whazzle

Tamora Pierce's duology, Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen - a lot of things worked but a lot of things also didn't work.

On a fairly basic level, in Queen there's a lot of continuity errors and inconsistencies that could have been fixed with a better editing job. The first few pages are also bizarre and kind of, idk, clumsy?

From a storytelling POV, the story put into a cumulative 800 or so pages probably needs at least another 400 because even with broad swathes of telling, not showing, there are STILL too many gaps in the narrative. The net effect is less story and more summary, to be honest. I enjoyed reading it but I didn't feel drawn in to the same extent her other books have managed. And with so much summarizing, a lot of the time I had to fight boredom/wandering attention. She probably needed another book to do the plot justice, because the idea was huge and so was the scope, and the writing fell down quite a bit...

The two books are also significant in that they don't track the protagonist learning/acquiring her skillset but rather applying one she's developed from childhood. Pierce tries to fix this by adding excerpts of letters and books that have instructed Aly (protag), but it doesn't do anything to make me sympathize or empathize with her. Although I really do have a competence kink which she fulfills quiiiiite nicely. In this, Aly's story aligns a bit more with Daine's than it does with Alanna or Kel's (the other major Tortall story arcs), but it's also much less dynamic.

In a way this is good given the focus should rightfully be on the political plot, which is fairly complex and interesting. But which I am also a bit conflicted over! It really dangerously skirts the white/outsider savior line very often and in its basic premise, and is (maybe?) saved from this by acknowledging it, in a way, and also by making Aly less wholly autonomous and more a tool of a god. Still walking a reaaaally fine line though. And for the most part the books do a good job with fraught race relations? And I think a lot of research went into that, too, especially when it came to the mixed demographic, but there were still moments where my face went -_-

I really enjoyed Dove and Winna and Sarai (and the echoes or Sarugani, and Nuritin and Chenaol and Ochobu and etc), and Ulasim and Lokeij, and felt sad at all the character deaths (though the books didn't work at making me sad), and I really enjoyed Nawat and the crows, but I found how much got glossed over and sort of handwaved annoying after a while. I would have liked more detailed spycraft, and thought it was a little lazy that Aly recruiting her pack of spies and training them wasn't shown, and made me not really care about these random people showing up in random scenes, etc.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, it needed more books to really develop properly and do the characters and plot justice. It also needed tighter editing, especially for continuity errors. It had some really shining moments and I truly loved Dove and was fond of Aly. Overall a pretty fun read!

Also I liked Taybur a lot and wished he could have been a bigger part of the story though I liked how he was used over all. And I actually really loved Sarai's whole plotline, except for the part where the goddess got involved because it muddied the consent and that is awful :/