Exactly what it says on the tin.

I’d like to start off the discussion by running around the thread shrieking “BRIAR! NUMAIR! JON!” over and over again at the top of my lungs.

Incidentally, so does yours.

Furry?
No. No. No!
And yes, Keladry’s quartet was cool.

Uh…most emphatically not.
especially after reading that…

Hmmm Nealan? ...Maybe…

I just don’t want her to end up with Dom. Really really.

Cleon or Neal. And I can’t choose.

Same. Neal- funny, sarcastic, and all in all a good match for Kel. Also, he is a lot like Dom, which could mean that Kel only likes Dom because he’s like Neal. Cleon – the one Kel really, really loved. spears Cleon’s fiance with glaive Oops.

Disclaimer: I am not in the intended age bracket for TP’s books, but after someone on the old AS forums suggested it I gave them a try.

Read a chapter of First Test, didn’t hook me. Terrier irritated me to no end with how Sueish the main character was within ~10 chapters, but I stuck with it. It’s not bad. The minor characters are still more interesting, though. I may read Bloodhound, but I don’t think I’ll try any of her other books.

I liked Terrier a lot more than Bloodhound. Right now, Bloodhound is starting to grate on my nerves, and I’m missing Rosto.

@ Inkasrain: WYLDON?????????????????????

I know. I hate the personal views thing. And yeah. Cleon and Kel really loved each other. Awww…

(But then I remember Neal…)

Yeah, he seems pretty cool. But he’s old, like, really old! and he has a wife and kids.

I do. :) hee hee.

Trickster’s Choice was the first TP book I ever read, back in year seven (sixth grade to you Americans, I believe). I thought it was a standalone, for some reason. Imagine my joy when I discovered the shelf containing pretty much all of her books at the library!!! Seriously, I think Trickster is Tamora Pierce’s peak.

Well, don’t kid yourself. You have. Alanna was awesome, Daine was a little less awesome but still eligible for the ranks of awesomeness, Protector of the Small was FANTASTIC, and Trickster was THE MOST BESTEREST. So you’ve got to read the others.

What I meant by peak was that everything else written after that is just less good.

And the Circle Opens and The Will of the Empress just sucked big time, anyway. And Melting Stones? Don’t even go there.

Well, you know. I used to like both Twilight and Eragon, so… I’d better elaborate to defend myself.

The thing that bugged me about The Circle Opens was that the plots of the four books were all the same. Student grows up to become teacher, whilst figuring out a mystery along the way. Too much of a coincidence. And once you’d read book 1, you knew what the rest of the books would turn out to be like. Melting Stones which was [student of the teacher who used to be a student]-centric was just taking it too far.

And what annoyed me about The Will of the Empress was a) it was a standalone instead of a series. and b) ***HUGE HUGE SPOILER!!! LIKE, HUGE!!!* Now, this was just a mouthpiece for her own views, and it shows. She even said in an interview that she wanted to ! Now if that isn’t messing with characters against who they are, then I don’t know what is! Someone as profilic as she is should have known better.

Huge retcon involved, of course.

Couldn’t be bothered with Redwall lol.

Wow, looking back over this, I sound so condescending.

@ Steph- Agreed completely with all of your thoughts. (Except for Trickster being the besterest ;-)) The original Circle quartet worked, I thought, because the characters played off one another so well and there was a very nice contrast of innocence and power being worked out. That pretty much evaporated with the Circle Opens quartet. I had hopes for Will of the Empress because it brought them all back together, but the book was just a bad idea on all counts.

And I still think Pierce works better when she keeps her books on the shorter side. The Alanna books were shorter than they could have been because of the publisher, I believe, but her longer works, like Empress and the Beka Cooper books, tend to be filler/exposition heavy. The medium length of something like Squire, for example, lets her hit her stride without getting so comfortable that she puts every little detail in.

@Steph,

I admit, I can’t really judge Trickster. I read the first few chapters and put it down, because Aly (was that her name?) really grated on my nerves. I was never the biggest fan of Alanna either, so the multi-generational aspect didn’t do anything for me. But just judging them by length, I don’t have too much of a problem with them; the Trickster books are only a little longer than Lady Knight, does that make sense? Certainly not as long as Terrier or Bloodhound, which really (I thought) require more time than the plot reasonably needs.

I read the first Trickster book, but not the second. Is it worth it?

Have you met Dale yet?

Not yet. I did skip to the end, and found out about him. Why?

XDDDD I remember that. Unfortunately, I used to steal my mum’s Harlequin novels when I was little (don’t ask me why, I do not know), and was already aware of the whole explicit!sex-in-a-book.

@ SWQ: If you liked it, it’s so worth it. Basically in the second book, the Balitangs move back to Rajmuat. Imajane and Rubinyan are acting as regents for Dunevon. And Aly and her ‘pack’ begin to systematically undermine the peoples’ confidence in the Crown by means of various… heh heh… ‘exciting’ methods…

It was way better than the first book.

And spoiler

She’ll need to do something about how somehow the dust twisters die off, so they are just a memory by her future books (and thereby she’s excused for inventing a new magic for an older period).

Aw, but I like Hasfush! (sp?)

(I can’t wait, however, for the Maura books she might be writing.)

YES!

I don’t. I can’t even find the timeline of books she used to have, like “Briar and Rosethorn in the war – 2010” or something. I’m really mad, too, because I really want to see that book. And the book series all about Numair.

2014. We have to wait until 2014 to read about Maura.

I’ll be in college! I’ll be busy! I’ll be old!

Well, kidding about the ‘old’ part, but I’ll be in college.

But I love Briar and Numair! And since I love whumping, I foresee some extra-special whumpage, especially in the Brair book.

Wow, there’s a fan club to TM!?

Awesome!

I am a HUGE fan of TM and her books. As soon as I get my Kindle, I’m going to put in TM’s books in it because they’re the only books I would happily re-read.

The only books of her’s that I have read are Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen, and I loved both. They deserve a reread actually.

@Mnemone:

The Trickster books are my favorite too!

Didn’t Daja like Ben Ladradun in Cold Fire? Or was that an unrequited obsession on his part (that’s the impression I got). I think the reason people see her as inconsistent isn’t so much she expressed interest in either so much as it seemed thrown in there to Make A Point.

Oh, and you should make an intro thread. :)

Sorry for thread resurrecting, but FYI Mark Reads is doing the Tortall books. ALL OF THEM.

Also, Tamora Pierce has been commenting on reviews. YES, YOU READ THAT SENTENCE RIGHT.