The Immortals quartet by Tamora Pierce

Since these were the most recent books I've read, I'll review them first. I don't intend on doing entire series in one post in the future. Tamora Pierce's The Immortals quartet is something of a sequel to her Song of the Lioness series, beginning with Alanna: The First Adventure. While I knew that this took place in the same world as the Lioness books, I didn't realize they were written first. Although they're stand-alone in that I didn't need to have read the first series to understand anything in The Immortals, I do think some of the relationships would have been more meaningful to me had I read the others first. I actually picked this up because I was absolutely convinced that I had read them in middle school and liked them, but I couldn't remember anything about them. During this readthrough, however, nothing at all seemed familiar. Eventually I had a flashback of seeing the books on a shelf at my BFF's house. When I mentioned it to her, she said she still owns the series and loved them. So... maybe I just remember it from her house.

The Immortals details the evolution of Veralidaine "Daine" Serrasri as she learns that her "knack with animals" is actually a rare thing called wild magic. With her power of communication and control over animals, Daine saves Tortall from invaders from Carthak. The four books in the quartet are Wild Magic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage, and The Realms of the Gods.

Daine begins by meeting up with Onua Chamtong, the Horsemistress of the Queen's Riders. Through her relationship with Onua, Daine meets a cast of characters including Numair Salmalín, the gifted mage who becomes her mentor and teacher; Alanna, the Lioness, the King's Champion; Queen Thayet, the progressive leader of the country Tortall; and the handsome King Jonathan.

My first complaint in the series had to do with the first chapter or two. It opens up as 3rd person omniscient from Onua's point of view, then switches around, mostly between her and Daine. The confusion in this is that you didn't know what character to grasp onto. I would have rathered a chapter focused on Daine so that it became clear that she was the focus of the book before switching to show things from Onua's view.

The worst part of the book for me was the unbelievability of most of these characters, namely the king and queen. Why was a random orphan picked up off the street to help with horses so lovingly embraced into the friendship of the nobility? I understand that they're supposed to be good guys and there's not really a need to go into depth into Daine's relationship with many of them, but it does seem weird that she is instantly part of the family. Everyone immediately cares about her and her wellbeing (mental health, specifically), fretting about what secret she's carrying that makes her so anxious. Eventually I grew to accept Jonathan, Thayet, and Onua's behavior, since it was consistent throughout the book, but it just made Daine into an almost Mary Sue character.

Daine's backstory involves bandits killing her entire village and her losing her mind and convincing a pack of wolves to attack and kill all of the bandits. Then her horse, Cloud, convinced her of who she was and she left the village, heading to a nearby town to find work. The rest of the series, she was worried about her new friends finding out her backstory and rejecting her as well as losing her mind again. While those are both very fair concerns... you just killed an entire group of people at 14 years old. Whether or not they deserved it, that kind of thing affects a person deeply. Or at least I would think, but evidently not Daine.

When she finally admits her history to her new group of friends, they accept it unquestionably. They're singularly concerned with Daine's mental health and making certain she was alright emotionally, and not at all hung up on the fact that she just convinced a pack of wolves to attack people. This wasn't an act of self-defence, she went out and sought revenge and the group had no hangups about it. It just seemed really unlikely to me, and, again, it brings into focus the Mary Sue-ness of it all. The only reason I'm willing to let go of this at all is because the book is aimed at middle schoolers and that's a bit heavy for them at that age.

“Remember what I told you? That I went crazy and hunted with wolves after bandits killed Ma and Grandda and our animals?”

[Numair] nodded. “They helped you to avenge the deaths.”

Brutally murder whoever you want, Numair doesn't give a shit.

I felt like Numair Salmalín was the most interesting of her allies. He was given a lot more one-on-one time with Daine as he tried to train her in her magic, and so his personality was much more believable. The biggest problem with him, however, is that he is considerably older than Daine, and they begin a romance together. When they first meet, Daine is 13; at the end of the last book, she is 16, and Numair even said something along the lines of him being almost 40 (sorry for no quote here, I returned the book to the library before I considered making this blog)! The Tamora Pierce Wiki quotes Numair as having been born 424 HE and Daine born 436 HE. Personality-wise, I was definitely rooting for them to get together, but age-wise? It's completely inappropriate. Tamora Pierce justified it by saying

In some ways, Numair is emotionally far younger than his age (he’s 27, actually), and Daine is much older than her years emotionally. It didn’t feel wrong to me. If their relationship had begun this way, it would have been beyond creepy, but it happened when Daine was no longer his student, but his traveling companion and co-worker. He regards her as his magical equal, and in her field, she is. Also, and this is something I end up saying time after time, this is a medieval period, when it was far more common for young women to marry much older men (who had established themselves in life and could afford to support a wife). I mention as often as I can in the books that 16 is the age to marry among the lower classes, and some marry even younger. I really cheat in some ways by having noblewomen marry at 18, when in our world they might marry at 9 or 10! Very rarely was a woman able to marry someone her own age.

I'm not confident these facts are correct, although, granted, it is popular thinking. A professor of mine explained that this myth comes from so much literature being about the old, evil king marrying the young, virginal girl - that it was intended to be just as appalling to the audience at the time as it is for us now - and people tend to forget that fiction is not fact. I'm having difficulty finding any sources to validate this information, but I'll try to update this if I manage to get ahold of any.

Earlier I mentioned looking the other way because it's a book for tweens, but this is the exact opposite of that. You should never in any way lead a child to believe a relationship with a 27 year old is acceptable - this only invites the midset that leads to children getting groomed by adults. This is a serious fault in the book, and warrants a conversation with the child reader both before and after they read the book. Let's avoid giving children trauma, yeah?

Continuing on, it is shown in the book that when Daine talks to these animals on a regular basis, she starts to change them. They start as creatures whose main concerns are food, shelter, and so on, then contact with her causes them to start having more existential thoughts. It is shown clearly in two animals, Cloud the pony, and the wolf Brokefang.

Cloud has been Daine's animal for a long time, and her presence in the book is as a sentient being. In the most extreme example, she follows around the pack of wolves Daine is with until she can convince Daine of her humanity. This shows critical thinking and overcoming inherent fear on a level far above the other animals in the books. No horse in their right mind would hang around a pack of wolves in an effort to save their owner, especially not a farm horse who has had no battle training.

In Brokefang's case, there's a section of one chapter through his eyes as he thinks about how he changes when Daine is around.

He did not like “what if” thoughts. Until he’d met Daine two winters before, he had worried about nothing but eating, mating, ruling his pack, and scratching fleas. Now he had complex thoughts all the time, whether he wanted them or not.

Not only is Daine changing Brokefang by being around him, but he hates the changes that come with it.

At one point, Daine considers the changes that animals undergo from being exposed to her thoughts and wonders if it's a bad thing she's doing to them. It's well-timed in the book and would have been a good question for her to think on throughout the rest of the series, except she never thinks about it again. This would have been a good way for her to consider the powers she has and when and how to use them properly so that she can give defense when necessary without altering the way these animals think.

The series takes its name from the creatures of myth that have escaped into the mortal realm and were causing havoc.

Something I really liked about the book was the lore on the gods. A few of the gods were looked into a bit more deeply, specifically Weiryn, a god of the hunt. Beyond the human gods, there were also animal gods. They said the first of everything made is in the Realms of the Gods - the first waterfall, the first canyon, and so on, including the first of each animal. The relationships of the animals in the Realms of the Gods were interesting as well. While the first three books only showed the badger god, several more were introduced in the conclusion. An interesting fact was that the animal gods didn't have to eat, so they enjoyed it, and therefore did so. It was only a blip in time, however, to the preyed upon animal gods, before they return to the Realms in right condition again.

Badger told Daine very early on in the series that her father had asked him to watch over her, though he would never answer any questions as to who her father was. He chews off one of his own claws to give to her as a trinket so he can always find her (don't worry, it grew back immediately). Badger showed up sporatically throughout the series to try and give Daine advice and lead her along. He was constantly frustrated with her behavior in a sort of endearing way, becoming a mentor as the series progressed.

Speaking of her father, he is finally revealed in the last book. All Daine knows of him from her mother was that she met him at a midsummer festival; she intended on revealing more to her daughter in time, but that whole business with the bandits happened. When Daine and Numair attack an enemy well beyond their strength, it happens to be on midsummer's day, when the veils are the thinnest, allowing Daine's mother and father to pull them to the Realms of the Gods in order to survive. So finally, Daine learns who her long-absent father is: Weiryn, god of the hunt. He's stoic and annoying, honestly, and if I were Daine, I'd be hella pissed any time he had the gall to speak down to her. He lost that right by not being there. Nevertheless, Weiryn gives both Daine and Numair gifts in order for them to make their trek to the dragons to get home. Weiryn also spent the few days there side-eyeing Numair like he had any right to have an opinion on who Daine was with (they weren't together yet anyways).

Something I was left curious about in the end was the role of the dragons. They had their own place in the Realms of the Gods which implies that they're some sort of deity. They can also go between the human realms and the Realms of the Gods whereas the minor gods cannot, so they seem to be more powerful. I don't remember if anything was said about immortality, but they were clearly born and aged, so I would assume they die. Daine was put in the position of raising one of the dragons, Skysong, who she nicknamed Kitten (for reasons never explained). Skysong seemed like little more than a useful pet, however. She was unable to speak aloud or mindspeak (explained as due to her age), and so her communication came in trills and whining. She perfectly understood Daine and co. when they spoke to her, so she's cognizant enough, and even able to do magic via her vocalizations, such as when she unlocked doors. Despite being described as a lithe creature, I couldn't help but imagine a chubby little dragon waddling around whenever she was referenced.

The final point I want to discuss is one species of immortal called the Stormwings. Mildly-edited harpies, they become the initial enemy of Daine until she learns more of them and their ways. The most interesting of them was Rikash Moonsword. He was friends with a young, neglected noble named Maura of Dunlath. Maura is younger than Daine, even, though incredibly intelligent and strong willed. It's through Maura that Rikash and Daine first meet on peaceful terms, where each's hatred of the other slowly turns to a more patient exasperation. Rikash and Daine learn to trust one another despite their prejudices, making him one of my more favorite characters.