Pierce, Tamora - The Circle Opens quartet
Thu, Oct. 27th, 2005 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceter(consists of Magic Steps, Street Magic, Cold Fire, and Shatterglass)
This is basically the continuation of the Circle of Magic quartet. It's not quite a sequel, just... a revisiting of the characters and of the world. Four years after the quite tumultuous events of the first quartet, the four extremely talented and powerful ambient mages (aka they get magic from objects around them by weaving or gardening or other crafty things) are now fourteen. They've all gone separate ways with their mage teachers, and in the process, each of them discovers a young mage and ends up having to act as teacher to those mages.
These four books are darker in tone, since while the characters are teaching, they're also trying to solve crimes.
I mostly enjoyed being able to get to know Sandry, Briar, Daja and Tris by themselves, instead of as part of a group. I like how strong each character is, in very different ways; I like how they are powerful. It's also interesting because they are the active forces in these books, as opposed to the first quartet, in which they often did the YA thing and disobeyed adult orders and ran off on their own. This time, they are the ones giving the orders at times, they've got much more responsibility and they're trying to teach kids as intractable as they were.
Though I loved Sandry and Briar the most as characters after the first quartet, Tris' book (Shatterglass) in this one really had me interested in her. First, she stores magic in her braids! And I like her sternness. It was also really cool that she was paired with a student much older than she was, in contrast with the rest.
I checked Pierce's website, and it doesn't sound like she's got another quartet for these characters in the works, though I'm now dying to get my hands on The Will of the Empress. That's too bad, because I think it's really cool watching the characters grow up. I was hoping it could be every four years in their lives or so, rather like the Seven Up series of documentaries chronicling selected people's lives every seven years.
This is basically the continuation of the Circle of Magic quartet. It's not quite a sequel, just... a revisiting of the characters and of the world. Four years after the quite tumultuous events of the first quartet, the four extremely talented and powerful ambient mages (aka they get magic from objects around them by weaving or gardening or other crafty things) are now fourteen. They've all gone separate ways with their mage teachers, and in the process, each of them discovers a young mage and ends up having to act as teacher to those mages.
These four books are darker in tone, since while the characters are teaching, they're also trying to solve crimes.
I mostly enjoyed being able to get to know Sandry, Briar, Daja and Tris by themselves, instead of as part of a group. I like how strong each character is, in very different ways; I like how they are powerful. It's also interesting because they are the active forces in these books, as opposed to the first quartet, in which they often did the YA thing and disobeyed adult orders and ran off on their own. This time, they are the ones giving the orders at times, they've got much more responsibility and they're trying to teach kids as intractable as they were.
Though I loved Sandry and Briar the most as characters after the first quartet, Tris' book (Shatterglass) in this one really had me interested in her. First, she stores magic in her braids! And I like her sternness. It was also really cool that she was paired with a student much older than she was, in contrast with the rest.
I checked Pierce's website, and it doesn't sound like she's got another quartet for these characters in the works, though I'm now dying to get my hands on The Will of the Empress. That's too bad, because I think it's really cool watching the characters grow up. I was hoping it could be every four years in their lives or so, rather like the Seven Up series of documentaries chronicling selected people's lives every seven years.