Tamora Pierce should be a household name. We should all be crowded around our TVs every Saturday night watching The Song of the Lioness show on HBO. Her works should be considered a cultural touchstone that inspire generations. Prog rock bands should be creating epic concept albums based on her stories. There should be Funko Pops of Alanna of Trebond, Numair Salmalín, and Keladry of Mindelan.
But there aren’t. (At least, not yet.)
There are times I wonder if I made her up. These books are such excellent stories that it boggles my mind that they aren’t known by everyone I meet. It’s always an absurd relief when I encounter someone who loves Tamora Pierce just as much as I do. Whenever I spot a list of the best fantasy novels, I hunt for her name and am always gutted if she’s absent. I feel like grabbing people in bookstores and shaking them, demanding to know if they have any idea of what they’re missing. Pierce is one of the most important writers in my life, and yet it sometimes seems as if that importance is only recognized by a select fandom. Those days are over if I have anything to say about it—it’s time for you to fall head over heels for this amazing author and the intricate, beautiful worlds she’s created.
Tamora Pierce excels at writing stunning works of fantasy full of themes and concepts way ahead of their time. From the start, her books were feminist and diverse at a time where fantasy was predominantly focused on the adventures of white men. They were YA before the genre really started thriving and independent heroines from Katniss Everdeen to Arya Stark owe Pierce a debt of gratitude for getting there first. Her Tortall books are impressive works of fantasy with a world that feels gritty, realistic, and lived in, and contains a magic system that is well developed and imaginative. Her characters are some of the best I’ve ever had the privilege to read, brimming with warmth, humor, and determination. These are characters that will stay with you for your entire life—I know this firsthand, since I’ve lived with one foot in the world of Tortall since I was a little girl.
There are some books that become a part of you. They help you become the person you are, and you are forever changed after reading them. Their words become encoded in your very DNA; their paperback bodies are the bricks building the foundation of your character. Tamora Pierce’s books are part of mine. As a young girl my family moved from New York to the wilds of Arizona. In an effort to keep her bookish daughter from losing her mind during a move that was deeply hard on her, my mother took me to our local bookstore and turned me loose. I found a display with books that had a lady knight on the cover, horse rearing behind her, sword at the ready, and I fell in love. I grabbed every book on that display, eight in all, and carried them to my mother. Knowing a losing battle when she saw one, she let me buy them all. The Song of the Lioness quartet and The Immortals series kept me company as we moved away from the bustling city where I had been born to a sprawling, strange desert. Alanna and Daine became my friends as I suffered from homesickness and the barbs of new classmates who didn’t like my East Coast accent.
I gathered the other Pierce books as quickly as I could and one happy Scholastic Book Fair brought the other Tortall series, the Protector of the Small quartet, into my life. I still own these original paperbacks and they are yellowed from time and creased from love. I would not be the person I am today without the incredible women characters Pierce wove into the beautiful, brutal world of Tortall. I owe a debt of gratitude to Tamora Pierce I’ll never be able to repay. Her books taught me how to stand up for myself, how to speak up even when I was afraid, and how to persevere even when everything looks hopeless. I still consider Alanna to be one of my role models.
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Alanna: The First Adventure
First published in 1983, Pierce’s first series is The Song of the Lioness quartet. It introduces the medieval fantasy world of Tortall and a young girl named Alanna who wants nothing more than to become a knight. She disguises herself as a boy and becomes a page, earning friendships and making enemies while doing everything in her power to show that she is just as good as the men around her. Alanna is a once in a lifetime character, with a vibrant mix of stubbornness and tenacity that makes her deeply compelling to read. She’s incredibly focused on her goals and won’t allow god or man to stop her from reaching them. There is a hard-won wisdom in Alanna, gathered over years of fighting in wars and stopping evil men from trying to kill the people she cares about. Her ability to triumph over adversity is an inspiration to me still.
The Song of the Lioness series is amazing, considering the time in which it was written. It’s incredibly diverse, with characters who are meant to be from fantasy versions of the Middle East and Asia. It’s a struggle even today to find fantasy worlds that seamlessly incorporate a variety of characters from different races and ethnicities and yet Pierce was doing it back in the 80s. They are respectful depictions as well—never fetishized or cartoonish. The Bazhir, for example, resemble Bedouins and they are generally shown to noble, wise, and kind. Alanna spends a year with them and her experiences make for one of the best books in the series. As Pierce expanded and fleshed out her world, she added Tortall versions of Japan, Egypt, and Africa. Each new place is depicted thoughtfully and populated with new and intriguing characters, people of color who have their own arcs and agency in the story.
Pierce is also a trailblazer when it comes to the relationships that she writes. Alanna falls in love with her friends Prince Jonathan and George Cooper, king of the thieves, creating a love triangle long before Peeta and Gale were a twinkle in Suzanne Collins’ eye. It would have been so easy for Pierce to make Alanna cold and single-minded in the pursuit of her knighthood, stripping away her womanhood to focus on her knightly duties. Instead she allows Alanna to fall in love, to flirt, and to have sex. I’m pretty sure The Song of the Lioness series was the first time I ever read about sex in a book and it was shockingly educational and enlightening. Pierce’s characters are never slut-shamed for bouncing from lover to lover—it’s presented as a normal part of their lives. It isn’t wrong or right, it’s just a thing people do with people they love. Alanna also goes through other girlhood rituals that are ignored completely in other fantasy stories even now. She panics over her first period and has an awkward talk about safe sex and pregnancy with a healer who happens to be the mother of a friend. In the guise of a boy, Alanna’s affection for other male characters is sometimes misinterpreted as homosexual, but at the same time that perceived desire is presented as just a normal sort of thing in Tortall. A little unusual, maybe, but nothing shameful or illicit.
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Wild Magic
The second Tortall series, The Immortals, introduces a girl with very little control over the wild magic that runs rampant through her blood. Daine Sarrasri is orphaned when raiders attack her village and her uncontrolled magic is mistaken for madness. She can speak to animals and, later on in the series, shapeshift into them as well. Daine meets Numair, one of the best mages of the age, and together they get a handle on her magic just in time for her to help save Tortall from total ruin. They travel together, fighting injustice in other parts of the world, with Daine’s moral compass always guiding her way even when it’s difficult and dangerous to speak up or take action.
The Immortals series builds on what Pierce started with Alanna in the earlier books. Daine is another amazing woman, strong and funny and undeterred by misfortune. She takes matters into her own hands instead of waiting around like a damsel in distress, and wants nothing more than to help those less fortunate than herself. She uses her wits and her magic to abolish slavery in a foreign land and comes back to pull Tortall from the brink of disaster.
The books are not completely perfect; they are still a product of their time, and there are some aspects and moments that haven’t aged well. The courtship and flirting that Alanna and Daine are subjected to are a touch uncomfortable in the current #MeToo environment. In one memorable instance, George traps Alanna in his arms and kisses her against her will, which is presented like it’s romantic and not, you know, sexual assault. On the whole, however, for books published in the 1980s Pierce’s early work is astoundingly progressive in spite of these occasional missteps. There is no rape in the novels, there is no fridging of any female characters. It’s a breath of fresh air in a genre that still hasn’t figured out that you don’t need these things to tell a good story or to show how a woman becomes strong.
Pierce’s fiction is gritty and the women face war, tragedy, and heartbreaking loss but the stories never descend into the grimdark basement of rape and torture that’s grown so popular in recent years. Each series focuses on a woman doing extraordinary things as they overcome long odds and daunting obstacles to become legends. The books don’t shy away from portraying some of the sexism that each girl experiences, using each instance to demonstrate how capable, courageous, and intelligent they are. They persist when others try to silence them and they rise above when others try to drag them down. It’s also important to note, moreover, that Pierce’s women aren’t infallible paragons. Each one makes mistakes and bad choices during their adventures. Each time, they must deal with the ramifications of their actions and face the realization that while none of us are perfect, we can all try and be better.
The Tortall books overlap and interact with one another and characters from one series often pop up in a separate storyline. I would consider Alanna to be the anchor character, since her story introduces the Tortall world and she usually appears a few times in each series. She even has a stubborn badass of a daughter named Aly, who eventually gets her own two book series in which she becomes a spy after being captured by pirates. Characters come and go, surfacing in an offhand reference or making a quick quip in a way that makes the world feel connected and real. It’s delightful to see a character from a different series show up, like running into an old friend unexpectedly at Starbucks and sitting down to discuss how they’ve been since you last saw them.
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Tempests and Slaughter
Alanna becomes a giant problem for one character, though. Keladry of Mindelan wants to follow in her footsteps and become a knight, and she is the first to try for her shield after a law is passed allowing women to join the knighthood officially. As is often the case with any male-dominated organization that has somehow let an exceptional, trailblazing woman slip into their ranks, Keladry is punished for Alanna’s success. She is doubted, hazed, and bullied. Undaunted, she squares her shoulders and plows ahead, forcing this restrictive masculine culture to make room for her. Keladry is less flashy than Alanna or Daine. She doesn’t have much magic, so instead she uses her almost preternatural patience and calm to forge her path. It is with grace and sheer bloodymindedness that she earns her knighthood and truly changes the paradigm in Tortall forever. Her series, Protector of the Small, takes great pains to prove to readers what can be accomplished even when others insist that your goals are impossible.
The world of Tortall has been going strong now for over thirty-five years and shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, a very long-awaited book about Numair Salmalín from The Immortals series is finally coming out this February (George R.R. Martin fans have got nothing on me—I have been waiting for this book for nearly a decade). It’s also interesting to note in that Tempests and Slaughter will be the first Tortall book centered on one of Pierce’s male characters. While the focus of Pierce’s writing has always been on the women until now, the men are also exceptionally well-written and believable, and I’m excited beyond words to finally hear the tale of one of her most fascinating side characters. And lest you make the mistake of thinking Tamora Pierce is a one-trick pony when it comes to setting, I should note that there is an outstanding non-Tortall series written the late ‘90s called the Circle of Magic. It has all of Pierce’s trademark wit and charm, as well as her wonderful women characters. Her ability to incorporate real world issues, like disability discrimination and race, into her narratives is again showcased with great aplomb and the characters written with great care and compassion.
Tamora Pierce and the women of the Tortall books made an indelible mark on me as I was growing up. They helped me through difficult times and taught me how to be confident, brave, and that being a girl didn’t make me lesser than any boy. Her novels are an embarrassment of riches that have never gotten all the attention and devotion they deserve. My hope is that new fans will continue to discover Tamora Pierce and spread the word, shining a light on these hidden gems until everyone can see the brilliance they contain. These books are pure magic, and you owe it to yourself to let them enchant you.
Meghan Ball is an avid reader, writer, and lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. When she isn’t losing to a video game or playing the guitar badly, she’s writing short fiction and spending way too much time on Twitter. You can find her there @EldritchGirl. She currently lives in a weird part of New Jersey.
I completely agree, she should be much better known.
While I enjoyed the Tortall books, my favorites are the Emelan (Circle of Magic, Circle Opens, etc…) books – I’m re-reading the 3rd Circle Opens books right now, in fact. I love the magic system, and the 4 kids are a wonderful set of characters.
I just remember, this is not a just universe, and move on.
I do wonder if the original manuscript for Song of the Lionness would really not be worth publishing.
I read Song of the Lioness initially when I was twelve or so, when they were the only books Pierce had published, and I vividly remember the sense that I had somehow made these up. I had a mental list of authors I looked for everywhere and never found (Tamora Pierce, Geraldine Harris, Gillian Bradshaw), who wrote books that grabbed me, and seemed to exist only in a single library each. (My early junior high routine included regular encounters with four libraries, collection non-overlap was sometimes a blessing, and sometimes a curse.)
They were amazing books, and they carried me a long way. Every new one still thrills me.
And by amazing luck, First Test is $1.99 right now on Kindle.
I love all of Pierce’s novels. She is a fantastic author that doesn’t get enough love. She has rich worlds and brilliant characters. Circle of Magic is also an awesome series, the first novel being the weakest, more focused on setting up the characters then actual plot. But after that the books really take off. It also should be noted that in this series one of the main characters is a boy Briar, he even has three books out of the series were he is the main character. However it doesn’t turn into a romance or love triangle with him there. Far from it, it showed that boys and girls, men and woman can be close friends without falling in love. They can be closer than family, and not turn romantic.
@3: “I vividly remember the sense that I had somehow made these up.” Meaning that you felt they were too good to really exist, or that they were something you would have written? While the Immortals series seemed made to my desires like few other books I knew of at the time, the latter feeling and its attendant bitterness didn’t come until I read certain Seanan McGuire works.
I recommend these two rereads to all Tamora Pierce fans, new or long-time:
Mark Reads Tortall and Mark Reads Emelan on Mark Does Stuff — complete, with index here.
Tortall Reread on The Fandomentals — in progress, with index here.
Also, check out the “Tamora Pierce” tag here on Tor.
@6 – Neither of those. “No one else has heard of these books and only one library in four even seems to have them, do they genuinely exist or did I fall asleep in math class and imagine the whole thing?”
I stumbled across them when working in a library, sadly at age 16. I understood even then how much better it would have been to find these at the age of 12.
Still it affected me that much that many years later I took a day off work to go into central London to a Tamora Pearce booksigning. I was the only adult there, the rest were school children on a class trip. Still so happy my books are signed.
Looking forward to the new book.
I stumbled upon this page doing a random search for Tamora Pierce and I wholeheartedly agree with you. I’ve been reading Tamora Pierce’s books since I was 11 years old and she has shaped who I’ve become as an adult. Her depictions of these strong, independent female characters- Alanna, Daine, Kel, Aly have served as positive role models for me growing up and even now, as an adult (though I barely feel like one).
Thank you for this review! The world needs to recognize her amazing talent and these extraordinary worlds and characters she has created. I’ve been waiting for Numair’s books for so long and can’t wait to start reading it!
Tempest and Slaughter arrived in delivery today at my branch. I saw it first it’s mine. mine. Mine! I enjoy all of the series, but re-read Protector of the Small and the Circle of Magic books the most often. I think Pierce isn’t as well known because her books are considered children or YA fantasy. It doesn’t make them any less Awesome if you haven’t tried them .
I also love her Provost’s Dog series featuring Beka Cooper, a young cop in an urban Tortall setting 200 years before The Song of the Lioness. She relies on her strength, skill, training and strong sense of right and wrong to protect the powerless and never loses sight of her working class roots. There are a couple of very subtle links to Alanna’s story in hers too.
These were the books I spent every penny I could scrounge up on as a kid. I had them all in various forms (hardback, paperback, new, used). I think about them often: the characters, the dilemmas, the world, the strong women, and the growth I made reading them. In middle school I begged and begged for a shirt from Pierce’s website. “For the Glory of Tortall!” a 3/4 sleeve baseball shirt. I still have it and wear it. This summer while away at school in New Jersey, I lost all of my books in the fires around LA. Yet as much as I miss having my books, I know all of the stories and they helped me become who I am. I appreciate this post. Thank you.
I could not agree more. For me and many other women I know, Alanna, Daine, and Kel were the heroines we grew up with. They inspired us to reach high and stand strong. All of us are now dominating in primarily-male technical fields. Tamora Pierce’s characters and worlds helped develop who I was as a kid. I get something different every time I reread the book and they still are molding who I am now.
I’m so glad to see that there are others that love Tamora’s books as much as I do. They are deliciously delightful. I think I am due another visit to Tortall.
I really think you needed to get into these as a young adult. Maybe they fit too much into that genre to be a household name. Or blame the cover designer. Those covers shown in the article look like weird horse novels or romance horror novels, with a bad font choice. The new covers are better, but still very directed to a young audience. Hey, you can’t judge a book by its cover! Except we do. Marketing is a real deal.
“It’s also interesting to note in that Tempests and Slaughter will be the first Tortall book centered on one of Pierce’s male characters”
Are you honestly forgetting Briar even though you mentioned the Circle books? Even in Pierce’s predominantly female stories he is a great character. Many of the other male characters end up being potential love interests for the female leads (even some of Alanna’s friends you wonder if they’d have made a move if the Prince hadn’t) so it is nice to have a guy with his own potential harem treat them only as friends/sisters.
I have a special shelf set aside for when I have children, Pierce and Lloyd Alexander as Alexander I feel does many similar great things for boys. But no matter girl or boy, want to share those stories with my children and hope they learn from them.
Just glad to see there are other Pierce fans here, also. Lady Knight Kel was probably one of the first true fantasy heroes I loved deeply, and it led to a lifelong love of fantasy in general. All of the Tortall works have stayed with me year after year, an intimate and special part of my person — always reminding me that being a woman and growing up takes grit, tenacity and no shortage of kindness.
I hope more folks (young and old) get the chance to enjoy her work!
I wanted to be Keladry of Mindelan growing up.
I didn’t care that she’s a girl or any of that. She’s a hero who kicks ass and saves the day and I love her to pieces, honestly more than I like Pierce’s other protagonists, but that might be nostalgic bias. The fact that we haven’t yet had a Protector of the Small movie series is a crime against fiction, we deserve that when even the freaking Maze Runner gets a movie series.
Ugh, I want to fancast the series now…it’s such a shame the guy who played Racist Ferret Kid on Harry Potter is an adult now, he’d be a great Joren, and I don’t know why but I think Dwayne Johnson would make a great Raoul of Goldenlake. And in a post-Game of Thrones world, we deserve to see Kel joust and beat the tar out of some sexist douchebags. Plus, the fact that Kel’s big, muscular, and doesn’t have a Hollywood figure would make her a great model for girls who are suffering body-shaming and need reassurance that their bodies are just fine the way they are.
Honestly, the one and only quibble I have with Pierce’s entire body of work is the third Provost’s Dog book, where I didn’t find the twist with Tunstall all that convincing. Otherwise, she’s one of the best authors in the world and deserves more recognition.
I found this article in my inbox this morning and joy of joys, I just started listening to Page: Protector of the Small #2 this morning too. :)
I think I found Tamora Pierce late in my teens and early twenties, shortly before, or about the same time I discovered another author whose books don’t get mentioned often: Tanya Huff – who also writes strong female characters. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Tortall books since I found them, having the rarity of actually finding female characters I actually can identify with – especially since none of these characters fall into the “traditional female” roles.
Lovely books and very enjoyable.
I missed the 1983 editions– I first encountered Tamora Pierce in or near 1997, when paperback versions of the Song of the Lioness and Magic Circle series were republished. By then, I was 30+, but I’ve followed all of Pierce’s works since then. My husband (also a fan) and I generally buy the hardcovers as soon as they are released, and re-read them regularly. In fact, he’s just finished re-reading Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small. When I’m having trouble dealing with people, I alternate between asking myself “What would Kel do?” and “What would Aly do?” (Yes, those are pretty incompatible worldviews! Except that they both care.) I wish I’d encountered Pierce’s writing earlier– Alanna’s refusal to give up being feminine just because she’s capable and independent made a big impact on me, even at 30. I could really have used that example 10 (or 20) years earlier.
A TV version of any of the book series would be difficult, because of the way the characters age, even within the span of a single book. Movies might work. I would hate to see them done badly, though. I would especially hate to see them made “safe” and non-controversial, e.g. by removing the references to social justice that are at the heart of all Pierce’s works. Protector of the Small would be my first choice. The world of Tortall feels solid and real in those books, complete with diversity of characters in the main cast. I suppose Hollywood would insist on combining Neil with Domick, though, so they could have their proper “romantic” ending….
I do feel sad that you left out my favorite Tortall series, the Beka Cooper trilogy. Right up there with Alex Bledsoe in combining a hardboiled/noir feel with fantasy.
I discovered Tamora Pierce as a librarian in the late 90s. By which time not only was I not that magical 12, but neither were either of my daughters. But I have encouraged my older granddaughters to read her, tried to get the grandsons to read about these strong woman and share with the children who come to our library.
My dad bought me The Circle of Magic quartet when I was in junior high. I loved them and read them over and over again, discovering a couple years later that there was a second quartet, The Circle Opens. Needless to say, I bought all of those and devoured them. She’s had three others in that series published since then, The Will of the Empress, Melting Stones, and Battle Magic, but I’ve been dying for the next book in the series, which hasn’t been published yet. It will focus on Tris, who enrolls in Lightsbridge University under a false name and hides her true power.
Lucky me, I haven’t read the Tortall series yet, but have all of them sitting on my To-Be-Read shelf, so I’m looking forward to diving into those for the first time.
I also had the immense pleasure of getting to meet and hug her at WorldCon in Kansas City in 2016. I didn’t realize it would affect me so much, but I almost started crying and could only manage a, “Thank you.” That was the highlight of the convention for me.
And Tamora will be at Boskone, 2/16-2/19 as our Young Author GOH.
She’ll also be GOH at Baycon, over Memorial Day weekend in the SF Bay Area. I’m really looking forward to that – like everyone here, she’s been one of the authors that changed my worldview. I don’t think I encountered her until I was mid-teens – actually, since Alanna was released in 1983, yeah, I was 16. But I bought and read each one as it came out, and still do. I just introduced my mom to her – somehow I’d never mentioned her before. And I like Sandry’s Book best of the Circle of Magic, partly because of the worldbuilding (which I love) and partly because I like Sandry best of the four of them. But Numair’s book will be the first _Tortall_ one with a male protagonist – Briar is in her other universe.
This is great – the article, and all the comments. Yes, Tamora is one of the invisible authors, and she (and we, and all the people who _should_ be reading her) deserve better!
Let me chime in as a male reader who also encountered Alanna as a teenager, and was hooked and adored her, all of her companions, and Pierce’s writing. The sad thing was, for years I didn’t know the series had continued beyond the first book, so when I finally found them I devoured them. (Ended up having to order books two and three, and this was back in the days before the Internet, when you had to ask bookstores to do it!) Loved them to pieces and still do today, I can’t praise them enough.
Same goes for the Circle of Magic books, though I’ve been so busy and caught up in other things I haven’t had the time to read the second series there. Or the other Tortall ones. I have them, keep meaning to get back to them…it will happen though, I swear! And all the others, Pierce is too good not to return to her work again and again. I think we need her now more than ever.
Every year without a new Tamora Pierce book is grayer than years she gives us those wonderful gifts. I love her books, and have reread them many times in those dry years. I don’t know either why she isn’t talked about all over the world, but I AM sure she will be. Her books are among the most uplifting, delightful and delicious books I have read, and I read allot. I search for new books about every three or four months, and am sad when I see nothing new. Children, adults and seniors, all the people I have introduced her to, love her books.
I got never got weirded out by periods because of her. I read the lioness series as a kid and when other guys act all weird ive been pretty indifferent.
I didn’t discover Tamora Pierce until high school with Trickster’s Choice, seriously making me think if I wanted to be a spy for a career. I am not a spy unfortunately, but I did dye my hair blue that year. I then read The Magic Circle and The Immortals within that same year. I did not read the Alanna series until maybe 2 years ago, because Aly was my favorite badass hero and was a little upset on how she treated Aly in the beginning of the book. And it was a mistake!! I should have never doubted Tamora Pierce!
I was very happy to see some Tamora Pierce appreciation going on, because she deserves to be recognized. Her stories are amazingly detailed and well written, and considering their publications dates, ahead of their time.
@Lord Vorless – Tammy’ s husband Tim here. Tammy’s in Utah on a book tour for TEMPESTS & SLAUGHTER.
It doesn’t matter if the original isn’t worth publishing or not any more, as it doesn’t exist in its original form. Tammy cut it into pieces, and taped them back together with newly-typed material, to turn into the four-book Song of the Lioness that eventually got published – which was how we edited manuscripts back before word processing was readily available.
She was making barely-above Minimum Wage by early 1980s standards ($3.50/hr. as a clerk-typist), and living in New York City – so photocopying a 700-plus page manuscript would have cost more than $70, or close to 3/4 of her weekly take-home pay!
Soon as she could afford one, about the time of the sale of THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN and LIONESS RAMPANT in one contract, she bought a PC – a CP/M machine that had a WordStar ::cough:: “Inspired” Word Processor, a spreadsheet program that looked suspiciously like VisiCalc, a one-bit Chess Game…and a ASCII animation of a train choo-chooing across her screen. That had 128 KB of RAM, a letter-quality printer with a printwheel so it only did text, a single 5-1/4 floppy disc drive, and a literal Black&White monitor – and cost her nearly $2,500 in 1983 dollars! That made editing a lot easier for her, and she started saving copies onto diskette – except, well, a 5-1/4 Single-Sided/Single-Density floppy disc isn’t exactly easy to read these days, even assuming it didn’t get damaged or overwritten!
I have never heard of this author but I was quite intrigued by the article. I looked her books up on line. Hmmm….mostly paperback and, in the main, quite expensive. My library does not stock these books although they will try to get specific titles in. Does she publish e-books? Couldn’t see any.
30, in terms of ever being done? Sure. I don’t think it would ever happen, even if she had a pristine copy. But idle curiosity? Another story.
It is frightening for me to look at a HDD from the 1980s, or even 1970s, and realize I have so much more data storage on a microSD card in my phone.
There are people who would try to recover from a disc that old though, if it were desired. Obviously I don’t know that they in fact, exist.
31, yes, there are ebook versions of many (I can’t say I’ve checked for all) of her books available, my public library even has some.
@ricevermicelli
I was really excited to see Harris’ Godbon series is now in ebook form, though I promptly forgot to buy it. That series and the Alanna books and a few others were some of my most definitive memories moving out of the kids section of my library to the YA/Adult. Clever writing, and real consequences.
I can only leave a resounding “YES”. Sandry’s Book was literally the first fantasy book I ever read, and Wild Magic the second. I learned how to use the card catalog to find more books by this author.
The Protector of the Small books are some of the most impacting, powerful, visceral books I have EVER read. I adore SOTL and Immortals, but PotS is absolutely the pinnacle for me.
Tempest and Slaughter was also magnificent. I did not enjoy the Beka Cooper books much, so I was a little leery, but T&S sucked me in and I loved every second.
I’ve been reading a lot of Brandon Sanderson and Jim Butcher lately, so I’ve gotten used to books that build up to a big climax where everything happens at once. It was almost startling how different T&S felt from that, but even as I was startled I realized, well, yeah, that’s a Pierce trademark. Her climaxes aren’t avalanches, they’re tidal waves.
OK – I haven’t finished what promises to be a great article. But I wanted to come down immediately and write this: My father first bought Alanna for me when it was published – and I still have those books too. I wanted to include the photo I took of my original hardcovers, all beaten up from numerous rereadings, but I can’t seem to figure out how to add an image here. I took those photos when I was exclaiming to my public school LIBRARIAN friend why it was a travesty he didn’t know who Tamora Pierce was.
Quite frankly, Alanna changed my life. And the lives of my sisters, who originally read my copies and then went out and bought their own. They both point to those books as what sparked their initial interest in reading and both are voracious readers today. But, more importantly, Pierce created characters in which we could see ourselves: girls, and then women, who were stubborn, smart and strong. And I think of Alanna every time someone says or writes “Nevertheless, she persisted”.
Ad an adult, I was actually fortunate enough to find a prepublication copy of Tamora Pierce’s Alanna in my university’s reading room, which I read in a single sitting. I had two copies on preorder before the title was ever released (one was for my sister). She is a favorite author of my three generations of my family, both genders. As a librarian, I made sure to stock her works in my library and recommended them frequently.
I discovered her books in my late 30s. They immediately captured my imagination. After a lifetime of reading books where the guy is the hero and the girl stands around helpless, here were female characters who were strong and not afraid of going for what they wanted. I instantly fell in love.
I tell everone who likes good writing with great characters about her. I re-read the books (all of them, in both universes) every year.
After being away from her books for a while, I just reread much of the circle of magic series, and besides the occasional nitpick, they are just as good as i remembered. Tamora pierce is such a good author, and i love all of her series, though unlike the author I personally like Alanna’s series the least of all she has written, though still quite good. I really wish she was more well known, as she was, along with jk rowling and emily rodda, one of my 3 favorite authors when younger, and still amazing to me now.
Yes, yes, and more yes. #alltheyes to this post.
Oh my gosh yes. It’s so hard to find other people (in real life) that have even heard of Pierce’s books. It makes me so happy to read someone gushing about them.
It’s so nice to see Tamora Pierce get attention. Single most important author of my adolescence (ok, adult life too). I personally think she should let some anime studios take a crack at Tortal (or Emelon). It breaks my heart that she is but a household name, but twincest King George R. R. Martin is. The TV show is better than those books (come at me). I will never not buy any product Ms. Pierce produces.