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10 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Shattergla... · 0 replies · +12 points

I found the info that Dema gave about the history of tharios particularly fascinating as it definitely reminded me of reading of the fall of the roman empire and its aftermath in school as a kid.
One of the things I generally love about reading Pierce's work is how she layers these hints in the stories that you start matching with specific examples in Earth's history and geography. I especially love with the Emelan books that the settings don't generally seem to mesh with the typical Medieval Western European setting you often see in fantasy books.

10 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Shattergla... · 0 replies · +24 points

I love how each of the Circle Opens books discusses the goats' mage kits and how they are so particular to each one's personality and life. Of course, Tris's feels the most unusual, but each one has some fun references to events from the Circle of Magic series.
For example, the braids remind me of the discussion of trader mimianders making braids of wind during Tris's voyage with Niko in Sandry's book, plus of course, Tris's challenges with her hair getting in the way all the time.

10 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Shattergla... · 0 replies · +17 points

I always imagined Chime as being like the Glass cat from the Oz books. The visual of being able to see the substances that she ate moving inside her body seems so cool...

10 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Cold Fire'... · 0 replies · +3 points

My apologies for using the term "insane", I was trying to make a point and chose a term that I was unaware had offensive implications. I will try to avoid it in the future.

Spoilers for the rest of the book:
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10 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Cold Fire'... · 4 replies · +16 points

This book always makes me wonder what Ben was like before the death of his family. It sounds based on context like he had managed to extract himself from a bad situation with Morrachane and find happiness despite his background. And then the fire ruined everything...
To me Ben always seemed like such a tragic figure who let grief, drive and bad circumstances turn him into a monster (and drive him insane). I assumed he didn't become a monster until after he had returned to Kugisko from working with Godsforge and began to deal with real life and its obstacles.

10 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Street Mag... · 3 replies · +22 points

I love how this city (Chammur) has such a clear geographic/historic analogue in the real world that is not a western european country. I think it correlates with Samarkand during the era of the silk road, based on the description from the first chapter. Generally reading the Circle Opens books made me want to figure out the analogues for each of the lands in the Emelan universe that we encounter.

10 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Briar's Bo... · 5 replies · +33 points

This is what I always found fascinating about the Circle of Magic books; the "villains" of each story aren't really the people who cause the event but the consequences of their unfortunate decisions. Also, none of the antagonists die by the hands of the heroes, but are rather done in by their own bad decisions. The exception is Enahar, but I would put him as more the "consequence", with Amery as the "antagonist" killed by his own bad decisions.

This lends itself to the goats having to deal with consequences rather than fighting a villain, which to me feels more like real life than having a "bad guy".

11 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Daja's Boo... · 1 reply · +18 points

One of the things that jumped out at me the first time I read Daja's book was that Yarrun's death was not the climax of the book. Here, once again, the obvious villain dies and the actual climax is the effects of his actions (the first time was in Sandry's Book, when Honored Huath died during the earth quake).

Its interesting how Pierce doesn't have the nice, easy solution of "villain dies, problem solved" that is common in a lot of stories. The effects of their actions out-live them.

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