Sunday, October 15, 2006

Tamora Pierce Again

Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen

I liked both of these books, but I must admit that, like most of her books I have read, I get bogged down in the battle and armament details and get much more caught up in the personal battles and character descriptions. I get so impatient with reading about just how the battles go. I suppose this must be appealing to a lot of her readers, as it seems to be a formula present in just about all of the Tortall books, but I find myself trying to skim over parts of the book just to find out how it all turns out.

That said, I did find Aly appealing. She always seems to be about three steps ahead of where I am thinking as I read the books. It is obvious that she is a very clever thinker, as far as strategy and planning goes - or at least she is more clever than I am so it appears to me that she is very clever. I like that. I also like that each of the major characters at the heart of Pierce's stories has slightly different strengths. Their general appeal is similar, but each one has something unique. Aly's is her talent for spying and intrigue.

The conflict between the raka - the darker skinned natives of the Copper Isles - and the luarin - the white nobles who invaded and conquered long ago - is also an interesting one. It parallels in some generic ways the conflicts between other historical light skinned invaders and their darker skinned subjects. The names and the dress style - moderately Asian sounding names and sarongs - are reminiscent of Hawaii, but the conflict itself appears so often in history that it is hard to tell if the author used Hawaii as a model or took a bit from many and various similar conflicts - white/Maori, white/Indian, white/African, white/Native American, etc. I suppose it is a tad politically correct that the emphasis is on getting both groups to accept each other, but, then again, it is probably the only realistic solution.

Side Note: I read a review somewhere that seemed to think that these would be the only books in this series, because Aly ends up safely back in Tortall. That isn't how the book ends. It ends with her staying in the Copper Isles, from what I can tell. That doesn't necessarily mean that there will be further books in the series, nor does it mean that there won't be. The door is still open for further books, but who knows.

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