#And that was with Daja in Tamora Pierce's 'Will of the Empress' when I read it at like sixteen or whatever
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It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:
I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.
I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.
Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".
First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.
Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.
Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.
And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:
They
Think
It's
Funny.
They are actively making fun of us.
That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."
So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.
Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.
Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.
Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"
Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.
Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.
Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.
Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.
There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.
Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.
Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.
Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.
So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.
There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.
#byler#Part 2 I fucking guess.#Wasn't planning on making a Part 2 but here we are.#I seriously just want you guys to feel safe.#I'm not naive. I do not say any of this shit lightly.#But I've been around the block long enough to know what queerbaiting looks like and this ain't it. Promise.#Will's already been confirmed as in love with Mike for fuck's sake. You don't think the other half of the equation's gonna follow through?#There has only ever been one other situation where I've gone 'Okay this is going in gay places' with no doubt whatsoever without being told#And that was with Daja in Tamora Pierce's 'Will of the Empress' when I read it at like sixteen or whatever#and she wound up having whole-ass fuckin' gay sex.#I was right then and I'm right now. I swear.
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The Circle is Reforged
Tamora Pierce's Circle Reforged books are an interesting case, because this is really where she started bouncing around in time in Emelan, and filling in some parts of story that were mentioned, suggested, or explicity referenced but not told. The books themselves were published well and truly out of chronological order, but having read them in publication order as they came out and then in chronological order on reread, I honestly don't think there's a "preferable" strategy. If you've read the Circle of Magic and Circle Opens quartets, you can explore the Circle Reforged in whatever order. However, I think I'm going to cover them in (more or less, no promises) publication order here. So let's talk The Will of the Empress.
*absolutely rampant, unapologietic spoilers for the Circle of Magic and Circle Opens quartets below the break*
This book explore the implications and consequences of Lady Sandreline being both Fa Toren in Emelan and Fa Landreg in Namorn. Our girl is practically royalty in two countries, but after she is orphaned in Hatar's smallpox epidemic, Duke Vedris in Emelan and Lord Ambros Fer Landreg in Namorn largely shield Sandry from her responsibilities as the primary landowner of the Landreg estates--which is entirely reasonable given that she is ten years old at the time.
When we get to the beginning of Will of the Empress, though, Sandry has been functionally running Emelan in the wake of Duke Vedris's heart attack and Ambros has been pointedly sending her account books for her Namornese estates. Sandry has been neglecting the hell out of those, and misses the fact that the Empress of Namorn has been financially squeezing Landreg to try to force Sandry back to Namorn.
Sandry has also been largely completed separated from Briar, Tris, and Daja for almost two full years by the opening of this book, since they went off to travel with their teachers and she stayed. She's had contact with Lark, but even that dropped significantly once Sandry moved into the Duke's Citadel.
Given all of that and two years of personal growth and change, when our four protagonists reunite in the house Daja buys for them, they collectively seize up in self-consciousness and shame and uncertainty. Plus seriously powerful ambient magic. Which literally everyone with eyes (except our protagonists) can see is a bad thing. So to kill two birds with one stone, Duke Vedris asks Briar, Tris, and Daja to go with Sandry to Namorn as basically bodyguards. The background hope is that the four of them get to know each other again and find their equilibrium.
With a lot of yelling and a distinct lack of talking, they set off to Namorn.
Which is when we really get off to the races, because the lack of talking means that Briar hasn't told the girls he's dealing with PTSD from the war in Gyongxe; Daja hasn't said she is dealing with abandoment issues, figuring out her own sexuality, and having helped kill a friend who had killed a lot of people by setting fires; Tris hasn't told anyone that she developed a skill that kills or drives mad 99.99% of all mages who try it and the whole Ghost-is-Jack-the-Ripper thing in Tharios; and Sandry...well, I love our girl, but she's dealing with a combination of inheritance and political machinations, her crippling terror of another family member dying on her watch, and the fact that she actively chose to rip three people to shreds to save Pasco's life. So everybody has big feelings and nobody is dealing with them or communicating effectively. Which, again, is a GREAT combination with the phenomenal cosmic powers.
This is a Sandry-centric book, but as we did with Sandry's Book, we also get a metric ton of the other three as well, because as they did in Sandry's Book, they're coming together as a unit. Trying very, very hard to prevent that are Berenene dor Ocmor, Empress of Namorn and her court mages, Ishabal Ladyhammer and Quenaill Sheildsman. They are trying to either recruit or get rid of four legendarily powerful mages. The recruiting goes...poorly. For a variety of reasons. The getting rid of goes WORSE.
Part of the recruiting scheme for Sandry specifically includes a himbo husband that Berenene can boss around to her heart's content. The approved suitors are Jakuben fer Pennun, who had himbo down pat, and Finlach fer Hurich, who was less himbo and more goldigging asshole with an influential uncle. Finlach ends up leaping SO FAR over the line that Berenene has to slap him down so hard that his entire life is ruined.
Then we come to Pershan fer frickin' Roth. Even if you take the Namornese tradition of kidnapping brides into account, Shan takes the whole thing to another level because his ass makes Sandry feel SAFE and WANTED and VALUED AS A PERSON before turning around and kidnapping her in a trap tailor-made for subduing even a very powerful stitch witch. Literally this man is the worst and he deserved so much worse than he got.
Overall, this book is about reconnection and remembering that some bonds are deeper than two-year world tours. It's also about seeing your siblings as their whole selves and accepting them, warts and all, because they are the people you love and who love you back. This is one of my favorite Circle Universe books, and I think it is objectively the best Sandry book and the best "all four of us are here" book in the Circle universe.
This book also objectively heavier than the Circle of Magic and Circle Opens quartets. It's still technically YA, but it's the 16-19 end of YA more than the 13-15 end, given that it deals with not only PTSD and trauma, but also sexual assault and kidnapping, so take care if you aren't in a headspace for those topics. The book will still be there, and taking care of yourself in your book choices comes first, always.
#tamora pierce#the will of the empress#emelan#circle universe#the circle reforged#the circle opens#circle of magic#sandry#briar moss#daja kisubo#tris#trisana chandler#sandrilene fa toren#ya fantasy#books & libraries#books and reading#books and novels#book recommendations#books
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When I first read Will of the Empress, I was really angry at Daja, Tris and Briar for being so horrible to Sandry. The were incredibly mean, and also horrible to eachother. The easy camaraderie between the four was gone, and I didn't like it.
But then I read the book as an adult, and it hit me. They are sixteen!! I don't know why I thought they were older, but the four are young teenagers! No wonder they are all snarly and grumpy. They are literal teens.
Teenagers who went through incredibly traumatic experiences, especially Briar. Then they come home and find out the can't stay at Discipline anymore. And everyone has changed.
So, in retrospect, Tamora Pierce did an amazing job (as always) with her characterization. She accurately portrayed teenagers with trauma and ptsd. That is amazing. I can't think of another book that does it so well.
#circle of magic#tamora pierce#my favorite books#book reccs#will of the empress#sandrilene fa toren#daja kisubo#trisana chandler#briar moss
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HI you read the circle of magic books??? I am so excited I love that series (although haven't read them for quite a while)
YESSSSSSS I love that series
HONESTLY everything by Tamora Pierce lmao all of it was so so so formative for me
she does SUCH a good job at portraying people who just go absolutely "FUCK society's expectations I am going to be my best authentic self" and it's SO inspiring and gratifying
Like Okay,
Sandry -
-constantly treated like she should be a delicate flower noble and instead uses her nobility to stand up for people she cares about LITERALLY starting like the first time we see her?? where she's like hey Daja I know everyone else is a racist asshole here, how about we be friends
-called a stitch witch derogatorily and then OWNS it like "Yeah I do magic with stitching WHAT ABOUT IT" and then uses those same skills to do absolutely UNPRECEDENTED magic things
-Genuinely wants to just help, CALLS IT "JUST HELPING" WHEN SHE'S BASICALLY RUNNING A KINGDOM FOR HER UNCLE
Briar -
-legit the little scene where he decides his name?? Briar to be outwardly tough and then MOSS BECAUSE SECRETLY HE'S A SOFTIE even though he pretends otherwise for at least like the whole first couple of books lmao
-uses his "street urchin" skills for extreme good, liberating a dying plant cause he could feel it was sick, maintains contact with the girl that ends up sick and works himself to the bone trying to keep her from dying 😭
-goes through a FUCKING WAR comes out the otherside with serious PTSD and STILL shows SO MUCH compassion and empathy for Zhergorz and Tris when other people are like wtf
Daja -
-loses her whole family, horrifically, loses her whole PEOPLE, devastatingly, somehow does NOT give up goes on does her thing becomes an absolute LEGEND to those same people who outcast her
-probably ALSO has PTSD from that whole thing where she made a thing that someone she cared about used to hurt people 🙃🙃🙃 yet never stops CARING: see again, Zhegorz (a legend in his own right, but this is already a long ass rant and I'm sticking to the main 4)
-falls in love stays in love GIVES UP THAT RELATIONSHIP to stay true to herself and her morals and her family
TRIS -
(Probably my favorite although it's close between her and Briar and ESPECIALLY the way they complement and reflect pieces of each other is so so so cool)
- has a fucking TEMPER and I love her for it because she's fucking RIGHT like 90% of the time go off girl
- got bounced around her family 💔 got betrayed by her family 💔 makes her OWN family dammit and cares about them when by all right she could've just hardened her heart (see reflecting briar in being outwardly tough and inwardly a softie)
- is so SO absolutely powerful and REFUSES to contradict her morals and use her power for what "people" think she "should" use it for and plans to just get a regular medallion and do regular magic
- ALSO has PTSD from the fucking pirates and their slaves that she smashed to absolute smithereens please someone give these kids A BREAK
oh my god I could go on for ages lmao thank you for this ask
honestly if you have the time the books are Well worth a reread, especially the Circle Opens and Will of the Empress imo
wait shit I almost forgot to mention:
not only does she show all of these people being amazing and incredible
BUT ALSO
THEY ALL MAKE MISTAKES
THEY FUCK UP
and then they realize, or someone calls them out, and they apologize and/or *change* and get better
Like DAMN that just feel refreshing you know??
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🥺
🥺 what’s a truly underrated book/series you recommend and wish the whole world would read?
All of these books are ones that either never won awards, or are not well known -- as in if I mention them, people give me blank looks or show no recognition of the series or author.
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
Young Wizards Series by Diane Duane
The Circle of Magic, The Circle Opens, and Will of Empress by Tamora Pierce
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation; Authority; Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer
The Species Imperative Trilogy by Julie Czerneda
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection edited by Hope Nicholson
A Psalm for the Wild Built is a novella and about a nonbinary monk who travels the countryside and serves tea to people, while listening to their troubles. Except they decide they need to go into the wilds, but during their journey, they encounter the first robot humans have seen in over two hundred years. Their friendship is adorable. It's a solarpunk world, and it's message of hope is everything. I adored it, and I wished I lived in this world honestly.
____
The Young Wizards series started in the 90s actually. I was a kid when I read the first book: So You Want To Be A Wizard. I grew up reading these books, and so I never got into Harry Potter. Mostly because when I tried Harry Potter, it felt like a poor shadow of the Young Wizards series. So I abandoned Harry Potter to continue to read Young Wizards.
Honestly, I adored Nita and Kit and their fantastical adventures. @dianeduane is a master at twists and turns, and the plots of Young Wizards goes from localized problems to multi-universe problems the young wizards must rush to solve. I can't recommend it enough.
Seriously, I want more people reading Young Wizards so I can talk to more folks about it. So that we can have some fanfiction for it, so that we can have more fanart. It deserves so much more attention, plus the author is super awesome and supportive for LGBTQIA folks! I'll sound the drum on this series forever. lol
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Another series that I grew up with that I wish more people knew about is The Circle of Magic, The Circle Opens, and Will of Empress by Tamora Pierce. Sandry, Tris, Daja, and Briar were my found family, comfort characters, and their teachers were so gay (the two lesbian teachers were together actually). The themes explored were complex and fascinating. Pierce is more known for her Alanna series, which I think isn't as good as her Circle of Magic series honestly. This is my comfort series that I've read a bazillion times.
____
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation; Authority; Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer is very hard to describe. I know a movie was made of the first book -- Annihilation, but the movie really doesn't capture the true weirdness of this series. Nor the rather hopeful if bizarre ending. I keep going back to re-read this series because it's prose, its worldbuilding, how the land itself becomes a character is so utterly fascinating. I want more people to read the books so I can talk to them about it!!
____
The Species Imperative Trilogy by Julie Czerneda is one of my favorite trilogies of all time. It's not well known at all, which makes me sad. Julie Czerneda is a master at crafting alien species. The story is about a salmon researcher that ends up on an investigation about an alien species that may or may not be eating entire planets of aliens -- it's a conspiracy that spans the galaxy. I couldn't put it down, and I keep going back to it because its themes are fascinating.
___
Nnedi Okorafor is more well known for her Akata Witch series (I highly recommend) or her Binti series (also highly recommend). However, her Lagoon really by far one of her best I think. It's the story of first contact with aliens, but it's also an exploration of identity, liberation, community, and how we react to change and difference. It has a very diverse cast including well-written trans characters, and I wish more folks read it (beyond scholars) so I can chat about it!
___
Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection edited by Hope Nicholson is a kickstarter I did randomly, and I'm so glad I did. I have three in this collection, and it's comics by Native American artists. They are all fantastic and I don't even know where to begin. There's just so many good stories in it, and I wish more people knew of this collection and would read it. It explores identity, intergenerational trauma, healing, liberation, and community. One of the best comic anthologies I've ever read.
____
I'll stop there. Mostly because I'm getting tired and I know the question only asked for one. But I can't choose! These are all so good, and I highly recommend them all!
So thank you for asking. :)
#writing#books#diane duane#nnedi okorafor#jeff vandermeer#hope nicholson#tamora pierce#julie czerneda#science fiction books#fantasy books#book ask game
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What are some of your best/favorite/most memorable media moments/segments you've experienced recently? Why those moments?
I'm just going to gush about the Emelan/Circle of Magic books by Tamora Pierce for a while.
This post contains full spoilers for the Emelan series, particularly Circle Reforged and Will of the Empress.
@daja-the-hypnokitten (name not a coincidence) got me interested in reading Tammy's work after we started dating last year and I burned through all of Tortall in a matter of months.
I haven't read this much in my life. Normally 2-4 books a year was me at my peak. So far I am on 25 and I'm still working on another 2 at the moment and am preparing to tackle another 3 if I have time before the next Numair book.
In recovery I have read Shatterglass, Will of the Empress and Melting Stones.
I also just finished Cold Fire days before the surgery.
I'll focus all my thoughts on WotE though. Because it is the culmination of the series (and also it's been a few months since I read Briar's Book).
The Circle of Magic series is about 4 traumatized children who for reasons are without family and are raised in a monastery dedicated to natural magics. Each of the 4 have ambient magic and after the first book a deep psychic connection to one another that causes them to bleed in to one another.
One of the 4 is as blatant of a BPD allegory as can be (albeit Daine is still my BPD projection character for Tammy's works) who was expelled from her family and overheard conversations where she was treated as an unwanted *thing* to be gotten rid of and one grew up in extreme poverty and is defined by the class divide between his roots and his current circumstances.
So I see a lot of myself in them. I'm not always one for reading books as a mirror, but if they're going to show me a character who has deep seeded abandonment issues because her parents literally kicked her out then I'm not going to turn my nose up. Especially if she has red hair.
This book involves the 4 of them returning from their travels in the prior quartet, bearing scars of further trauma as each of the Circle Opens books involves them being up against literal murderers and being forced to grapple the ethics of justice. Daja brutally incinerated a man she thought of as a friend *as a kindness*, Sandry performed corrupted magic and killed 3 people who may not have deserved to die. Briar's trauma runs so deep that we do not even get to learn about it for another 2 books. I still haven't read what hurt Rosethorn's boy so badly, though I can imagine it pretty well after seeing him grapple with his PTSD.
They are wounded. Hurt and defensive.
And the home they wished to return to, a monastery cottage, turns them away for being over 16 and no longer pupils. 4 orphans out on their ass, hurting deeply and feeling completely abandoned in their suffering-- worried that their Family, the 4, would reject them should they open up about their experiences.
Which brings me to the first of the 4 scenes I wish to talk about.
The first chapter of the book was hard for me. Daja was the first to find out that she was no longer welcome at the place she called home. Her teacher was foolish about how he handled it and Daja went cold and stoic. I've been Daja in moments like that. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes when something you cannot process is coming you simply don't think about it and reject it when it comes about.
Daja ends up buying a house, something her mastery of Smith magic allows her to do, because she needed to have something... some*where* that couldn't be taken from her. She expected her siblings to live with her when they returned. Over the course of 2 years Tris and Briar do return but Sandry remains with her uncle-- all 4 of them have closed off their psychic connection from one another. Sandry is being emotionally immature because she felt abandoned by her Family and expected them to go back to How It Was. Tris, who has found herself unable to make money, hates the idea of charity and insists on acting as a maid and Briar is dealing with trauma and keeping everyone at distance and cannot handle the chaos of the household and the flying green thing is creating constant chaos.
The events of 6 Cheeseman Street broke my heart in the most beautiful way because for a chapter of this book I saw all these people I cared about broken beyond the ability to reconcile. I understood all 4 of them deeply and wanted them to feel better but knew it just couldn't happen. The first chapter takes place over 16 months and the dysfunction doesn't improve because none of them are capable of working on their issues or bonding closer together and the more any of them pushed the more broken things became. 3 of the 4 were living together, they had freedom, agency and respect but in the end it just was a proud and closed up artisan, an anxious and mentally unwell plant boy and a bitter red head who felt like an imposition (with flying green cutie) all suffering within a bond that couldn't open up again.
I contrast that with the ending.
Through the book's events Sandry and Daja opened up their connection and Briar opened up to Tris. The scene where Tris dryly opens up to Sandry and reminds that they are family actually had me crying.
The end of the book is when all 4 are finally connected and they go in through Briar's connection to the roof of the house they all grew up in together, Discipline Cottage. Briar says that he had spent time in a brutal war being tortured and he created this place in his mind to escape to and he was now inviting his siblings to be there with him.
The four just opened up. Shared their traumas, their fears, their pains and they reforged the connection which had been broken and felt one another's presence inside their hearts and minds again and became whole. Which just.
I cry easily, okay... and I just got back on Estrogen 2 weeks ago!
I joked to Daja afterwards that the dysfunction, the opening up, the safe space and all 4 of them sharing a common mind and needing to feel their connection to be able to be a better whole while still maintaining their individuality kind of made it accidentally better DID representation than 99.9% of the stories I've read that actually are about the condition.
Anyway...
I've been enjoying the books a lot. They helped me survive the rough half of my recovery cycle.
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im not the same anon but i adore u for recommending tamora pierce!!! my entire childhood was built around her works and circle of magic book #1 was my first step into her universes!! i will definitely have to go check out ur other recs! ive had ur goodreads open for a while but theres so .. many... books LOL so i appreciate u and the anon who asked for narrowing it down some! i trust ur impeccable taste 😌
another tamora pierce fan!!! <3 her books will always have a special place in my heart. daja in the will of the empress was my first brush with wlw relationships and i remember baby me thinking at the time "omg, girls can kiss girls? :o" haha... thank you for appreciating my taste 🥺 🤍
i actually only got back into reading for fun near the end of 2020. i used to be a prolific reader as a kid and checked out books from the library every week... but that changed as i grew up! slowly i'm starting to collect interesting books again. sometimes i'll read the beginning of a book, skim around, and decide i don't particularly like the writing and i'll feel no guilt about not finishing it. i think it's necessary to have high standards about the sort of writing you want to spend several days hanging out with. wanna hear something interesting? i read an article called how to fall back in love with reading (even when your brain feels like mush). in it, there's a paragraph that goes like this:
Some studies have suggested that reading fiction can increase empathy. But a perhaps even more surprising finding comes from researchers who discovered a short-term decrease in the need for “cognitive closure” in the minds of readers of fiction. In brief, the researchers write, those with a high need for cognitive closure “need to reach a quick conclusion in decision-making and an aversion to ambiguity and confusion,” and thus, when confronted with confusing circumstances, tend to seize on fast explanations and hang on to them. That generally means they’re more susceptible to things like conspiracy theories and poor information, and they become less rational in their thinking. Reading fiction, though, studies have found, tends to retrain the brain to stay open, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to sort through information more carefully.
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Hi again,
Re Tamors Pierce, yall were talking about Daja being queer in The Will Of The Empress and I want to add, I only recentlyish discovered that Lark and Rosethorn, who raised the four, were a sapphic couple. It didnt even occur to me at the time! And according to a wiki I found, one of them also has a (polyam, consensual) casual sexual relationship with Crane, one of the other teachers who I remember as a strict stick-in-the-mud.
Plus Alanna is some form of genderqueer (bigender?) and Keladry is ace, Tamora Pierce says she just didnt have the right words to describe them as such when originally writing. I cant remember if that was via twitter or a particular interview though.
I also have in my head that Briar is gay, but I do not remember a shred of evidence for this. Might just be headcanon, idk 😂
yes!!! i remember having the exact same realization about lark and rosethorn, i think also after i'd read all the books. love it so much. didn't know about crane though! (/maybe just don't remember crane as well since it's been a While lmao)
i also saw tamora's tweets about alanna and i think that's such a great example of a writer being capable of reexamining their own work and thinking about how they would approach it in a different context now vs then. she just seems so great about it all in a way that feels so comforting for anyone who grew up with these books meaning a lot to them! i can't find anything rn about kel, but here's what she said about alanna if anyone else is interested:
View on Twitter
(here)
and of course we love a headcanon!!! need to refresh myself on briar’s relationships tbh but love that too. thanks for sharing all this, these books keep coming up recently and it's really making me want to revisit them 💖
-kabriya
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hello! i definitely agree with what you said about girls of paper and fire — it’s my first sapphic book and i’m definitely disappointed theres so little action. what are some sapphic book faves of yours? love ur blog !!
Thank you! Tbh I haven’t read many, I’m super into fantasy YA which is still very hetero and, as with most media (esp TV), the same sex relationships that get inclusion and time are almost exclusively male.
Part of what I really enjoyed about Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce is that, throughout the Magic Circle books, you see Daja sort of questioning her sexuality, why she never liked kissing boys etc, but it’s not the focal point of her character arc at all. So in Will of the Empress, she meets a woman and they begin a really tender courtship that results in consummation and it was written quite beautifully. Because of the nature of the storyline, she has to leave, but what I also enjoyed was that her foster siblings are also tender with her when they find out. They’re kinda just like...aww why didn’t you say anything? And she admits she didn’t quite figure it out until she met this woman. And I thought that was probably the first time I really read, or saw a sapphic relationship, most specifically where the women in question are Black/biracial, so no white partner, and it’s handled with some care and without the male gaze looming in the BG, so if you haven’t read it yet, I do recommend. I recommend the entire Circle of Magic series but Will of the Empress is where the relationship takes place.
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Books I’ve Read So Far This Year
I just finished a book and realized it was my hundredth of the year, so I thought I would do as I did last year and put a list of everything I’ve read thus far with a few notes under a cut, so if anyone is dying to talk about any of them or was looking for recs or wants to rec me books can do so!
Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo (not nearly so good as Six of Crows, but still good)
Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh (one of my go-to romance authors, not my favorite of hers ever but still super solid)
Empress of a Thousand Skies, Rhoda Belleza (EXTREMELY disappointing)
Three Princes, Ramona Wheeler (starred, some very fun alternate history adventuring)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: Stand By For Mars!, Carey Rockwell (starred, the start of the BEST SERIES)
The Course of Honor, avoliot (reread)
Contact, Carl Sagan (another reread, I wanted lots of sci fi this winter)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: Danger in Deep Space, Carey Rockwell (starred, another installment in a delightful series)
The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt, Patricia MacLachlan (a reread from my younger years, which still makes me ache)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: On the Trail of the Space Pirates (a reread of the one that got me into the series in the first place)
Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, Oliver Jeffers (children’s picture book, really lovely)
Cordelia’s Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold (a reread and a DELIGHT. In a fit of unwise temper I got rid of the rest of my copies of this series some years back, and this reread made me regret it)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: The Space Pioneers, Carey Rockwell (you know the drill)
Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut (what was this book even aBOUT?)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: The Revolt on Venus, Carey Rockwell (starred, DINOSAURS on VENUS)
Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut (a significant improvement on Timequake)
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers (reread, still wonderful)
A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers (ditto)
A Queen from the North, Racheline Maltese & Erin McRae (cool alternate history, annoying main character)
The Philosopher Kings, Jo Walton (another enjoyable addition to the series)
Necessity, Jo Walton (there were aliens in this one!)
Daja’s Book, Tamora Pierce (reread, I always really liked this one)
Magic Steps, Tamora Pierce (reread, I was on a roll)
The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo (starred, I REALLY liked some of the tales in this one)
Street Magic, Tamora Pierce (see above)
Cold Magic, Tamora Pierce (ditto)
Shatterglass, Tamora Pierce (ditto)
The Will of the Empress, Tamora Pierce (ditto, though I liked this one better on a reread than I did when it first came out)
About That Kiss, Jill Shalvis (solid contemporary romance)
Eliza and Her Monsters, Francesca Zappia (says a lot of difficult things about creativity and fandom and loneliness, I think)
The Arrangement, Mary Balogh (reread, starting off with the first of my favorite series by her that I own--The Proposal isn’t in my collection, alas)
Artemis, Andy Weir (moon heist! Voice not quite as engaging as The Martian)
Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, Helen Wells (delightful and old-fashioned)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (a reread, much rewarded by me being better about parsing names this time)
The Escape, Mary Balogh (continuing my Survivors Club reread)
Shadow Magic, Patricia C. Wrede (going back to her very old work! And sure reads like it)
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, Julia Quinn (reread, I still love Penelope but Colin is kind of a dick in places)
The Relic Master, Christopher Buckley (kind of a heist, kind of historical fiction, kind of forgettable?)
Only Enchanting, Mary Balogh (continuing the reread)
The Regional Office Is Under Attack!, Manuel Gonzales (really wanted to like this more than I did)
Palimpsest, Catherynne Valente (gorgeous as ever, of course)
The Music Shop, Rachel Joyce (eh)
The Ruin of a Rake, Cat Sebastian (fun!)
Only a Promise, Mary Balogh (and continuing still)
Daughter of Witches, Patricia C. Wrede (continuing with her older work, liked this one a bit better but still nothing I adored)
To Die But Once, Jaqueline Winspear (I like this series, none of the plots stick with me but they’re enjoyable as I read them)
Only a Kiss, Mary Balogh (aaaand again)
Tash Hearts Tolstoy, Kathryn Ormsbee (YA, ace main character, I didn’t deeply love it, but not everything needs to be deeply loved)
Only Beloved, Mary Balogh (concluding the reread of this series)
The Undateable, Sarah Title (I wanted to like it. I did not.)
Falling for Trouble, Sarah Title (better than the other one, anyway?)
Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey (reread, I went for all my childhood favorites early on this year!)
The Duchess Deal, Tessa Dare (romance, reread, lots of fun)
First Rider’s Call, Kristen Britain (some nice epic fantasy if you’re into that!)
Any Duchess Will Do, Tessa Dare (rather a delight of a romance)
The Harp of Imach Thyssel, Patricia C. Wrede (her older works again, skimmed a lot of it to be honest)
His Lady Mistress, Elizabeth Rolls (part iddy delight, part shake-the-characters-and-scream-at-their-stupidity)
Shapely Ankle Preffer’d: A History of the Lonely Hearts Advertisement, Francesca Beauman (exactly what it says on the tin, nonfic, quite entertaining)
A Strange Scottish Shore, Juliana Gray (tragically not nearly so charming as the first one, but I still liked it--it suffered from my expectations, is all)
Year of the Griffin, Diana Wynne-Jones (I still deserve a perfect miniseries)
The Unicorn Sonata, Peter Beagle (strange and lovely)
The Glass Universe, Dava Sobel (nonfic, super fun and absorbing, starred)
When a Scot Ties the Knot, Tessa Dare (nice bread-and-butter fare, but also thus far in my experience of her she has one character dynamic and Sticks To It, so if you like that dynamic, stick around for the banter, but if you don’t ...)
The Lost Plot, Genevieve Cogman (continues to be a delightful series)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin LIu (trans. Ken Liu) (very interesting, picked up a lot for me in the second half)
Someone to Care, Mary Balogh (I continue to adore her--a couple not in the first flush of youth, if you’ll believe it!)
A Princess in Theory, Alyssa Cole (starred for DELIGHT, but does rush the plot a bit at the end)
The Plant Messiah, Carlos Magdalena (nonfiction, the EGO on this guy)
The Cultural Lives of Whales & Dolphins, Hal Whitehead & Luke Rendell (nonfic, what it says on the tin, somehow both dry and sassy, the combination charmed me)
The Philosopher’s Flight, Tom Miller (starred, delightful, but be warned it’s not a standalone! I was not, and found myself most disappointed by that)
Caught in Crystal, Patricia C. Wrede (again, skimmed a lot of this one)
The Second Mango, Shira Glassman (this one was so warm and sweet and fun!)
The Raven Ring, Patricia C. Wrede (now this one had characters I actually enjoyed in it, thank goodness)
Mistress of Mellyn, Victoria Holt (So Gothic Oh My God)
Julia and the Master of Morancourt, Janet Aylmer (light and frothy, a nice little snack)
The Antagonists, Burgandi Rakoska (I wanted to like it, since I found it through a tumblr post, but the writing didn’t work for me)
It Takes Two to Tumble, Cat Sebastian (I liked it a lot! More than The Ruin of a Rake, though both are good)
Cinnamon Blade: Knife in Shining Armor, Shira Glassman (more of a novella, but still plenty of fun)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: Treachery in Outer Space, Carey Rockwell (you thought I was done but YOU WERE FOOLED, anyway it’s starred and I loved it)
Hamilton’s Batallion, Rose Lerner & Courtney Milan & Alyssa Cole (a trio of delightful historical novellas, starred! Milan’s may have been my favorite, but Cole’s was a very close second, and Lerner only suffered in comparison and was still lovely)
Blueberry Summer, Elisabeth Ogilvie (old-fashioned YA, man)
The Language of Spells, Garret Weyr (starred, middle grade readers, OUCH. Really good and also hurts)
The Stone Heart, Fairy Erin Hicks (graphic novel, starred, second in a trilogy and really good)
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: BFF, Amy Reeder, Brandon Montclare, Natacha Bustos (comic collection, actually kind of made me cry???)
The Black Tides of Heaven, JY Yang (really glorious worldbuilding and interesting characters, felt like more of a sketch than I wanted it to, though)
The Unexpected Bride, Elizabeth Rolls (starred, iddy DELIGHT)
The Red Threads of Fortune, JY Yang (companion to the former, with the same good worldbuilding and characters, less of a sketch!)
Astounding!, Kim Fielding (strange and charming)
The Year We Fell Down, Sarina Bowen (contemporary college hockey romance; from this and from the summaries of other books in this series, it seems like they don’t actually play that much hockey? And look, I don’t love sports stories, but if you’re doing a hockey based romance, do the hockey. However, the relationship was really fun and I liked that aspect)
The Wanderers, Meg Howrey (strange, but I liked it)
Butterfly Swords, Jeannie Lin (parts worked for me, I was super glad to explore a non-Regency historical setting, but I didn’t love it overall)
A Scandal By Any Other Name, Kimberly Bell (charming bantery historical romance with disabled heroine!)
Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (wow wow wow)
Mining for Justice, Kathleen Ernst (cozy mystery, in the middle of a series)
Hild, Nicola Griffith (starred, WOW this one is fascinating and full of women and politics and so many things. If you love Joan of Arc but want to be more hipster about your saints, try it)
Woolly, Ben Mezrich (nonfic, about the quest to resurrect the woolly mammoth, but too fictionesque and focused on the less interesting things for me)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: Sabotage in Space, Carey Rockwell (the most disappointing of the series for me, tragically, since it’s the last for right now unless I want to spend a bunch of money on The Robot Rocket, which DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ROGER IN IT)
Space Opera, Catherynne Valente (starred, OF COURSE IT IS STARRED, THIS BOOK IS ABOUT SPACE AND MUSIC AND ALIENS AND MUSIC, also I read the last fifty pages with Abba’s greatest hits playing and “Thank You for the Music” and the end hit at the same time and I had some emotions)
What have you been reading lately, folks? What am I missing out on?
#about me#i am going to watch killjoys now i think but then i will be back to discuss this if anyone so desires
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Hermione Granger!
Hermione Granger: What is your favorite book, how many times have you read it, and why do you love it?
This is a tough one, because I’ve got like two I can’t pick between, so I’ll tell you about both!
Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) is a HUGE one for me. I first got those little abridged versions of books, and I struggled through that version of it when I was like… 6? 7? But my Nana had the VHS of the mini-series with Megan Follows (only like… the best adaptation ever in my opinion) and I was told I wasn’t allowed to watch it until I’d read the book. So, little me got through the book and got to watch it, and it remains one of my big reading accomplishments of childhood. I also just related so much to Anne, loving books and stories and it’s a feeling that hasn’t gone away. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it, because it was one I reread multiple times throughout school and I’ve got a digital form bought on my phone.
Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce is another one for me. No lie, her Circle of Magic series was also really high on my list of favorites (Only reason it’s not actually one of the two is because it’s a series). So when I was older and found out there’s more to the series, when the characters are older and I can still relate to them? YES PLEASE. I loved the found family aspects to the series, and the complications and troubles they’ve gotten as they’ve grown up -and been apart a while- were so important to me, because I’d grown up reading about how they joined together and I had to know. WotE also covers more mature content, so it’s a great example of a series aging with the readers. Also, I just love my main four. I grew up wanting to talk books with Tris, talk to Sandry about pretty much anything, hear all about smithing from Daja, and honestly, I wanted Briar to teach me to pick locks. Honestly, had a huuuuuge crush on Briar, which is a shame because you know… fictional? I’ve also lost track of how many times I’ve read it, because I’ve got a physical and digital copy, and whenever I’m really bored on the bus or something, I pull it out and reread it.
#anon asks#thanks for asking!#stuff about me#the writer speaks#honestly go check out these books they're great!
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Must Reads Special #1
Welcome to the first special edition of Must Reads.
Instead of going over my favorite books I’ve researched lately from my list, we are visiting some of my favorite books/series.
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
--I was going to mention five but I didn’t expect the first one to become so long so I shortened it to three--
Stacks Favorites
--The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce
Four orphaned misfits who come together to learn how to use their magic. Sandry who is gifted in magic related to silk and weaving. Daja who was banished from her people is gifted in magic related to metalwork. The former thief Briar whose magic is in plants. And Tris, gifted in magic related to the weather.
I really love this series. It is actually made up of three quartets. The Circle of Magic quartet is mainly about the four learning how to control their magic. Simple enough at first but at the end of the first book (Sandry’s Book) the four find themselves trapped in a cave when a massive earthquake hits. The only way they can think to save themselves is for Sandry to weave these pieces of string they were ordered to carry around by their teachers in order to make the pieces glow. (Which she can do since her magic deals in all matters of weaving, cloth, clothes). While weaving the strings together, all four poured some of their power into the cloth. With the light they have a better idea of how they could use their individual types of magic to made the now caved in cave stable until they can be rescued. As a consequence of this, it turns out Sandry also weaved their magics together. Now each can do a little of each others magic. In the second book (Tris’s Book) they help defend their city from a pirate attack. In the third (Daja’s Book) they help stop a massive wildfire. In the fourth book (Briar’s Book) a mysterious illness spreads rapidly throughout the city; more of a plague, and the four help find the cure.
The Circle Opens is the second quartet of these books. This time around Briar, Daja, and Tris have left to travel with their teachers for a year or so. Sandry has stayed behind with her teacher in order to look after her uncle after his heart attack. Each finds themselves in some kind of trouble and each end up becoming teachers to new mages they meet while they travel. Book one (Magic Steps) follows Sandry as she meets a young boy who uses a dance to attract fish to a net. To her dismay she learns that whatever mage finds a new, untrained mage must become their teacher until they can find a teacher more suited to the new ones magic. If none are found, the discovering mage must teach them. She finds him a willing dance instructor but must teach him control over his magic since no dance mage lives in the city. But while she is trying to teach her student there is a murder running around killing members of a specific merchant family. An invisible murderer gifted with a magic that is nothingness. Sandry must work together with her student to stop the murderer.
Book two (Street Magic) follows Briar when he finds a girl street rat who can perform magic with stones. There are several mages specializing in stones in the city but Briar’s student likes none of them. There is even someone who wants to adopt his student but only wants to use her in order to join a gang controlled by the rich lady and to hunt for stones for her. This actually the first book I read of these. I checked it out at my schools library and didn’t know it was part of a series at the time.
Book three (Cold Fire) follows Daja who discovers that the twin daughters of the family they are staying with can do magic. One in all things related to cooking and the other in woodcraft. While there are also house fires almost every night. Daja helps stop several and discovers that the fires are intentionally set and tries to find the arsonist. Who terms out to be this older gentleman that Daja became friends with and she might have had a bit of a thing for him, so that was heart wrenching.
Book four (Shatterglass) follows Tris whose student is an older gentleman able to perform magic with glass. What’s different here is that her student knew he had a small seed of magic already. One evening he was struck by lightening and wasn’t able to make glass pieces as well as he was able to before. Turns out that lightening altered his magic a bit and gave him a bit of glass and lightening magic. And together they hunt down a killer who is specifically going after the city’s entertainers; tumblers, dancers, singers, and late night companions.
The Circle Reforged is the third quartet. In The Will of the Empress, the four are back together again and are heading to Sandry’s family estate in a neighboring kingdom. But her aunt; the empress, is power hungry and wants to add Sandry and her friends to her collection. She will do anything to have them stay in her country. From bribes like for Briar she would give him access to her private greenhouses that few have access to and to be the official royal gardener overseer guy. To making Tris fall down a long flight of stairs to prevent them leaving. Melting Stones follows Briar’s student and his teacher as they inspect rumors of strange happenings. Turns out it’s cause the volcano is about to explode and Briar’s student makes friends with the volcano spirits and tries to distract them from escaping the volcano cause that would make it explode.
And Battle Magic is the third of this quartet. I was very excited when it came out because in The Will of the Empress it was revealed that on Briars return home he, his teacher, and his student were involved in a war. Briar never revealed what happened to them but he was affected more by that war than the pirate invasion he helped defend against in Tris’s Book. (Which a war is something way different than an invasion but I think that was the first time he ever killed someone was during the invasion). He would have nightmares unless he slept next to someone and he couldn’t sleep if he heard temple bells. And finally, there is a yet untitled fourth book. This will have a focus on Tris and will take place sometime after The Will of the Empress. Tris attends a different school for magic so that she can learn a magic that she could make a living off of and without people being afraid of her.
I love this series. It is really good, was darker (at the time) than other books I had read up till then, and the characters are great. For a few years I would read it once every year. The only reason I haven’t lately is because I’m trying to get through my backlog as much as possible.
--The Kingkiller Chronicle series by Patrick Rothfuss.
“My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princess back from sleeping barrow kinds. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that would make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me. So begins a tale of unequaled in fantasy literature - the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man’s search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.”
Words cannot begin to describe how much I love The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man’s Fear, and A Slow Regard of Silent Things. When I found it in the store I was captivated by the description and was sold by time I read the first three pages. By time the people I was with at the bookstore were ready to leave, I was fifty pages in. It is absolutely amazing. Some of my friends who have or are currently reading it found the beginning a little boring but usually started to enjoy it once Kvothe reached the University. I loved it from the very start.
--The Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks
The Prism is the most powerful person in the world. High priest and emperor. But Prism’s never last very long. Seven years at best and occasionally fourteen. Gavin Guile knows exactly how much longer he has left. Five years to complete five impossible goals. When Gavin finds out he has a son born after the war with his brother Dazen Guile, he must decide how much he’s willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear the world apart as it heads toward the start of another war. Gavin Guile isn’t really Gavin Guile.
The magic in this series is really unique. It is called drafting where certain people can draft a color or three of the spectrum. Only the Prism can draft every color. Each color has different properties. Like yellow dissipates easily but is a really good light source. Super violet is invisible. Red makes fire. What color you can draft also impacts your personality a bit. Blues tend to like things to be ordered and like rules. Red’s have a shorter temper. Green drafters are more wild and reckless. But if/when you draft too much of your color(s) you can break the halo. Colors leaks to all of you eye instead of in just part of it. Once you break the halo, they kill you.
And yeah. Gavin is really Dazen. Dazen knocked out his brother during the final battle of the war and has been impersonating Gavin ever since. The real Gavin is actually in a secret prison underneath the tower that fake Gavin lives in. But more on that later. The first book (The Black Prism) is mainly about fake Gavin trying to prevent a war that he might have accidentally helped start when he went to find real Gavin’s son, named Kip. Kip is kind of annoying in the first book. He whines a lot and does some stupid things here and there. But seriously Kip. What made you think you could go and sneak into the enemy’s camp and rescue Kariss? As he grows into his drafting powers and experiences more, then he starts to get a lot better. At the end; as they are rescuing as many people as possible from the city that was attacked, fake Gavin gets stabbed by a strange knife and can no longer draft the color blue.
Then we also have Ironfist who is the head of the Black Guard, top soldiers who protect Gavin and other leaders on the Spectrum, mainly the White who helps the Prism run the kingdom. A blue drafter of few words but he is an amazing fighter and one of my favorite characters. There’s Kariss, Gavin’s love interest, a red and green biochrome. Also an amazing fighter. And all of Kip’s friends that appear in the second book. Then there’s Andross Guile. Gavin’s father who is evil. Or at least I thought so until the end of book three.
It’s a really good series. Four books so far. Eagerly awaiting book five. Book four destroyed most of my theories but created several more.
#the circle of magic#the circle opens#the circle reforged#tamora pierce#the name of the wind#the wise mans fear#a slow regard of silent things#patrick rothfuss#the lightbringer series#the black prism#the blinding knife#the broken eye#the blood mirror#brent weeks#books#sci fi books#ya books#book recommendations#book reviews
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(The magic circle anon) yeah! I'm if you noticed but in the Will of the Empress its implied that Rosethorn and Lark ARE a couple. When Briar(I think) finds out Daja is attracted to women he says "did you really think we would care, what with Lark and Rosethorn?"
I have read Will of the Empress. I forgot that line. Thank you! I do know they are together. While I didn’t find direct textual *proof* when I was in school, the unstated hints were clear to me. I love them dearly and am so grateful to Tamora Pierce for crafting such a loving, queer home in her a queer-normalizing and -positive universe.
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What I’ve Read (Books 1-6)
in the name of 1) public accountability to actually read 150 books in 2017 and 2) to remember what the hell I read, I’m recapping/reviewing the books I finish.
The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters
Circle of Magic: Sandry’s Book, Tamora Pierce
Circle of Magic: Daja’s Book, Tamora Pierce
Flawed, Cecelia Ahern
The Treasure Map of Boys, E. Lockhart
Real Live Boyfriends, E. Lockhart
Fiction: The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters (1/02/2017)
Waters was on my radar for years (which is the cultured way of saying, “In high I used to watch clips of kissing scenes from her tv adaptations to Feel Things”) but I didn’t read her until last year. I expected an eat-your-vegetables-this-is-good-for-you type of literature with beautiful prose and a turgid plot where women exchange meaningful glances of a love they dare not speak, for they’ve only heard gayness whispered about if they’ve heard anything at all. Instead, I got hardcore bonetown. I got high drama, intrigue, suspense, communities of openly queer women in historical time periods, and just. so. much. boning. the. hell. down. The Paying Guests continues the trend of baroque drama lesbians, this time in the 1920s when a genteel but newly poor mother and her spinster daughter must take in a young couple as lodgers. I’d recommend Tipping the Velvet as your intro to Waters’ wet and wild work, but The Paying Guests is a solid romance turned crime novel, as Frances and Lillian fall in love and struggle against Victorian, Edwardian, and Jazz Age expectations of what a women should be. Also murder. They struggle against some murder too, which does cut into the deeply literary boning.
Fiction: Circle of Magic: Sandry’s Book and Circle of Magic: Daja’s Books, by Tamora Pierce (1/04, 1/10)
Are there cliques in the Tamora Pierce fandom? Are there Tortall versus Circle of Magic kids? If there aren’t, let’s start them now, because I was always a Tortall kid. (Except Daine, who I never like. Sorry, Daine. It’s nothing personal, mostly because I can’t remember why.) But I did read the Circle of Magic books, specifically because in eighth grade someone told me there was a gay romance in The Will of the Empress, a later book in the universe. (Me reading over this post so far: “I did not realize the extent to which I was always super gay.”) Since I’ve decided I want to reread Empress, I’ve likewise decided to haphazardly reread the earlier books as well. In December of last year I read Tris’s Book, the second in the series. This January, I read Sandry (book one) and Daja (book three).
Sandry’s Book unfortunately isn’t a strong start to the series. The necessary assembling of all the characters lasts the first half of the book, the magic feels likewise over introduced and underdeveloped, and Sandry has little emphasis in the book named after her. I wish I could talk more in detail about this book, but looking back on it from two months later, I can’t remember much of anything except Sandry’s introduction (locked in a tower while everyone around her dies of illness, which is one of those backstories my disclaimer-adult-ass-in-no-way-the-intended-audience-age self thinks is wasted on junior fiction when you can hardly linger on the horror; maybe the YA The Circle Opens series deals more with that).
Daja’s Book improves the series thus far, mostly thanks to Daja. She’s always been my favorite of the original circle, a reserved, strong, hardworking grieving girl with metal and fire magic, who is excommunicated and shunned by her people who consider her bad luck after she is the sole survivor of her family’s shipwreck. She’s also black. Did I mention she is black? Because the book does, a lot, a weird amount, in places you really wouldn’t think it was necessary. Like, “‘Let’s talk about magic,’ said the black girl whose name we definitely know.” But that dubious choice aside (and I don’t remember it being present in later books in the series I’ve read), everything about Daja is my favorite part of this first series. Daja mourns the loss of her family through disaster and the loss of her people through custom while building a new family with her fellow mages and trying to reconcile that she would not be able to do the work she loves, blacksmithing, if she hadn’t been cast out.
If you’re interested in the characters (who are very good, they do develop well) or the magic (which I came to love, and felt organic and unique thanks to a combination of Pierce’s emphasis on hard, unglamorous labor as the basis of her heroes’ lives and the elemental astral projection that the mages do in this world), and if you, like me, don’t enjoy junior fiction, I’d recommend starting with The Circle Opens series instead. The books in this universe are connected but standalone, and it’s easy to jump in wherever. (I’m still gonna read somewhat in order before I get to The Will of the Empress, though. It’s who I am.)
Fiction: Flawed, by Cecelia Ahern (1/13)
There are books that, before I returned them to the library, I want to slap a sticker on the front that says, “Warning: this book is fine but it is also secretly the first book in a series. Beware the ending.” The most recent such book, Flawed, is a YA dystopia where separate from the legal court is the Flawed court, which with absolute power can judge you defective as a person. Once deemed Flawed, you are branded in a symbolically suitable location as befits your crime, publically shamed, unable to assemble with other Flawed in large groups, shunned, hated, subject to a curfew, subject to constant surveillance, forever. Celestine North, who was named by her parents with the knowledge she would be the hero of a YA dystopian novel, dates the son of the court’s high judge and supports the system unquestioningly until she sees a Flawed man dying on the bus in front of her with no one willing to help. Her intercession sends her to the Flawed court herself, and gets her in a girl on fire situation as she inadvertently becomes the figurehead of a revolution much bigger and older than her. With Flawed as the first book in the series, its limited viewpoint feels myopic, determined to keep Celestine’s point of view relatively narrow. She suffers thoroughly and compellingly throughout the book, but when it ended on a cliffhanger, I couldn’t see myself waiting eagerly to see what happened next.
Plus, the book has an unfortunate case of YA Bad Boy Syndrome, i.e. there is a troubled, scowling teenage boy who dominates a disproportionate amount of narrative focus as compared to his narrative interest. In contrast, the most compelling relationship in the book, that of Celestine who always supported the system until she saw evidence of its abuse and her sister who rails against the system but stays quiet in the face of the same abuse that makes Celestine act, is introduced as a central element and then gets minimal page time. Kill your darlings, authors. Cut the bad boys.
Fiction: The Treasure Map of Boys and Real Live Boyfriends, by E. Lockhart (1/12, 1/13)
E. Lockhart writes the most exquisitely uncomfortable YA. When I read Dramarama—a title, by the way, I only picked up because I already trusted the author—I spent so much time wincing that it read the book twice as slow as normal because not only did I recognize the characters, I both didn’t like them and utterly understood them. It was agony, but very specific “creative kids from a small town who go to a theater camp, discover they might have been friends by default, discover they might not be as talented as they think, discover that everything good changes and there’s nothing you can do about it” kind of way. The Ruby Oliver books (of which The Treasure Map of Boys and Real Live Boyfriends are books three and four) are similarly specific in their discomfort, except the discomfort lasts for four books instead of one.
I say discomfort instead of something like awkward because awkward implies a kind of charm, and while plenty of the characters in the books are charming and the writing is charming and many of the ideas are charming (too charming even, occasionally bordering twee), the situations of the books aren’t charming. They just kinda suck. These books aren’t a slog through misery and woe, not by a long shot, but they offer few if any pat resolutions. The characters hurt each other on accident and on purpose, and while some get better and trying not to, they don’t stop. Friendships end and it’s kinda everyone’s fault. Relationships are continually undercut by flaws that never go away, or even get addressed. Ruby is accused by her former best friend of trying to steal her boyfriend (who used to be Ruby’s boyfriend) and Ruby didn’t try to except she sorta did, or she at least wanted to, or she flirted back with him when she knew he was dating someone else, or the whole idea of “stealing” someone is ridiculous because you can’t steal a person, except Ruby’s best friend did kinda steal Ruby’s boyfriend. Even when characters are in the right, they don’t always act their best. Ruby never gets the apologies I spent the books hoping she’d get, and she never changes in the ways I hoped she’d change. But she is in a better place when the books end than when they began, and she is a better person too. It’s just that she still kinda sucks sometimes, and so does everyone around her.
While I struggled now and then with the preciousness of the writing style, the characters provoked a satisfying frustration that made me read all four books in two weeks. If you’ve never read anything by E. Lockhart, I’d recommend The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks as your first, since it’s got a complete story in one book as opposed to the Ruby Oliver books which are more episodic, but this is a satisfying series if you’re looking for slice of life, low plot, nuanced relationship explorations that are zippy as hell to read.
#booklr#tamora pierce#circle of magic#sarah waters#e. lockhart#cecelia ahern#i'm actually up to book number 23 so i'm playing some catchup yall#150 books
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Hey Petty, I'm new to Tamora Pierce's works. What book(s) do you think would be a good place to start?
Did someone say new to the Tamora Pierce novels?
BUCKLE UP, KIDDOS, AND CLICK THE READ MORE CAUSE THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG ONE.
Personal recommendation is to read the Circle of Magic series first and go through her Emelan books (it’s a shorter set of books overall)
So that would be (in chronological order to when stuff happens in the books):
The Circle of Magic
This series follows the stories of Sandry, Tris, Daja and Briar as they learn to control magic they never knew they had. Each of them is pulled from a perilous situation by Niko, an academic mage whose scrying abilities are legendary, who has Seen each of them and knows they hold great importance.Sandry is a noble-born girl whose family was killed either by pox or riots from the pox. She was hidden away in a dark closet, magic obscuring the door, as the riots raged outside. With a limited supply of food and water, she dreaded what would happen when her light ran out... her fledgling magic abilities allow her to call the light from her lantern into threads she had on hand. As the light from that even begins to dwindle, Niko arrives and pulls her from her safehouse-turned-prison.Tris was thought to be possessed by evil spirits or ghosts. Born of a merchant-class family, no one wanted her as her powers manifested in violent ways-- wind whipping up when she became upset, hail indoors when she became frustrated, lightning striking nearby objects it shouldn’t when she was furious, tremors in the earth, etc. Niko finds her at one of the numerous temples she’s been foisted on, and takes her under his wing when no one else would care.
Daja is the only survivor of her family’s trading ship, the only thing that saved her was a suraku (survival box) from her family’s ship, which allowed her to live until Niko appeared with others to rescue her from the seas. Unfortunately by being the only one alive after such a catastrophe, she is considered tainted by bad luck and is exiled from the Tsaw’ha (Traders), the people she once belonged to.
Roach is in a lot of trouble. He’s been caught for the third time stealing, which means he’s going to be sent to the docks or mines to labor away for what will probably be the rest of his short life. As he stands on trial and they are about to sentence him, a well-dressed man appears from the crowd and vouches for him, saying that he will take the boy to Winding Circle. Briar realizes this is an easy out, thinking the man probably wants him for a servant or accessory. He goes along with it, choosing the name Briar Moss for himself, planning to escape when he gets the first chance.
The children are all brought to Winding Circle temple, and all end up living together in a small house known as Discipline, run by Lark and Rosethorn. It is through them, the smith Frostpine and Niko that the children learn how to control the magic inside them and learn to see each other as family.
Each of the books below focuses on one of the children’s powers, though it switches between them from a POV standpoint.
Sandry’s Book
Tris’ Book
Daja’s Book
Briar’s Book
The Circle Opens
The children (minus Sandry) leave Emelan to learn more about their magic accompanied by their teacher. Each of them faces a great evil, whether it’s assassins, lost trust, political uprising or shady nobility... but more importantly each of them has taken on a student that they now must find a master for or teach themselves. Easier said than done when some of them display rare magic or when the only masters available are horrible.
Magic Steps
Street Magic
Cold Fire
Shatterglass
The Circle Reforged
(NOTE: THIS IS CHRONOLOGICAL TO THE EVENTS THAT HAPPEN IN THE BOOKS, NOT WHEN THEY CAME OUT):
Battle Magic
Melting Stones
The Will of the Empress
???
There’s another book coming out for this series with no set release date yet about Tris applying to Lightsbridge (big academic magic college) under an assumed name that I’m HELLA STOKED for.
If you want to start with Tortall, here’s the order I think you should read them in.
(again, these are chronological by book events, not by release date)
The Beka Cooper Trilogy
Set long before the Lioness books, this series follows Beka Cooper, a woman who has recently become part of the Provost’s Guard (aka the Dogs). It’s written in journal style as Beka details day by day the happenings during her time with the watch. Beka also has a strange power that helps her with her duties: the ability to communicate with the recently-departed as their spirits are carried via pigeon, and the ability to hear the sounds that dust spinners have collected in their corners where the wind collects. With these tools, Beka will work to put a stop to the crimes of her city, and even beyond.
Terrier
Bloodhound
Mastiff
The Song of the Lioness
(this is the very first series Tammy wrote-- it started out as an adult series until she worked at a halfway house for troubled teen girls. She forged friendships with them by reading them heavily-edited versions of this story and that’s when she realized they needed a strong female protagonist more than any adult audience ever would and started her young adult novel career.)
Alanna wants to be a knight and her brother, Thom, wants to learn magic. The problem is that women can’t become knights, meaning Thom must go and learn to become a knight and she must go and learn to become a lady. The two of them decide “nah, that blows” and Alanna forces her twin to switch places with her. The books detail Alanna’s journey to become a knight while keeping her identity hidden. During her years training, she will deal with bullies, ages-old hazing traditions, political corruption and ancient magic that threatens her kingdom.
Alanna: The First Adventure
In the Hand of the Goddess
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
Lioness Rampant
The Immortals
Daine, a fatherless orphan, has a rare magic that’s tied to animals. She can communicate with and sense them, though she doesn’t understand this power. She and her new teacher Numair, a very powerful mage and rather quirky gentleman, work to understand her magic as the veil between the immortal and mortal realms becomes thin, letting out monstrous creatures like spidrens, stormwings and hurrocks. The gods are at war, but who will protect the mortal realm?
Wild Magic
Wolf-Speaker
Emperor Mage
The Realms of the Gods
The Protector of the Small
What’s it like for the very first woman to officially and publicly take her trial of knighthood after Alanna? Keladry wants to follow in the Lioness’ footsteps and become a knight of the realm, but centuries-old sexism, tradition and stubbornness stand to make Kel’s life a living hell as she tries to prove herself as whispers of war loom over the royal family.
First Test
Page
Squire
Lady Knight
Tricksters
Alianne wants desperately to be a royal spy for Tortall. Unfortunately she is captured by pirates and sold into slavery to the faraway Copper Isles. It’s there that she places a dangerous bet with the trickster god Kyprioth. If she can keep the family who owns her safe by the end of the summer, he will guarantee her freedom. To help her, he enlists the services of Nawat, a crow that can transform into a human shape, to teach her the language of crows and use them as spies. It seems a mundane bet, but it turns out that keeping the family safe will enact an ages-old prophecy, allowing Kyprioth control over part of the realm once more.
Trickster’s Choice
Trickster’s Queen
There’s also a new book coming out in Oct of this year that might be set between The Song of the Lioness and Immortals series about the royal spymaster and his notes about events that took place in Tortall. There’s also a book with no title or release date that’s a backstory novel for Numair and I’M HELLA EXCITE.
Now go, read and be blessed.
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