be games or more general skills…but George taught her how to overcome fear spells and Numair taught her how to create elaborate lies that no one could see through. They taught her that level of skill, and didn’t expect her to use those skills? Not quite consistent, that.
Still, despite a few issues, it’s a fascinating, intriguing, exciting, suspenseful book. There are some wonderful twists, occasional humor, and a handful of excellent characters. And there’s Nawat. It’s all worth it just for Nawat, and fortunately he’s not the only bright spot of the book anyway! I’ve also been re-reading Tortall and Other Lands, Pierce’s collection of short stories, reading the stories relevant to each series as I come to it. One of the best is a story from Nawat’s point of view, about a year after the Tricksters series closes. Definitely worth reading as well!
And that brings me to the end of my Pierce reading–it was a wonderful adventure, and I have corrected a great wrong in my world, that it had been ten years since I read some of these much beloved books. If you’d like to read my other reviews, here are the links:
Song of the Lioness
The Immortals
Protector of the Small
Beka Cooper: Terrier, Bloodhound, Mastiff
Tortall and Other Lands
Author’s Site: http://tamorapierce.com/
Other reviews:
Reviews from the Hammock: Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen
Ems Reviews
Emma Michaels
Yours?
Twelve Princesses, Plus One
What if the twelve dancing princesses had another sister? That’s the premise of The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler, retelling the fairy tale of the twelve dancing princesses from the point of view of their youngest sister, Zita.
This story starts out by tackling the question of why the king and queen opted to have quite so many children. The king desperately wanted a son (as kings usually do, in medieval-type kingdoms), but instead, daughter after daughter was born. Finally, the queen died giving birth to the thirteenth princess, Zita. The king blames her for the death of his wife, and the end of his hopes to have a son, and banishes her to live in the kitchens as a servant. As she gets older, she finds ways to secretly spend time with her sisters, and when they became mysteriously ill (and their dancing slippers keep mysteriously wearing out), Zita and her friends have to investigate to save the princesses.
I have mixed feelings about this one. It’s a cute story about a spunky girl, and it is nice to see a girl with close ties to the princesses rescue them, instead of a strange man coming in to save the day, as happens in the original. There’s some good description, especially about the damp, moldy castle–because when you think about it, a castle built over a lake probably would be moldy!
Somehow this just didn’t quite grab me, though. I don’t think it’s only that I’ve read so many versions of the fairy tale. There really are some issues here. For one, while the essential concept of the youngest, semi-banished princess is interesting, it also felt contrived. It’s hard to imagine a king actually doing this, or having his court go along without batting an eye. The king has twelve daughters who live like, well, princesses, and one who’s banished to the kitchen. It almost feels like a story about child neglect, with a parent who targets just one child, while a lot of good people watch this happening and don’t do anything–everyone in the castle knows what’s going on, and no one does anything. I don’t think Zahler was trying to write social commentary, but the situation creates a strange undertone to the story. Zita isn’t being abused, but she’s still in a dramatically different situation than her sisters, while right alongside them. It is, at the very least, incredibly socially awkward, to an extent that I don’t feel like Zahler really dealt with.
Zita’s separation from her sisters and status as a servant are essential to the plot, but I wish Zahler had found a different way to set that up. Create a question about her parentage (though that could be dicey in a Juvenile book), or say that her identity had to be hidden, or something…
The focus on Zita’s story also means that we spend less time on the twelve older princesses. I’ve already seen authors with longer, more-focused books stumble over dealing with a cast of twelve princesses. They’re often under-developed as characters, but this book is one of the worst for that. Arguably, they were never meant to be developed, since the book is about Zita, but it’s about Zita’s relationship with her sisters, and the major conflict of the plot is how to save them…so for the book to work, we have to care about them. Other than in a vague, general way, I don’t. They’re perfectly nice girls, but I don’t care about them as individuals.
Zahler doesn’t help matters by giving all the princesses A names–Aurelia and Alanna and…I can’t remember any of the others. I’m on shaky ground criticizing that decision, since when I wrote a retelling, I gave my princesses A names too (but mine all have nicknames and are rarely called by their identical-sounding A names). The only princess who’s developed at all is Aurelia, the oldest. The others occasionally get a comment in the narration to say that one likes to read or another is the prettiest or whatever, but none of that really goes anywhere. I only remember there was one named Alanna because of Tamora Pierce, and I don’t remember anything about that particular princess anyway.
On the other hand, Zita is a pretty good character, marked by strong loyalty to her sisters, and she’s in an interesting place trying to figure out her role and her relationship to her family. I don’t feel like that was explored quite as much as I’d like, but there was at least some good character development there. Her friends are Breckin the stable boy and Babette, a witch they meet out in the woods. They’re both reasonably good characters, if somewhat straight-forward in their friendship for Zita and their desire to help the princesses.
I think that might be the key to my reservations about this book. There are themes and characters that could have been more complex, and weren’t. What IS there is good, fun, interesting…but the book feels like it could have been more. I’m sure there are those who would tell me that this is a kids’ book, so how complex does it need to be…but I’ve ranted before about how deep kids’ books can be. This book is set up to be about parental neglect, sibling rivalry, discrimination (against magic-doers), thwarted love, and class divisions…but most of that isn’t really dealt with.
It’s a fun little story, and if you want a light, quick read, it’s a good one. But don’t expect it to be more, and if you only have time for one novel about the Twelve Dancing Princesses, there are others I’d recommend instead.
Author’s Site: http://www.dianezahler.com/
Other reviews:
The Bookwyrm’s Hoard
Debz Bookshelf
Eva’s Book Addiction
Anyone else?
Saturday Snapshot: Words of the Prophets
Today, another couple of shots from my New York trip…photos no doubt less popular with the tourist industry than my museum photos. But I actually got absurdly excited to see graffiti in a subway station. It’s because of that Simon and Garfunkel song. You know…
The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.
Tenement halls…
…whisper in the sounds–of silence.
Surely I’m not the only one who takes very odd photos on vacations sometimes? 🙂 What’s the most random thing you ever photographed…and why?
Check out more Saturday Snapshots on At Home with Books!
Fairy Tale Round-up: Rumpelstiltskin
Rumpelstiltskin has been gathering many fans in recent days, with his role in Once Upon a Time, so I thought I’d talk about that story this week. The original fairy tale is in the Brothers Grimm, and like many fairy tales, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
The story is about a strange little man who spins straw into gold for a miller’s daughter, so that she can marry the king (who has shown himself to be a real catch by threatening to kill her if she doesn’t spin straw into gold). The little man demands the girl’s first-born child in payment, but when he comes to collect he agrees to a second bargain, to relinquish his claim if the girl can guess his name. Exactly why anyone is doing most of what they do in this story…well, that’s mostly a mystery. And that makes it a good one for retellings.
In the Once Upon a Time TV show, Rumpelstiltskin has been one of the most fascinating and complex characters. He spins straw into gold, but he also has other fantastic magical powers. He appears as a kind of devil figure, who will grant your dearest wish…for a price. A series of episodes have also delved into his past. What we haven’t seen, actually, is a direct retelling of his original story! Maybe next season.
Spinners by Donna Jo Napoli and Richard Tchen casts Rumpelstiltskin as an ordinary man who crippled himself at a spinning wheel, trying to win the girl he loves. The girl instead marries the miller, and has a daughter who proves to be a master spinner. And one day she catches the eye of the king… I loved the way this novel explored the characters, giving them greater depth and motivations. I really liked it…up until the end, and then I was disappointed. I don’t want to give it all away, but I will say I was hoping for a happier ending than I ended up getting.
Straw Into Gold by Gary D. Schmidt is set ten years after the usual story of Rumpelstiltskin ended, but with a twist–the Queen didn’t guess Rumpelstiltskin’s name, and lost her child to him. The protagonist is Tousle, who has been raised by a mysterious little man who spins. Tousle may or may not be the missing prince. I love the concept of this, but I think it would have been better if it had more clearly told the original Rumpelstiltskin story, before getting to the results. There are a lot of complicated conspiracy things going on, and some of the characters make questionable choices which are supposed to be secretly good…but I didn’t know the characters well enough to quite believe that.
The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivan Vande Velde casts Rumpelstiltskin as the villain–and the hero–and maybe he’s just an invention of the miller’s daughter. Vivian Vande Velde looks at fairy tales the same way I do. She asks why people are doing what they’re doing, and points out the parts that don’t even remotely add up, and wants to know what the logic of it all is. This book has a wonderful introduction analyzing “Rumpelstiltskin,” and then she wrote six short stories taking the story in all different ways. It’s a wonderful collection of similar-but-oh-so-different stories, and shows in a single volume how much you can do with a fairy tale.
Tales of the Marvelous 