Battle Magic

You have no idea how good it felt when I returned to the world Tamora Pierce has created for everyone. If I could I'd live there and hopefully have awesome adventures of my own. Reading this was almost like coming home. Pierce weaves the spell of wonder around us yet again in Battle Magic. Briar, Rosethorn, Evvy, and Luvo draw us into the realms of Gyongxe and Yanjing. Together these three help overturn the ties of war, visit a power mad emperor, and meet new friends. Our famed Heroes work hard to protect what is right in their world. They grate at the bit when they enter the emperors palace, marvel at shamans, cry in pain and happiness, and find the strength to move forward. I truly wish to be like these people because they are awesome.Among these friends are Luvo, the god-king, Dokyi, and Parahan. Luvo is a wonderfull, ancient being whom I like very much. The god-king of Gyongxe is a wise young man with so much weight upon his shoulders he is fun and entertaining. Dokyi is well liked as a First Dedicate with a sense of humor despite his power lying in stone. Parahan has quite the sense of humor and is first a pet but continues his warriors path with his sister.On the other end of the spectrum are those who were not friendly in the least. The emperor of Yanjing is a crazy, power hungry, narcissistic kaq who needs to learn many lessons in humility. Jia Jui is not to be trusted. And granted nearly all of the enemy soldiers had to have been drafted and pressured into their positions they are bad too.

I may have said, sometime around the release of Will of the Empress, that I wanted a book about Briar in the time between that book and Street Magic, since he changes more drastically than does any other character, but honestly, I take it back. After the opening stages, the book becomes relentlessly, grindingly unpleasant--which war is, of course, but gritty realism isn't Pierce's forte and isn't what I read her books for, and I really could have done without the child torture and animal death. Though at the same time, it has the curious feeling of pulling its punches--hundreds, maybe thousands, of people die over the course of the book, sometimes rather graphically, but no named characters are among them. This issue is also evident in the way that Pierce sets up a situation in which the main characters' allies are doomed to death or enslavement unless the protagonists make a significant sacrifice in order to help them--and even if they do, they may very well fail--and then resolves it with a near-literal deus ex machina which makes all the characters' efforts and losses throughout the book seem pointless and unnecessary.

In addition, the countries to which we're introduced in this book have a much stronger one-to-one correlation--culturally, religiously, geographically, and so on--to real-world countries/cultures (primarily China, Tibet, and India) than did those in previous books set in this universe, which feels like a failure of creativity and is somewhat incongruous with the few details revealed about these cultures in previous books.

A solid addition to the circle of magic series: filling in some of the back story of Briar, Evvy and Rosethorn's adventures in Gyongxi. I love how Pierce's characters are so very dedicated to compassion and to using their formidable powers for good. Fascinating magic, good settings, and characters to truly engage with.

I put off getting into this book because I knew terrible things had happened in the time-frame covered, and Pierce has a way of ripping out the heartstrings of her readers. But as usual, the characters and the worldbuilding pulled me in, and I raced through the second half of the book. One greedy Chinese-type emperor a magical mountaintop country where every religion has a temple to be near to the gods (similar in geography to Nepal) Briar, Rosethorn and Evvy... My partner would complain that there was too much description of clothing, but there was a lot of scenery too; the battle scenes were not nearly as detailed (in their effects). But we learn so much more about Rosethorn and her mental processes here, and we see that the Gods of the world of the Living Circle are neither the same or as overarching as those of the world of Tortall... and yet they too take a hand sometimes.

Without getting spoilery (can it be October already), this is the Emelan book I've been longing for.

Not up to Pierce's usual standards, I felt. Action didn't feel tight, characters didn't feel real. Only reason I knew the characters at all was from previous books.

I wish these books had been released in order, instead of book 3 being chronologically set before the others. I found the hints in the other books gave too much away, but it was still fairly intense and enjoyable.

And we finally get the actual story of the war that caught up Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy. It's not quite as nasty as I was expecting from their reactions, but it's quite nasty enough - the emperor is amazingly foul. The whole thing with the rose garden shows that - and then it's reiterated, and reiterated, and... Evvy is explicitly tortured, though she seems to react more strongly to her cats being killed than to what happened to her (ok, she reacts strongly to both). Rosethorn's side mission is interesting - personally, I'd have ended with Earth for her on the introduction, but maybe there's rules about the order. And the side effects on both her and Briar make the rest of the story more interesting. We do get to see the meeting with Luvo - but that's part of the problem with the book, that I know what happens next, so there's no real fear or tension. But overall - I'm glad I read it (and I have no idea how I missed it for so long), but it's not a favorite. I may just reread The Will of the Empress (which is also nasty, and I'm surprised Briar didn't react more strongly - but still better than this) and pretend this and Melting Stones don't exist.

Rosethorn, Briar, and Briar's student Evvy having visited Gyongxe and gotten to know the young god-king are now traveling to Yanjing as guests of the emperor. While everything looks lovely around the emperor, they quickly come to realize that he is evil and wants to conquer all the lands around him. His next target is Gyongxe. Briar and Evvy free one of the emperor's slaves who happens to be a prince from another country and they try to make their way to Gyongxe with the emperor's minions hunting them.Rosethorn is given a mission that requires her to take some sacred objects of her religion to a place were they can be kept safe from the emperor. She is required to do this alone despite Briar and Evvy lobbying to go with her. Meanwhile, Briar and Evvy along with Parahan join with fighters including Parahan's twin sister as they try to get word to the god-king of the emperor's plans. This story had a lot of battles and required all of our characters to dig deep inside themselves. Evvy is captured by the emperor's forces and tortured to tell what she knows about where Parahan, Rosethorn, and Briar are. The scenes of her torture are harrowing. Her torture does lead to her being rescued by the heart of the mountain who provides healing and a place of refuge. Meanwhile, Rosethorn and Briar are feeling guilt at leaving Evvy in what should have been a safe place and both are mourning her death. I thought the world building in this story was excellent. I enjoyed watching our heroes show that their gifts could make them formidable opponents for a greedy emperor. All of the characters were well-developed and engaging. This is an excellent fantasy series.

I have been waiting for another book Tamora Pierce book about any of the Circle of Magic four for so long. Yet I was not desperate to read about what happened to Briar between The Circle Opens: Street Magic and The Will of the Empress. The latter lets us know that he has been in a war, shows us how this experience has traumatised him and how he tries to cope with that. Hence I felt I knew what happened to Briar. Also, war's not fun.I felt trepidation as I opened Battle Magic... and then I was overcome with delight at spending time with these characters again. And overcome with sadness when terrible things happened to them. I love how Rosethorn, Briar and Evvy are a found-family, much more than they are a mentor, her former-student and her former-student's student. I love their teamwork and their affection for each other. I wanted to give them all a big hug and whisk them back home to the rest of their foster-family in Emelan. I love that they don't turn their backs on a difficult, painful situation, because they believe they can help.I have to admit that the Gongxe war seemed more terrifying when all I really knew was the affect it had had on the trio. Also, Pierce's storytelling seems much less perfect than it did when I was 17.But I really liked Battle Magic, even if it was a hard book to enjoy sometimes, because war is hell. I liked the characters it introduced (well, most of them), and the landscape it captured, and matter of fact attitudes the characters have towards diversity; I liked that it was not just from Briar's point of view, but from Rosethorn and Evvy's as well.[Rosethorn said] "Briar, it's not permitted. I had to swear an oath." He knew she meant it. "I hate that, you know. Just once you could break an oath." "Then how would you ever trust me, boy, or I you?" "I'm not your boy." In a shocking burst of affection, she leaned over the seed ball between them and hugged him. "You will always be my boy. And you would never listen to me again if I broke an oath."

It almost pains me to give this book one star because I love Tamora Pierce and Winding Circle so much. But honestly this book really disappointed me.

I think one of the major issues was that she had already hinted at so many plot points from her other books, which limited the direction of the story flow. We knew that they would be in a war, we knew that Evvy would meet Luvo, we knew they would be forced to do things that would give them horrible nightmares. These plot points were basically the entirety of the story, and we already knew them coming into the story. It made the book predictable and not very... real. Like she's following an outline of a story rather than letting the characters and situation develops as it pleases.

Another major problem was the battle scenes. This book relied heavily on actions and war scenes, focusing on the darker side of life. But Tamora Pierce just doesn't write this sort of genre and it shows. The battles come across as very watered-down and almost childish. She attempts to make dark and gritty scenes where killing people is equivalent to murder in the real world, but the scenes read more like fantasy battles where deaths are not as important as the fantasy. But then her characters mourn their loss of innocence as if it really mattered and then it just didn't feel believable because the war scenes didn't translate to that darkness she was aiming to convey.

In the same light, there just wasn't enough exposure to the villain. They spend a couple days with the emperor, he burns the rose bushes and keeps couple of prisoners and suddenly he is evil incarnate. Uh... no. That's really not convincing enough for me to see that he is evil. It's so white and black, it really is like a children's book - which makes the realistic deaths even more unbelievable. And Evvy and Briar saving one prisoner. Is it realistic that there is only one prisoner? They want to do good, to save their friends because it is the right thing to do, but they only save the one person because they know him. That is such children's book logic. Ughhh that's the major problem with this book. It attempts to be an older book, what with dark scenes of torture and murder and revenge, but has unmistakable traits of a children's book. And it fails at being either.

The scenes with Rosethorn just didn't work for me either. She didn't read well as a character because she seemed so world-weary as an adult. I just didn't believe her character when the plot was focusing solely on her. And sometimes it slipped into first person.... Uh strange. And then that quest? RIDICULOUS. It felt fake, unnatural, just another random task that she had to do. Actually, most of the book's plot felt like that - like the characters were just going though the motions.

The only redeeming thing was seeing the characters interact with each other. Because I love Briar and Rosethorn and Evvy, those scenes were fun to read. But.... Even those weren't up to par, to be honest. The characters didn't change, they never revealed anything different than what we knew of them beforehand. And that is a problem when a character doesn't change in a book at all. They were like stereotypes of their own character. Evvy was always hoarding food, Briar was always subtly trying to care for Rosethorn, and Rosethorn was always tweaking someone's ear. Cool. But I've seen it all before. I wanted more or something different.
What's more is that none of the side characters even made an impression on me. In all of Pierce's other books, you do end up loving the secondary characters - but here, they might as well be cardboard cutouts.

And was it just me, or did Pierce suddenly turn into an overly descriptive writer? I've never had a problem with this before from her writing, but she really piled on this descriptions of clothing and buildings. Descriptions that did next to nothing for giving greater understanding of characters or scenes. It was too much.

The ending was a cop out. Literally deus ex machina with the gods.

This was just a weak book from Tamora Pierce overall. I am so disappointed because I thought The Will of the Empress was absolutely amazingly well done. This felt more like Melting Stones. Unpolished and more than a little boring.

One star because I didn't think this book was written well. Too many problems with unnecessary plot, unrealistic battles and emotions, uncertainty if this is a children's or adult book, weak character development, etc. I would still read it because I love this world and the characters. But to be honest, if this was the first book I read of Winding Circle.... I would not even pick up the other books. Recommended only for fans of the previous books.

Plot: 3 1/2 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Style: 5 stars
Pace: 4 stars
ALA acquisition.

Almost finished it last night, but after fireworks and festivities, I was bushed. I think my expectations REALLY fed into my feelings on this one. After Will of the Empress, I'd expected this to be very, very, brutally dark. I suspect a lot was reined in for it to stay YA. As it was, the plot itself fell flat to me. I wanted far more depth to the plot than I actually got, and coming out of order like this meant I knew the main people I cared about would be fine. Still, an enjoyable read.

If, as I did, you read Will of the Empress first, in Battle Magic you will find the answers to any questions about Briar's nightmares in that other book. Fellow cat lovers, there is a chapter you will probably hate as much as I did, although I hope you won't have the misfortune to read it the same day as I listened to Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane. With Yanjing as an apparent counterpart to China and Gyongxe as an apparent counterpart to Tibet, it was fascinating to see magic could do. My late father was a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam; so I definitely appreciate Ms. Pierce's dedication. She doesn't sugarcoat the battles here. Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy are split up to face different paths for a time, each difficult and dangerous. Emperor Weishu of Yanjing is the sort of person one does not want at the head of one's government. Fortunately, the God-King of Gyongxe is his opposite in that regard. He may be a year younger than Evvy, but the gods speak through him. He has wisdom the much older Weishu wouldn't recognize if it bit him on the nose. It's compelling reading offering our lead characters and their friends plenty of hard choices. There are also lessons to be learned about revenge and arrogance. The characters of the Circle of Magic are my favorite among Ms. Pierce's books so far, and it's good to see more of them.See chapter eleven to find out what the greatest treasures of the Living Circle are (I don't know about you, but after awhile I tend to forget which book of a series has which battle or revelation.)See chapter fifteen for mention of the last time any man saw Rosethorn frightened.See chapter twenty for examples proving that Lark told Rosethorn the truth when she said shamans can do things mages can't.

Readers familiar with Tamora Pierce and the "Circle of Magic" series will be glad to revisit some of their favorite characters, while those encountering them for the first time will be drawn in by the quick-moving plot. Pierce includes vivid descriptions and complex, realistic characters and interesting forms of magic. Suitable for the middle-school crowd, while being engaging enough to keep older students motivated to finish. Very popular - I can't keep this on the shelf at work.

I received this book through the GoodReads First Reads program. I received this book in exchange for an honest review.According to GoodReads: On their way to the first Circle temple in Gyongxe, mages Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy pay a visit to the emperor's summer palace. Although treated like royalty when they first arrive, the mages soon discover that the emperor plans to invade Gyongxe, posing a fatal threat to the home temple of the Living Circle religion. Accompanied by one of the emperor's prize captives, the three mages rush to Gyongxe to warn its citizens of the impending attack. With the imperials hot on their trail, Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy must quickly help the country prepare for battle. But even with the help of new allies, will their combined forces be enough to fight the imperial army and win the war?This is a tricky book to review, because I was not the intended audience. When I saw this book on the GoodReads giveaway site, I got excited, because I have heard great things about Tamora Pierce. Unfortunately, this book was probably not the best place for me to start. This book is set in the middle of a longstanding book series within the Emelan universe. I was already supposed to have a relationship with Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy going into this book. I did not though, because I had not read the other books, so I took a long time to care about these characters. In fact by the end I only really cared about Luvo (a heart of the mountain god that they meet along the way) and Evvy. I am sure that if you are already familiar with these characters, you would have settled more quickly into this book than I did. You probably would have cared more about the rest of the plot too. I just focused on pushing through the book and hoping that I would start to like it better. Even though the characters and plot were not that interesting to me, I kept reading the book, because the magic and world building were amazing. Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy use ambient magic. According to the Emelan Wikipedia page: Ambient magic, although it also exists as a potential from birth and cannot be manufactured, operates on a different principle. It is tied to a specific craft, power or raw material, ranging from carpentry to dance to weather. Ambient mages can only work with the craft their magic is tied to. Ambient mages are rarer than academic ones, at a ratio of about one to four. Both the Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens series focus on the mechanics of ambient magic, shifting viewpoints to show several different types. The existence of ambient mages is one of the reasons why magic is such a commonplace thing in the Emelan Universe. It manifests as just another aspect of an artisan's expertise, and exemplifies the philosophy that magic exists in all things, no matter how seemingly mundane. This distinguishes it from other fantastical magic systems, which often manifest as fire or lightning, but rarely as weaving, smithing and other daily crafts.Briar and Rosethorn use plant magic and Evvy uses stone magic. I would be interested in reading other books in this universe to learn about other ambient mages. I feel that this magic system opens up the possibility to all sorts of magic that you don't traditionally see, or at least magic that I typically don't see in books. I would love to see some fiber arts related magic and music magic too. I love the idea that magic can be based on crafts and the environment.Note: This book has a brief torture scene involving a child. Additionally, some animals are killed. I understand why these scenes are in the book. They fit in well with showing the cruelty of one of the characters. At the same time, I personally do not like reading torture scenes even if they are brief and "not too awful." I am not sure, if I would have have tried to win this book, if I knew that these things happened in this book. Again, these scenes are not gruesome by any means. I work with people who have experienced abuse in their lives, so I typically do not care to read about it for my fun reading.This book gets 3 out 5 roses for the amazing magic system.

Set between the Circle Opens quartet and The Will of the Empress, Battle Magic tells the story of Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy's travels, how they got involved with war between Yanjing and Gyongxe, and how Evvy met Luvo.I really liked the book, although to say I "enjoyed" it is difficult because while it isn't really a dark and unhappy book, there is a lot of unpleasant stuff like war and torture and death and at least one section made me cry. I particularly liked how it filled in the details of that time. One of my consistent complaints about the Emelan books is how much is left out in between each series, and this deals with that perfectly.

Never make a Mage angry! Once again a foray into the magical world of Emelan leaves you breathless and wanting more. The richness and texture of Pierce's novels drags you right in from the start and holds you there captive as you walk the walk and feel the emotions of her characters.Living Circle adherents and plant mages Dedicate Rosethorn and Briar, along with apprentice rock mage Evvy (Evumeimei), have been travelling for two years and we find them in the Kingdom of Gyongxe, the home of many faiths. Actually a sanctuary for faiths we discover as the story continues. The first temple of the Living Circle is here. This is a place where the mountains meet, ruled by the eleven year old God-King, where painted gods move on walls and statues come to life.The Three journey into the Kingdom of Yanjing and there find disturbing evidence that the emperor, a man of of exceeding ambition and cruelty has turned his face towards the seat of the gods to declare his god head. He intends to invade. As Dedicate Dokyi later says, '[the Emperor] hears Gyongxe is the spindle on which the world turns. He thinks if he takes Gyongxe, people will say he is the spindle.' The three leave to warn the God-King and the temples. As they leave they release a captive prince, Parahan. All are pursued by the emperor's soldiers and mages.Evvy is captured and tortured. In her tortured state she is drawn through rock to safety by the song of Luvo, the heart of a mountain. Luvo becomes an important friend and force to be reckoned with.Terrible battles, shamans, mages and and walking gods are part of the ensuing conflict.As Rosethorn declared, 'Weishu...the emperor of Yanjing was a monster in human skin.'All are fighting for a secure, safe world against insurmountable odds.An absolutely fabulous addition to the Circle stories.A NetGalley ARC