|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:03 pm
I would have to say Tamora Pierce is my favorite female author.
I've only read 2 series by her (The Immortals; Song of the Lioness)
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:06 pm
Series: Song of the Lioness
Books in series (in order):
Alanna: The First Adventure
In the Hand of the Goddess
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
Lioness Rampant
Series: The Immortals
Books in series (in order):
Wild Magic
Wolf-Speaker
Emperor Mage
The Realm of the Gods
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:07 pm
~*~Book summaries for Song of the Lioness~*~
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:10 pm
~*~Alanna: The First Adventure~*~
Brothers and sisters are often alike, but twins Alanna and Thom are night and day different. Brave Alanna wants to be a knight, but her ambitious brother Thom prefers magic. Despite these differences, the twins look virtually identical.
When their father sends the twins from their home of Trebond to study (Alanna to become a lady and Thom to become a knight), they decide to switch places. Thom goes on to the City of the Gods to learn magic and Alanna disguises herself as her own brother "Alan", hides her true gender, and trains to be a knight.
The book follows Alanna's growth as a page: from learning to cope with the magic she detests and becoming friends with the heir to the throne and the King of Thieves to beating Ralon of Malven herself and struggling with the suspicious Roger of Conté, to making a trip to the Bazhir desert where something malevolent awaits them.
Alanna and her twin brother Thom decides to switch places and succeed in talking around their two caregivers, the healing woman Maude and the soldier Coram. Thom and Maude travel off to the City of the Gods, where he can train to become a sorcerer, and Alanna sets off for the royal palace, under the name "Alan". There she trains as a page, meeting many friends, such as Raoul of Goldenlake, Gareth of Naxen the Younger, Francis of Nond, Alexander of Tirragen, and Prince Jonathan of Conté. She also makes an enemy during her first day in the palace, Ralon of Malven, who continuously bullies her. Rather than have her companions beat him, Alanna secretly trains with George Cooper, the King of Thieves, until she can beat him herself. When she does, he leaves Court.
During Alanna's page years, a fever, the Sweating Sickness, spreads within the capital city, Corus, and nowhere else. This disease is different than all other known diseases in that it drains healers, and even kills them. There is talk that it was sent by a great sorcerer. Alanna has a powerful healing Gift, but is frightened to use it, and so doesn't tell anyone that she can heal. Due to this refusal of her abilities, Francis of Nond, one of her friends, dies. When Prince Jonathan falls ill, Alanna, recognizing herself as the only undrained healer in the city, tries to heal him. She succeeds through evoking the Great Mother Goddess and fetching Jonathan from the place in between Life and Death. In so doing, she unknowingly reveals herself as a female to Sir Myles of Olau, one of her mentors. Shortly after, Jonathan's powerful sorcerer cousin, Duke Roger of Conté, comes to live at the palace and teach the Gifted pages and squires magic.
Alanna goes to George Cooper's mother, the healer Eleni, after she has her first monthly bleeding. She tells George the truth about her sex. Jonathan also discovers the truth during Alanna's last year as a page, when she comes on a trip for the squires on the bequest of Prince Jonathan to Persopolis, the only city of the Bazhir. All the squires were warned to stay away from the Black City, a city just within view of Persopolis, by Duke Roger. However, Jonathan decides to ride for the city to defeat whatever evil lies there, and Alanna went with him to help him in his quest. The two arrive at the city to find it completely deserted, that is, until they entered the large, central temple. There they found the Ysandir, beings who would not age or starve as mortals would, but that could be killed. Jonathan and Alanna began to fight, but things began to go awry when one of the Ysandir magically removes Alanna's clothes to reveal her true sex. Jonathan saves his shock for later, as Alanna and Jonathan must combine their powers to defeat the Ysandir. With the help of her magical sword, Alanna defeats the last of the Ysandir, and Jonathan and Alanna head back to Persopolis.
The book ends at an oasis near Persopolis, where Alanna suggested that perhaps Roger had wanted Jonathan to go to the city. Jonathan said that yes, he had, but only so that Jonathan could rid the Tortall of a great evil. When Alanna pointed out that perhaps Roger had not expected him to come back alive, Jonathan refused to listen. After this, Jonathan chooses Alanna to be his squire when he is knighted that year. He says he does not care that she is a girl, because she is the best page regardless.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:19 pm
~*~In the Hand of the Goddess~*~
Alanna, now squire to none other than Prince Jonathan of Conte, has to protect her knight and friend through their first war with Tusaine. She slowly learns more about her gift, using it primarily to heal, and continues to hide her true gender while both George and Jon have fallen in love with her. She continues to be suspicious of and protect her liege from his cousin Roger, on the way to her becoming a knight.
While camping in the woods on her way back to Tortall from an errand, Alanna's campsite, set up under a willow tree, is discovered by a small black cat whose name is Faithful. It does not escape Alanna's notice that his eyes are as purple as her own; she also finds out that Faithful can talk to her, although to others it sounds as if he is meowing. Soon after, the Great Mother Goddess, Alanna's patron, shows up at her campfire. She gives Alanna an amulet that allows the young woman to see magic being worked around her.
As she progresses into knighthood, Alanna's feminine side is nurtured as well. After a few visits with Eleni, George Cooper's mother, Alanna realizes that part of her wants to act like the ladies she sees in the Court. Eleni takes Alanna under her wing and secretly teaches her how to dress and behave like a woman. The change does not go unnoticed by George or Prince Jonathan, the only two friends with whom she has shared her secret about her sex. Though George has pursued Alanna since her page hood, Jonathan realizes the woman at his hands. They share their first kiss after Jon rescues Alanna when she is kidnapped by nobles from Tusaine, and they become lovers soon after.
Alanna withstands the Ordeal of Knighthood and becomes a knight. Her twin brother, Thom, presents her with a shield featuring the crest of their home estate, Trebond. When he and Alanna are alone after the ceremony, he shows her that when she is ready to reveal to everyone that she is a woman, the Trebond crest will disappear, and in its place will be the picture of a golden Lioness rearing on a field of red.
In a final showdown against her long-time nemesis, Alanna kills Duke Roger of Conte, her prince's cousin, who is to inherit the throne should anything happen to Jonathan. She does this after finding out about Roger's plans to kill the king, the queen, Jonathan, and even Alanna herself. During her duel with Roger, he slices through the special corset she wears to keep her breasts flat. It is revealed to everyone that she is very much a woman. Nevertheless, she is determined to go on and beat Roger so that he cannot kill the people she loves. When Roger uses an illusion to confuse Alanna regarding which of his swords is real and which is the illusion, she uses the amulet given to her by the Goddess in the beginning of the novel. She is able to beat him.
After her battle with Roger, Alanna decides not to stick around to deal with the initial uproar over her sex. With Faithful, her longtime manservant Coram, and her horse Moonlight, she sets off for the desert in the South, in search of more adventure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:24 pm
~*~The Woman Who Rides Like a Man~*~
Now a full knight, Alanna leaves the capital to travel among the Bazhir in the desert, eventually becoming adopted by one of the tribes, though clashing with the tribe's shaman who seeks to destroy her name among the rest of the tribe. After fighting to the death with the shaman for her honor and winning, she has to replace the shaman and cannot leave until she trains another.
The third book sees Alanna through her journey through the Bazhir desert, where she and her manservant Coram are adopted by the Bloody Hawk tribe. During their stay, Alanna duels with the Bloody Hawk shaman, a crazed wizard who is convinced Alanna is evil, and kills him. According to Bazhir law she must be the tribe's shaman until she trains a new one to replace her.
Alanna selects three Gifted children of the tribe, Ishak, Kara, and Kourrem, and begins to train them in magic. She also inherits the former shaman's sword, with a crystal on the hilt, symbols that remind her of the dead sorcerer Lord Roger, and a terrifying amount of dark power. She keeps it because her old sword, Lightning, broke during a battle. She also teaches the traditional Bazhir to slowly lose some of their prejudice against women. During their training, Alanna sees glimpses of the shamans the girls will become, but the boy, Ishak, constantly attempts stronger, darker sorcery. In a sudden encounter, Ishak steals the crystal sword from Alanna and tries to master its power, but it consumes him and kills him. Alanna continues to train Kara and Kourrem.
Prince Jonathan and Sir Myles of Olau make a visit to the Bloody Hawk tribe, where Jonathan and Alanna renew their love affair and spend a passionate night together. When Jonathan asks her to marry him, Alanna is shocked and asks for time to think it over. During their stay, Jonathan is adopted by the tribe and takes up training under the Voice of the Tribes, an old friend of Alanna's and Jonathan's. When the Voice dies, Jonathan is made the new Voice, thus acting as a sacred link between all the Bazhir tribes. This status will help unite northerners and southerners when he eventually becomes King of Tortall. Also, Myles adopts Alanna as his daughter and heir to his lands. Jonathan, arrogant as ever, assumes that Alanna will marry him though she has asked for time to think about it, and when he begins to make arrangements for her to return to Corus with him, they argue. She refuses to marry him, and he wounds her deeply by saying he'd rather marry a woman who knows how to act like a woman. Jonathan and Myles leave, and Alanna continues her training of Kourrem and Kara, who eventually pass the required tests and are made co-shamans for the tribe.
Alanna and Coram travel to Port Caynn to visit George Cooper, who is putting down a Rogue rebellion there. While Coram woos George's cousin Rispah, Alanna begins a love affair with George, who has loved her for years, but when he wants her to return to Corus with him, she refuses to go with him. The two split, and Coram accompanies Alanna back to the desert, where the Bloody Hawk chief asks her to check on a sorceress, a friend of his, whom he has been having bad dreams about. When Alanna and Coram arrive at the shaman's drought-stricken village, they see the starved, crazed villagers burning the shaman, thinking the sacrifice will please the gods and provide them food. Alanna and Coram rescue her, but not in time, and the shaman dies after leaving Alanna with a scroll to give to the Bloody Hawk chief. The chief tells them it is a map to the Dominion Jewel, a legendary stone that provides untold powers in the hands of Gifted or unGifted rulers. Alanna and Coram decide to go after it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:26 pm
~*~Lioness Rampant~*~
Alanna once again leaves – this time, in search of the Dominion Jewel, to bring back to Tortall and to prove herself as a true knight. She comes across new friends who help her along her journey such as the Shang Dragon Liam, Princess Thayet of Saraine and Buriram Tourakom. But while successful in her quest to gift her homeland with the jewel, bad news greet her: Jonathan is now King of Tortall, and her archenemy has risen from the dead.
The final chapter of this quartet finds Alanna and her manservant, Coram, far from Tortall, on a quest seeking a legendary stone that can provide untold powers in the hands of country rulers. Stopping in Berat, Alanna meets Liam Ironarm, the Dragon of Shang and the most powerful of the Shang fighters, who befriends her and agrees to accompany her on her quest for the Dominion Jewel. En route to the Roof of the World, where the Jewel is hidden, Liam and Alanna begin a love affair, despite their clashing tempers and his fear of all things magical.
The travelers pass through war-torn Sarain, ripped apart by a vicious civil war between the native K'miri tribes and the ruler, Warlord jin Wilima, whose armies persecute the K'mir. The war has been fueled by the death of the Warlord's K'miri wife, Kalasin, the most beautiful woman in the world, who killed herself as a rebellion against the persecution of her people. Caught in the midst of the battles, Alanna and her friends stumble upon Princess Thayet, the Warlord's only child, who is in hiding from her father's enemies who wish to either kill her or marry her to claim the Saren throne. Thayet and her friend/protector Buriram Tourokom, a gruff K'mir, join Alanna, Coram and Liam on their quest for the Jewel, knowing that it is best for Thayet to leave her country and never return.
The group travels to the Roof of the World, where Chitral's Pass is blocked off due to severe blizzards. Alanna knows Chitral, the mountain elemental who holds the Jewel, will never make it easy for her to obtain the Jewel, so she bespells her friends to keep them asleep and ventures into the blizzard up the mountain. She battles Chitral, who takes the form of a mountain ape, and though she is defeated, he gives her the Jewel anyway. Alanna, wounded, frozen and half-dead, passes out; when she wakes up, she is back in the hotel with her friends. Liam is furious that she witched him, and the two break off their romance but remain friends. Meanwhile, Alanna has been having strange dreams from home, of her brother Thom, George, Jonathan, and Lord Roger's dead body. When the group encounters Raoul of Goldenlake, he confesses to Alanna that Tortall is in turmoil. Queen Lianne is dead, and the King committed suicide soon after. A grief-stricken Jonathan has been made King but not been crowned, and worst of all, Alanna's arrogant brother Thom, in an effort to prove to the haughty Lady Delia of Eldorne that he is the most powerful sorcerer in the realm, has raised Lord Roger from the dead.
Alanna's friends accompany her back to Tortall, where she finds the people whispering of famine, black magic and a cursed reign for King Jonathan. She takes her place at Jonathan's side, giving him the Dominion Jewel, and Jonathan names her as his King's Champion, the first female Champion in history. Meanwhile, Alanna finds amusement when he falls in love with Thayet and begins to court her. Jon and Alanna agree that they were not right together, but when she looks to George to renew his romance, he treats her as nothing more than a friend. Her brother Thom is rapidly growing ill, poisoned by his own Gift, and Alanna is helpless to stop it. Meanwhile, Alanna and Roger have a vicious encounter where they renew their old hatred, and Alanna suspects that Lady Delia and others, including her old rival Alex of Tirragen, are plotting to overthrow Jonathan and put Roger in his place. On the eve of the Coronation, Alanna meets the Great Mother Goddess, who warns her that the Coronation will be a "crossroad in time." Sure enough, during the ceremony, insurgents wearing Tirragen and Eldorne colors storm the palace and Alanna and her friends fight to protect Jonathan. Thom dies, drained of life by Roger's spell, and Alanna's magical cat Faithful is also killed. In a rage, Alanna kills Alex when he tries to detain her from reaching Roger, and she confronts her archenemy, who uses her sword - part Lightning, part the Bazhir shaman's sword - to bring her to him. The spell backfires when she stops resisting and lets go, killing Roger with his own sword and destroying his evil forever.
When the fighting dies down, Alanna sees that Liam is also dead, killed while protecting Jonathan. After the insurgents are captured, Alanna returns to the Bazhir to rest and clear her head, also to grieve for her brother, Liam and Faithful. Thayet and Buri visit her there, where Alanna gives her blessing on Thayet's upcoming marriage to Jonathan. The Shang Wildcat, who was once Liam's teacher, visits briefly to give Alanna a letter Liam had written before he died. In it, he says he knew that his time was near, and he tells Alanna to live a happy life with a man who loves all of her, and she realizes by the end that George has always been the one for her. Later, George visits her among the tribe, bearing the news of Thayet and Jonathan's engagement, and Alanna confesses that she still loves George and wants to be his wife. The series ends with George and Alanna cementing their own engagement with a kiss, and an announcement to the Bazhir.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:27 pm
~*~Books summaries for The Immortals~*~ [takes place after Song of the Lioness]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:31 pm
~*~Wild Magic~*~
Wild Magic is set in the same world as The Song of the Lioness quartet. Daine's family was killed earlier in the year by raiders and after enacting revenge upon the raiders, she runs away to find a new life. She gets a job as an assistant to the horse mistress of Tortall's Queen's Riders, and she learns new things about herself and gains a new family.
The reader is introduced to Daine, a thirteen year old girl who can speak to animals. Daine meets Onua, the woman in charge of the horses for the "Queen's Riders," and is hired to help bring up a group of new ponies to the capital, Tortall.
Along the way, Daine and Onua are attacked by strange creatures called Immortals and later learns that nearly all of Tortall is being plagued by these things. However, the Immortals that attacked had been on the chase of an hawk, but not just any hawk. The hawk later turns out to be the powerful mage, Numair Salmalin. She also meets Alanna the Lioness. Upon reaching Corus, she continues as the assistant horse mistress, teaching Rider trainees and learning more about her own powers of "wild magic" (it is here she meets Evin Larse, who appears later in the Protector of the Small quartet).
On their way to summer camp at Pirate's Swoop, Daine, to continue her training in her wild magic, tells Onua and Numair about how she had lost her mind after the murder of her family and joined a pack of wolves to kill the bandits who had killed her family. The townspeople of Snowdale then realized what was happening and tried to kill her, so she fled. After time, with the help of her only family left, Cloud, a horse, she gained her humanity and sanity. Relieved that her friends still like her, and after Numair, her mage teacher, enacts a spell so she would not lose mind once again, she begins to hone her powers and soon learns to heal animals. Towards the end of the book, she saves Pirate's Swoop from an attack of pirates and Immortals from Carthak. She's also left in charge of a baby of the dragon, who's mother had died in the battle to help save Tortall. Daine nicknames the dragonet Kitten, her real name being Skysong.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:34 pm
~*~Wolf-Speaker~*~
Daine receives a summons from some old friends - the wolf pack from her old village, lead by Brokefang and his mate Frostfur, who are unhappy with the nobles running their territory. In the most wolfish way possible, they ask Daine for help and then disappear back into the night to hunt while Daine discusses this over with her teacher, Numair Salmalin.
Numair agrees to help the wolves, but he decides that he first must visit the nobles in Fief Dunlath to further investigate after they finds the remains of the Seventh Rider Group all dead and burnt.
Numair recognizes a battlemage there at Fief Dunlath who appears to be wooing Lady Yolane. After Daine boldly approaches them about the threat to the wolves and to the area with a warning that if they don't change, things will happen, the nobles all laugh at her. She retires with Numair back to their quarters and stealthily leave in the morning from Fief Dunlath.
Shortly after this, Numair decides to leave back to the city where King Jonathan is and warns him of something afoot in Dunlath. He leaves Daine there to sort out the mess with her friends and tells her not to do anything very nasty.
Daine discovers she has the power to morph into animals after Maura runs away from Fief Dunlath. Shortly afterwards, Rikash the Stormwing appears to be looking for Maura and he makes Daine rethink her theory about all Stormwings being naturally evil. Maura tells Daine about Yolane's plans to become Queen - a deal with Emperor Ozorne of Carthak, whom she will meet in the third book.
With the help of Maura, Tkaa the basilisk, Kitten (Skysong the Dragonet), the unwitting Stormwing Lord Rikash, Alanna the Lioness and Raoul of Goldenlake, Numair and Daine manage to rip the entire plot to pieces.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:37 pm
~*~Emperor Mage~*~
Daine travels to Carthak to help cure the Emperor's birds of a mysterious sickness, in hopes that the relations with Carthak will strengthen.
Daine is sent with a delegation to the Emperor Mage of Carthak, in hopes that she can smooth relations by helping with his prized birds. She gets caught up in not only the political situation, but a religious one of sorts as well. Emperor Ozorne Muhassin Tasikh has been neglecting the worship of his Goddess, the Graveyard Hag. This Carthaki goddess gives Daine the ability to revive dead bodies to their former identities. When it seems Ozorne has murdered Numair, Daine revives a horde of dinosaurs, whose fossils had been assembled by the mage Lindhall. Ozorne's rule is broken (he gets turned into a Stormwing) and replaced with that of the more benevolent Kaddar.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:40 pm
~*~The Realm of the Gods~*~
Daine and the mage Numair are faced with certain death when they are suddenly swept into the mystical realms of the gods, where Daine learns the secrets of her past. But she and Numair are both needed in the mortal world to help fight the desperate war that is raging in Tortall. And so they undertake the journey home- a dangerous journey that will teach them about life and about each other. Their path leads them to the final clash, which involves both mortals and immortals- a battle in which the only chance for Tortall's future lies with Daine and her wild magic.
Set in Tortall during the reign of King Jonathan IV and Queen Thayet, The Realms of the Gods is the final book in The Immortals series, which chronicles a time when the world is invaded by immortal creatures.
In this final book of Daine's story, she and Numair are transported to the realm of the gods themselves through a very unusual agency- Daine's mother Sarra, now deified as the Green Lady. Daine must return to the mortal realms in time to help fight the Immortals attacking Tortall, including the former Carthaki Emperor Ozorne, who is now a harpy-analogous Stormwing who is in league with the queen of Chaos, Uusoae.
It is revealed that Numair Salamin harboured very strong feelings for Daine, though she had not believed it to be anything serious. After saving her life from spidrens (giant spiders with human heads), Numair forgets himself and kisses Daine, admitting he loves her. Daine also loves him, but the two have doubts about a lasting relationship because of their age difference; Daine is sixteen, and Numair is thirty. Despite this, in the epilogue of the book, Numair asks Daine to marry him.
Although it had been hinted at before, Daine's father is revealed in this book as none other than the minor Northern God of the Hunt, Weiryn.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
