Trickster's Choice - Tamora Pierce

[goodreads]

Title: Trickster's Choice
Author: Tamora Pierce
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Rating: 8/10
# pages: 432
Date read: March, 2007; September 2006

Summary: Alianne, or Aly, daughter of the warrior queen Alanna the Lioness, has the skills of both her mother and father as well as a delicious sense of humor, which serves her well when she is chosen by the trickster god Kyprioth to serve as his secret agent and a slave for a year in the embattled Copper Isles. There the dark-skinned natives, or raka, have been conquered and crushed by the laurin, light-skinned people from the mainland. The burning raka resentment is fueled by prophecies of a twice royal queen who will free them, aided by the "wise one, the cunning one, the strong one, the warrior, and the crows." Just how each of the colorful characters and Aly herself fit into this prophecy and Kyprioth's tricky plan keeps readers guessing. Aly plots to show her skill at spying as she flirts with the god and is courted by Nawat, a crow transformed into a handsome young man, who is puzzled when she rejects his attempts to mate-feed her with grubs and ants. (From Amazon.com)

Review: After having read "The Circle" books, it was nice to get back to Tortall, even if this book doesn't quite live up to the standards set by "Alanna" and "Protector of the Small". Aly is even more 'the hero who saves the day' in every situation than Alanna and Kell were. Of course she is the main character, but it gets old to read how she just cannot do anything wrong (almost), but comes to the rescue when everybody else is stumped again and again.

But perhaps that's just me being overly critical ;-) It is an enjoyable book and one I had no problems rereading just 6 months after my first read-through of it.

Book List

Comments

[aurillia.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any Tamora Pierce books yet, though I've seen them everywhere and heard people recommend them a lot. Which one is the best to start with then?

[bogormen.livejournal.com]

Definitely the Lioness Quartet. It's the first one, and also the one I think is the best, even though "Protector of the Small" comes as a close second.

Tamora Pierce writes books in two different universes - or parts of the same universe: Tortall, and the Spiral Temple. The ones in Tortall are my favourites, and should be read in the following order:

Lioness Quartet (4 books)
The Immortals (4 books)
Protector of the Small (4 books)
Daughter of Alanna (2 books).

The other series are:
The Circle of Magic (4 books)
The Circle Opens (4 books)
The Will Of The Empress (1 book)

I've read all of them too many times to count. They're YA fantasy of the best kind, and great comfort books. I highly recommend them :-)

[aurillia.livejournal.com]

Wow, I had no idea there were so many! But thanks for the rec.

[bogormen.livejournal.com]

Anytime :-)

I 'discovered' her back when she was still in the middle of writing the Lioness Quartet - it's been almost as frustrating to wait for as the Harry Potter series, but if I had to pick, I'd actually say that these are better.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the Circle of Magic books and circle Opens are a good place to start! I love them all though! Definitly read All of tehm though I loved tehm all andI hope you will too!

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

I disagree. The circle books are at the same time the most childish (as in aimed at children) and the most repetitive. They're still great, but not AS great as the ones set in the Total universe.

[fiveforsilver]

Hi, here from bookshare.

I agree - so far, Aly is the biggest Mary Sue of all the Tortall books. After I got past how fun the books were the first time around - and they were, I really enjoyed them - I became extremely unimpressed by how she can do absolutely freaking everything, even more than Alanna.

And they really would have benefited from allowing the (older, more experienced) other characters from having a few ideas now and again.

As for "Trickster's Choice" being her weakest book so far...have you read "Terrier"?

[bogormen.livejournal.com]

No, not yet. It hasn't made it to Denmark yet. Don't tell me that one's even worse?!

[fiveforsilver]

It wasn't unreadable, and there were some things I liked, but overall...the feel of it reminds me of the Circle books, which I'm not fond of. There are too many characters, there's too much going on at once, and even though it's long (too long), none of the plots really get as much depth as they need.

That's just my opinion, there are plenty of people who like it without reservation :)

[bogormen.livejournal.com]

Ok. I'll probably still read it then, but will just wait until it makes it to Denmark instead of buying it online as I had been contemplating.

Thanks for your comments :-)

[fiveforsilver]

You're welcome :)

Even though I'm becoming less impressed with Pierce's writing, I'll probably still buy the sequels, at least for a while yet. The sequel to Terrier (Bloodhound? or something) is due out in the US in the next year or so.

[(Anonymous)]

Tamora pierce's books are very good.Very interesting and fun.Though some of it was a little hard to read. I thought Terrier was still a good book, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next book by Tamora Pierce.

[bogormen.livejournal.com]

I've read "Terrier" now (actually, it's been awhile, but I'd forgotten I wanted to reply to this comment) and thought it was HEAPS better than the Trickster books. It's actually become one of my favourites. Just goes to show how tastes differ :-)

(And sorry about the anonymous comment spam. It's something this journal suffers from a lot. Obvious spam, commercials and comments with netspeak get deleted as soon as I discover them.)