The Stories That Change Our Lives – Inspiration from Tamora Pierce

On July 3, 2012July 3, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult1 Comment

Today I have a post up on my company’s blog, PhilanthroPost, about how inspiring I found Tamora Pierce’s books when I was growing up. I’d very much appreciate it if you’d drop past the blog to read it, and maybe leave a comment or a like! Here’s the beginning of the post:

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“Girls are 50% of the population. We deserve to represent 50% of the heroes.”
– Tamora Pierce

Sometimes the people who inspire us never existed. And sometimes it’s the people who created those fictional characters who furnish the inspiration.

Tamora Pierce is an author of young adult fantasy novels, and at the risk of sounding like I’m exaggerating, I can tell you that she changed my life. Tamora Pierce writes books about strong women, or “sheroes.”

When Pierce was starting out in writing, there was (and to some extent, still is) a belief that books about boys were more marketable. The theory goes that young adult girls will read stories about male heroes, but young adult boys won’t read about female leads—write about a boy and you have twice the market, meaning there weren’t as many stories about heroic girls, and not as many role-models for girls to read about.

But almost thirty years ago, Pierce wrote Song of the Lioness…

Read the rest of the story on PhilanthroPost!

Saturday Snapshot: Book Spreads

On June 23, 2012June 20, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot15 Comments

Do you ever spread your books all over the floor, to get a new look at them? Or a possible photo opp?

Okay, maybe that’s just me. But at various points I’ve spread out my book collections of three of my favorite authors–and they turned into interesting photos! In ascending order by number of books…

I have 18 Tamora Pierce books – basically her entire Tortall series (except Mastiff; I’m waiting on the paperback), plus my favorite Magic Circle book.

L. M. Montgomery accounts for 46 volumes of my book collection. There’s one book of poetry I still need, but other than that, I own, well, everything. If she wrote it and it’s available, I have it. I’m kind of a completist… But you know what’s very frustrating? I have 199 LMM short stories. One more would make a round 200, but you can’t get another one anywhere (they exist, but they haven’t been printed). I live in hope that someday they’ll put out a new collection.

And the biggest collection of all – 54 Edgar Rice Burroughs books. I’ve added a few since this picture was taken. Burroughs was extraordinarily prolific, so I still have about twenty left to collect… Someday I’ll have them all, and then I won’t know what to do with myself in used bookstores!

What authors do you have the most books by? And have you ever spread them across your floor for a photo…or is that just me? 😉

Check out At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots!

Fascinating Political Intrigue, Just Outside Tortall

On May 23, 2012May 23, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young AdultLeave a comment

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?

Another Lady Knight-to-be

On April 30, 2012April 30, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult5 Comments

As part of my personal quest to re-read all of Tamora Pierce’s Tortall series (18 books!), I re-read her Protector of the Small quartet during March…then took forever to get to this review!

The heroine of Pierce’s third Tortall quartet is Keladry of Mindelan. The first time I heard about this series, she was described as a girl with a knack for animals who wants to become a knight. And I thought…well, isn’t that just a combination of The Song of the Lioness, about Alanna who wants to be a knight, and The Immortals, about Daine with her magical knack for animals? It kind of is–but in most ways it’s not.

Alanna had to disguise herself as a boy to get her shield, but after her friend Jonathan becomes king, he decrees that girls can become knights. Then for ten years, no girl ventures to try it. Finally Keladry comes along, the daughter of a diplomat’s family who has lived most of her life in the Yamani Islands (a very obvious take-off on Japan). Alanna is her hero (should I say heroine?) and she dreams of becoming a knight so she can protect the defenseless. She becomes a page, but faces fierce challenges from boys and even instructors who don’t think a girl can be a knight.

The first three books (First Test, Page and Squire) follow Kel through her training, and the fourth book, Lady Knight, is about her first adventure as a knight, mostly commanding a refugee camp during a war. (Sorry if that was a spoiler to tell you she does eventually get her shield…) In the first book Kel is only ten, but like Alanna, she’s a very OLD ten-year-old. To diverge slightly, I actually have a theory about this. Pierce originally envisioned Song of the Lioness as an adult book. I’m guessing when she decided to make it YA, some editor told her the characters had to be younger, so she dropped five years off their stated ages; all of Alanna’s peers act pretty consistently five years older than they’re supposed to be. Once Pierce had established that pages start training at ten, she was stuck with that in this quartet too. I think my actual point here is, don’t be off-put by a quartet that starts out about a ten-year-old. Kel never feels that young, and she gets older quickly.

The animals turned out to be a relatively minor point; Kel has a bad-tempered horse, a disreputable dog and a flock of very clever sparrows, but the intelligence of the animals is largely chalked up to Daine’s presence at court. She has powerful magic that sort of seeps into the animals around her. Kel doesn’t have any magic of her own, the only Pierce heroine not to have some kind of magical ability.

Protector of the Small is in many ways a transition series, both for Pierce’s writing and my personal engagement with the books. These were written when I was in high school, so I read them later and less frequently than the first two quartets. I’m not sure, but this may be only my second time through the series. I like them, but I don’t madly love them the way I do the first two quartets–but I don’t know how much of that is simply my personal history and familiarity with them. I do know two people who say these are their favorites.

I like Kel, but I don’t love her. I admire her very much–more than Daine, if I really stop to compare admirability. Kel is tough and brave and, as the quartet title suggests, constantly trying to protect those around her. She wages a campaign against bullying among the pages in the first book, and gets into the defense of battered women in the second. In the fourth, she’s fiercely protective of her refugees. She’s a great character and a wonderful role model for girls. And I do like her–but somehow I don’t quite love her. Maybe she’s a little too serious, or a little too righteous, or maybe I just met her later than I met Alanna and Daine. She’s inevitably the other lady knight.

Alanna is back in a small supporting role, and I’m always thrilled to see her. Jonathan, Daine, Numair and a handful of other major characters from earlier books also have roles again, most notably Alanna’s friend Raoul, who if anything has a bigger part here. As ever, it’s fun to see how characters’ lives are going along. There are many good new characters here too. My favorite is Neal, Kel’s very funny best friend (him I love), probably followed by Tobe, an orphan Kel takes under her wing in the fourth book. There’s also a perfectly dreadful villain, Joren, who matches Duke Roger for charming viciousness.

I mentioned transitions in Pierce’s writing–Protector of the Small is definitely a changing point from the simpler earlier books to the more complex ones she’s writing now. It’s a little hard for me to explain how they change, because Song of the Lioness has complex characters and complicated plots and good writing…but somehow the more recent books feel denser and grittier and more mature. They do get darker, especially the fourth book, and the third and fourth are both much longer than earlier ones. They were written right about when Harry Potter was getting popular, and Pierce directly thanks Rowling for opening the door to longer YA books.

There’s something more realistic about this series, although I’m struggling to put my finger on it. Tortall has felt like a real, complex world from the beginning, but there is a certain amount of sorcery and legend feel to Song of the Lioness. Protector of the Small has less magic, and it gets into practical things like politics, diplomacy, the complications of supplying a band of knights, the difficulties of the legal system… Alanna went through tough training, but Kel seems to keep count of the specific training and the bruises involved much more. It’s just a bit of a different feeling.

In a way this quartet occupies an unfortunate space–I think I’d be more enthused about Protector of the Small if I didn’t love Song of the Lioness so much. It really only falls short by comparison–and to be not as good as one of my most favorite quartets ever…well, that’s barely a criticism, really. So, if it isn’t already clear, let me just say that this really is an excellent set of books, a fantasy series that is nevertheless gritty, with characters that are engaging and very human. Well-worth reading.

And now I’m down to just two more Tortall books to re-read! Stay tuned for a review of the Trickster books soon. 🙂

Author’s Site: http://tamorapierce.com/

Other reviews:
Respectable Collection
Young Adult Fiction & Whiskey Sours
The Literary Tally
I found a strange lack of reviews…I know other people are reading Pierce! Point me to your reviews! 🙂

Talking to Animals, Fighting Monsters

On March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

It’s not one of my reading challenges, but I have a personal goal this year to re-read Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books. I’ve been reading her new books as they come out, but it had been years since I read the older ones. I re-read the Song of the Lioness quartet in January, and it really is just unutterably wonderful. In February, I re-read The Immortals quartet–and that’s my subject today.

The Immortals quartet is always referred to in my mind as the Daine books. The main character is Veralidaine Sarrasri, an orphaned girl who discovers that her “knack with animals” is actually powerful magic. She comes to Tortall (the setting of Song of the Lioness); she finds a job caring for horses for the Queen’s Riders, and finds a mentor in the magician Numair Salmalin, who helps her learn to use the wild magic that lets her talk to animals. Meanwhile, the realm is threatened by strange magical creatures, who were locked in the Divine Realm 400 years before and are now escaping. These are the immortals–they can in fact be killed, but will live forever if they aren’t killed. Many of the creatures are in league with Emperor Ozorne of Carthak, who seeks war against Tortall. Daine and her friends, human, animal, and even immortal, have to unite to defend against the threat.

The quartet opens almost ten years after the end of Song of the Lioness. Many of the major characters from the first quartet come back in supporting roles here, and I LOVE seeing Alanna, George, Jonathan, Thayet and all the rest back again, and finding out what they’ve made of their lives. The new characters are good too. Numair is great fun and often quite funny–at one point he’s turned to stone, breaks free of the spell, and asks the spellcaster to do it again so he can try to break out again.

Daine is a lovely heroine as well. She grows a lot, both as a person and in her magic. Her magic develops, finding new abilities in every book. At first she can only talk to animals; then she learns to inhabit their minds, then to change shape herself. She also starts out very friendless, hesitant to trust anyone, absorbed only in her own life, and grows into relationships and a position of importance in the world. She also grows in her understanding of the immortals, realizing over time that they’re more than just monsters. She does find a place among very important people very quickly, which feels a little contrived–but only a little. It’s mostly justified by circumstance, and also by what I know of the characters. Queen Thayet’s friendliness to a strange girl from another country has more to do with Thayet than with Daine.

Other than Daine and Numair, the other characters that stand out the most to me are the animals and the immortals. Daine has at least one animal sidekick in every book. In the first it’s her horse, Cloud, who feels she has to take care of Daine and keep her from doing anything foolish. By the second book, Daine has adopted Kitten, a baby dragon. There’s also a wolf pack in that one, and a squirrel I just love. In the third book there’s a tiny monkey, and the fourth book introduces the darkings, inkblot-like creatures who are surprisingly adorable. And there’s Rikash, a Stormwing–half human, half metal bird–who brings Daine to see that even Stormwings, one of the most vile of the immortals, are more than just monsters.

These are in many ways more fantastical books than Song of the Lioness. There’s certainly magic in the first quartet, but it feels different. Magic is more like a tool, one Alanna uses or that her enemies use against her, or it comes up as part of rituals. For Daine, magic is a way of life. She’s constantly using her magic one way or another, her closest friend is a magician, and she’s always fighting magical creatures. It creates a different feel; in some ways it may make Daine a little harder to relate to, although it’s certainly a lot of fun to read about.

I love this quartet, although I will acknowledge it’s not quite on a level with Song of the Lioness. A few times there were point of view switches that bothered me, especially in the beginning of the first book, and sometimes the characterization seemed just a touch off–people weren’t saying things I thought they ought be saying. Those are relatively minor, though, and I mention them only because I know this was written after Song of the Lioness, and it makes me wonder if that quartet has issues too, only I’m so swept along by the characters and the plot that I don’t notice them!

A bigger issue in The Immortals is the romance. I don’t like it. I’m sorry to people who are fans of it, but I just don’t. I don’t want to give spoilers but…I will say Daine ends up with a character who is in all four books, but their relationship is very different in the first two books. In the third there are a few hints of something, but everything could very easily and reasonably be interpreted according to the earlier basis of their relationship. And then in book four there’s suddenly a romance. And I just don’t like it. It’s a particular kind of romantic story arc that almost never works for me.

But don’t be put off by that. Because whatever the minor issues of the books are, they’re still wonderful to read. I won’t say they changed my life, but they’re certainly another great example of a strong female lead in fantasy, and there’s a good message about everyone having strength and value.

Author’s Site: http://www.tamora-pierce.com/

Other reviews:
My Advice to Avoid Being Laughed Off the Page (includes spoilers)
Kathy Takes on Books
The Sleepless Reader
Tell me about yours!