This One's For the Boys

DISCLAIMER:  I'm doing something I don't normally do.  I'm writing half of this blog post the night before the book comes out, and then I'll finish it after I've actually read the book.  Sounds a bit odd, but I have ben excited about this book for what seems like a decade, easily, so I want you to know what I feel like going in, and what I feel like coming out.

Also, I want to talk about this cover!  It's beautiful!  I think the title seems a lot more violent than Pierce's usual books (Battle Magic is the only one I can think of that comes as close), and after having finished the book, I promise you that it's not all violence!  The cover also feels to me like foreshadowing of events that happen in other series. 

MONDAY NIGHT:  Tonight at midnight, my preorder for Tamora Pierce's newest book, Tempests and Slaughter, will arrive on my kindle.  Not one ounce of lying here, I will stay up until I finish this book.  I don't care if that means I'm up until tomorrow, and then so exhausted tomorrow that I just can't do anything.  You see, I discovered Ms. Pierce as a writer when I was in sixth grade (I think) when my advanced reading group was asked to do a project on a writer.  I didn't know who to write about, but my teacher, whose name I can't remember, much to my chagrin, suggested that I read Ms. Pierce.  She wasn't in my school library, but I went off to the town library.  There, I found all the books I needed (and the school library started to buy Pierce's books, so I was able to get them out at school, too.  My late grandmother was a huge help during this time, as my father, for some reason, had something against letting me go to the town library.  I don't know why.  But Gran took me multiple times a week.  Even then, I read quickly, so I often finished five or six of these books a night, and I reread them all the time!).  This project was due in the spring of 2004, so Ms. Pierce's full bibliography wasn't out yet.  This is the moment where I will say that I do like the Emelan books (Circle of Magic, The Circle Opens, and The Circle Reforged), but it's the Tortall books that I'm drawn to.  The Tortall books have very strong female characters, but unlike many books I've read, they don't either make men seem weak in comparison, nor do they belittle women who don't choose to be "strong" like the main characters.  I know this seems like an odd thing to say, so let me try to explain a bit better.  Some books that I've read have a strong main character and that character looks at the weaker characters as if they are actually weak.  Which is a bit demeaning!  But, for example, in the Protector of the Small series, main character Keladry gets a maid, Lalasa, who has no desire to be anything more than a dressmaker.  Lalasa has been attacked and mistreated by men, and this makes her afraid.  Kel makes Lalasa learn self defense, if only so that Lalasa can protect herself. She doesn't try and turn Lalasa into a warrior like herself, but Kel's confidence in Lalasa gives Lalasa the support she needs to break out of her shell and become a confident young woman herself.

Anyway.  back to Tempests and Slaughter.  We first meet Numair in Wild Magic, published in 1992 (the year I was born!).  He's in his mid to late twenties at the time, and the most powerful mage around.  (Numair is 24, a fact that I was able to get between the new book and looking at the dates in Wild Mage.  A question has been answered!)  We learn very little about him until the third book in the Immortals Quartet, Emperor Mage.  In that book, we learn that Numair was born Arram Draper in Cathark, the great empire to the south, and something happened that caused him to flee and change his name.  I have been curious about what happened for fifteen years.  I want to know what happened!  However, Ms. Pierce went on to finish the Immortals Quartet, write a duology, a collection of short stories, another quartet and a trilogy in the Tortall worlds, and books in the Emelan world.  But I remember watching Ms. Pierce's website before the remodel (which looks amazing) and seeing that she had a duology planned about Numair's origins.  That was maybe 2007?  So, I've known this book was coming for a decade!  I can't wait to see why Numair had to leave Cathark.  I have a theory that Numair was more powerful than the heir to the empire, Ozorne, and Ozorne's jealousy is why he had to leave.  I shall see after I have the book read!


TUESDAY:  Okay, so I finished the book.  It was great!  Not quite what I was expecting--but that didn't make it any less of an awesome book.  Numair is solidly Arram Draper in this book.  He doesn't even think the name Numair, although at one point his teachers mention that he should start thinking of a mage name.  He is an advanced student at the University in Cathark, taking classes with students three years his senior.  After a freak accident, he is moved up to mostly individual studies or small groups with Ozorne, a prince of the Empire, but fourth in line for the Emperor's throne I believe, and Varice Kingsford, a witch talented with hospitality magic.  Arram is only  ten at the time, Varice twelve and a half, and Ozorne, 13.  The book covers four years, so he's only fourteen at the end, but already going through puberty.  Pierce does, like she does in all of her books, treat puberty and sex as matter of fact--in an NPR article she mentions that she asked her writing partner all the little questions, which he answered after laughing himself silly.  I also laughed myself silly reading those parts. 

In his education, Arram gets to do some truly amazing things!  Sebo, a water mistress, takes him walking along the bottom of the river, where he can get up close with crocodiles and hippos--oh, and the crocodile god, Enzi!  Because everyone needs to get personal with a twenty foot crocodile.  I'd be doing some panicking, no lie.  With Ramassu, he learns all kinds of amazing healing, although some of this means going to a sick house in the middle of a typhoid outbreak and the gladiatorial arena during the games.  He goes through some incredible experiences quite young. 

Although Numair develops feelings towards Varice, the book seems to focus more on Arram's relationship with Ozorne.  During the course of the books, two of the three heirs in line for the throne before Ozorne die, one in incredibly suspicious circumstances.  This makes Ozorne two steps away from the throne.  We know that twelve years after Tempests and Slaughter Ozorne is Emperor and he is a cruel one.  He cares little for the people around him, unless they are his precious birds.  You see flashes of madness in Ozorne, and his mother, and one of the Masters even says that the family has some instability in it.  As much as this book is about making Arram into Numair, it's about Ozorne's slow downfall.  Not that we've seen all of what is to come.  There are two more books scheduled in the series!

There were a lot of things that I loved about this book.  Arram as a child, the development of his relationship with Sarge, a character that, again, we know from the Immortals quartet, the name dropping of a few characters that we met in the Beka Cooper trilogy (set three hundred years before the majority of the Tortall books).  We meet Lindhall Reed for the first time, and he's a fabulous character.  There were also a few things that felt a little lacking.  Some of it was action.  There were a few brief moments, but the action in this book felt more like it was espionage.  It was quiet.  There are questions everywhere, but the book felt a little... Tame?  But I might feel that way because I was left wondering what happened next.  It also felt like it ended a little abruptly, and seemingly mid academic term.  Pierce clearly did this for a reason, but we wont know the reason until the next book comes out, and we don't know when that will be.  Ms. Pierce is not the quickest in releases--she doesn't usually come out with several books a year, but she doesn't write at a George R.R. Martin pace.  When she wrote the Beka Cooper trilogy, we got a book every couple of years (2006, 2009, and 2011).  However, Halloween 2017 saw the release of A Spy's Guide to Tortall, which was less than four months before Tempests.  My guess is we will see the next book in 18-24 months.  It seems like so long to wait!

That doesn't mean that there aren't many reasons to reread!  I would not only reccomend reading Tempests, but all of Pierce's books.  They are great fun, and they have some amazing characters that you will really like!  (Daine is still my favorite character, while the Protector of the Small quartet are my favorite books.)