Alanna by Tamora Pierce

[meganbmoore]

Alanna of Trebond wants to be a knight. Her twin brother, Thom, wants to be a sorcerer. Their father doesn’t care what they want, or even realize that they want anything, and declares that Alanna shall be sent to a convent to train with priests, and Thom will train to be a knight. So Alanna comes up with a plan to dress like a boy, and change her father’s letter so that he has two sons, allowing the twins to follow their dreams.

The only Tamora Pierce books I’ve read before are the Circle of Magic quartet, which are set on a different world from this one. Alanna is Pierce’s first book (I believe this quartet was originally one long book that Pierce was told to break up, because no one in the target audience wanted to read a book that long) and it shows. Alanna follows all the normal for the “crossdressing girl who wants to be a knight” genre-actually, it probably helped solidify the tropes-right down to setting up what appears to be a future love triangle for Alana that includes Jon, the prince of Tortall (the world the book is set in) and George, a young thief who befriends Alanna.

If I’d first read this in my teens, I suspect I would have responded very strongly to it. As it is, I quite like Alanna as a character and enjoyed her supporting cast, but am less than amazed by the book itself.

Comments

[the_rck]

I was about twenty when this book came out, and that was too old. I think I managed half a dozen pages. I recently (after reading and liking some of Pierce's other books) tried a different Alanna book and bounced off that, too.

I tried the second one to be sure that my first bounce wasn't entirely due to the fact that I was hugely disappointed that the book wasn't something new by Meredith Ann Pierce. It had appeared on the bookstore shelves right next to Dark Angel and Gathering of Gargoyles, and I'd already been waiting a couple of years for the third book in that series. For years, I was cranky about seeing new Tamora Pierce books, one after another, while there weren't any Meredith Ann Pierce books showing up.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Is there any actual connection between the two Pierces? It seems everyone always compares them, but the only similarity I know of is the last name.

[the_rck]

I'm not aware of any connection apart from alphabetical proximity.

[estara.livejournal.com]

ummm, I was about 38 when I discovered Tamora Pierce and I've liked everything she's written so far (with differing intensity I must admit), but then I can also reread Mercedes Lackey. When I read those books, I simply become a teenager again ^^

[the_rck]

I think 'too old' is something that varies from person to person. I envy your ability to enjoy these books. I think there was a time in my life when I'd have loved them and that, if I'd read them then, I'd still love them. I missed my particular window.

[estara.livejournal.com]

Ah well. I bet there are some books that you've discovered recently that I couldn't get into for the life of me. We all have different twists that tickle our fancies, and that way lots of different authors can make a living, so yay for that ^^. It's just that I don't think age specifically has to be the reason that a person does like a certain book or not, there can be others.