Tamora Pierce is best known for colorful fantasies for older teens with smart, strong female characters. Tempests and Slaughter is the first novel of hers that I have read, and apparently the main characters as adults star in her novels in the same world. It is a testament to Pierce’s ability to tell a story with likable characters who feel real, to develop a full fantasy world with magic, gods, empires and strange customs, that I did not realize Tempests and Slaughter is part of a larger story arc until I was writing this review.
I thoroughly enjoyed Tempests and Slaughter and the three main characters, Arram, Ozorne and Varice, all three teens in the Empire’s school for mages. Arram is the son of traders from another country, with great talents. Ozorne is the Emperor’s nephew and moving up in the succession, Varice is the only girl and not as prominent a character as Arram. The book reads well on its own but clearly sets up a conflict between Arram and Ozorne.
Arram cannot abide the slavery endemic in the Empire nor can he stomach the gladiator games while Ozorne takes both these for granted. Ozorne is about 7th in line to succeed the emperor as the story opens and talks about setting up a small estate to study magic and asks Arram and Varice to promise to join him. As the book proceeds and Ozorne’s cousins die, he gradually abandons those peaceful dreams. Arram is shocked when Ozorne says he dreams, not of a peaceful life of study, but to conquer the rest of the world – including Arram’s country. Arram knows but does not want to believe that he will eventually have to leave Ozorne and make his own way. The next novel may feature Arram and Ozorne.
Tempests and Slaughter particularly impressed me with the vivid world building. We can almost see the dust and smell the rocks that Arram helps to move, we can hear the shouts and screams in the gladiator pits. Pierce creates an intense setting that feels real.
The mage school is superficially peaceful, with students and teachers all pursuing scholarly work, except underlain with the assumption the mages will assist the empire. They will heal the gladiators and the typhoid-suffering poor, brace the fallen rocks, clear the river of corpses. The godlets visit certain scholars, notably the crocodile godlet requires Arram foster a sunbird he absconded with, something else guaranteed to cause trouble later on.
Overall Tempests and Slaughter is an excellent novel, with well-developed people, good dialogue that advances the plot and develops the characters, vivid setting and world building that constrasts with the surface placidity of the mage school.
5 Stars
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