I’ve now finished 8 books by Tamora Pierce. I think I have reached at least my short-term, and possibly my long-term, tolerance for her. I have enjoyed the journey, but I sense that the train only turns around and does takes the same path again from here on out. That said, I do highly recommend the first four books. The second four aren’t bad, but some of the shine has rubbed off by then.
Anyway, I was thinking about my comments on juvenile fiction providing a lot of what I like in fiction and contrasting them with what I like about Monster (which I also discussed recently). And it turns out that there’s not much correlation between them.
The stuff I like in Monster is the very stuff that Pierce’s novels skip over: the tight, detailed, context-rich scene. This, in turn, has me wondering if I don’t have two entirely different appetites that are fulfilled via fiction.
One would be the aforementioned context-rich scene. The one that makes me feel for the characters on a near-personal level. The other must be something much more nebulous. I’m tempted to think it’s something tied into the leaving of significant gaps that I can explore in a series of hypotheticals (which suggests that whatever it is, it’s similar to the sort of fiction that inspires fan-fiction), but I’m not sure.
In fact, I’m not even convinced (yet) that these aren’t really the same thing somehow. Anyone got any ideas?
Thomas
What were the eight Tamora Pierce books you read, by the way? I loved Protector of the Small, but didn’t care at all for her earlier Song of the Lioness series.
I read the first eight books I grabbed, which as far as I can tell were her first eight books published (chronologically by publishing date). So I read Song of the Lioness, and whatever the other four-book series was (maybe Protector of the Small, but I’m not sure at all).
I actually rather liked the Lioness stuff. Probably more than the later stuff. But that might simply be the fact that I read those ‘fresh’ while I read the rest immediately following the others.
What was it about Lioness that turned you off from it?
Thomas
It’s been a while, but as I recall, it was the supernatural elements of the Alanna series seemed to trivialize what the mundane people were doing.
Tamora Pierce has two other four-book series set in the same universe: The Immortals (about Veralidaine “Daine” Sarrasri who has a magic talent with animals), and Protector of the Small (about Keladry of Mindelan who is a talented young warrior). I haven’t read the former.
In that case, I’ve read The Song of the Lioness and The Immortals, but not read Protector of the Small.
I didn’t really feel that the magical elements trivialized the actions of the mundane people, though I do think I can see why you felt that way. I mean, the non-magical characters were pretty much window-dressing. But since I felt the story was pretty much about Alanna and all the stuff she was going through, and everyone/everything was really just window-dressing for her (except possibly Roger), I didn’t feel all that shocked.
Since we don’t share another series by her, I don’t know what else to say. I do know I didn’t like The Immortals as much, but as I said, it might be due to the fact that I had just read the entire Song of the Lioness the day before.
Thomas