The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce

This is the conclusion to the Mages' Circle books. You know, there were four, and then there were four more, and they were all a hundred pages long or so?
Well, this is the last book, and it was more than five hundred pages long.

At first I thought this was a sequel to Trickster's Queen, because those are the only hardcovers I had seen her do before. But perhaps this is the beginning of an overall trend, her writing longer books. If so, I'm glad. The world deserves more, and longer, YA fantasy. So I liked the format. You could almost see the four books that it would have been, if she'd kept following her usual pattern, but I liked having them all together. It made things feel a bit less formulaic, since the previous eight were definitely all-of-a-kind. Unfortunately...

There comes a time in the life of every fantasy author when she stops being edited scrupulously. Mercedes Lackey passed that point with the Magewinds series, but happily, she's recovered since then. We have yet to see whether Ms. Pierce will do that. As in the Trickster books, there were a few plot points that were just not that probable, where people are acting out of character. I also thought that the beginning and the end were rushed.

Pierce seems, recently, to have a fascination with Imperial courts. That's okay. She's also getting more into intrigue and betrayal types of plots - where not everything is at it seems on the surface. I like that too.

Overall, I'd give it three stars. I liked it, but probably won't read it again.

Secretary

So, actually - yesterday I saw the movie Secretary for the first time.

At the time it came out, someone (I can't remember who at this remove) told me they thought I'd find it really upsetting and that I should skip it. So I did. Since then, a bunch of people said, "Huh - I don't know why that would bother you," and now having seen it, I agree with them.

I liked it a lot. I thought that it was cute and funny and sexy, and I would like it to join our permanent collection here at syn. Four and a half stars.

reading aloud

I know I've written about this here before.

I love reading aloud.

Probably my favorite thing to read aloud is YA fantasy. It's one of my favorite genres in general, and it's good for reading aloud - it tends to have a lyrical quality, and be easy to pick up and put down without the listener(s) getting confused.

I've read The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley aloud several times, to two or three different people, most recently michellemybell. What a great book - one of my favorites. This summer I read The Safe-Keeper's Secret to starkeymonster. A few days ago, I finished reading her the sequel, The Truth-Teller's Tale. We both enjoyed that a whole lot.

I know I've written about this before - but what do you enjoy reading aloud? What do you think should be next on my list?