I do kinda wish that I had started this reread in publication order, because upon reading this first book I was reminded that Alanna is the connective tissue of the Tortall series. Spoilers abound from here, and I’m not going to mark them because this book was published in 1983. Also, I realized just how much there is of this story, and how much can be dissected and analyzed and…well. Yes, I read this first book at the beginning of the month, and then a wave of self doubt and loathing barreled in asking me why I am bothering blogging about this reread. Someday you might even be able to tell what right is.” Duke Gareth of Naxen You must learn to defend the weak, to obey your overlord, to champion the cause of right. They are joined by god-like creatures–winged horses giant spiders with human heads dragons griffins giants huge, icy lizards that hunt down thieves no matter what stands in their way.“You’re here, Alan of Trebond, to learn what it is to be a knight and a noble of Tortall.
These are very much present in the lives of the people, taking up champions and taking against those who have angered them. Its monarchs range from kind to fumbling to formidable, as do its thieves, its mages, its priests, its warriors, and most of all, its gods. And in a country both large and sparsely policed, there is always a risk of conflict, be it from rebel nobles, the impoverished people of the eastern hills, or the barely vanquished Bazhir tribes. Pirates from Carthak, Scanra, and the Copper Isles haunt Tortall’s eastern shores. There is military danger from neighbors like northern Scanra, eastern Tusaine, and worst of all, imperial Carthak in the south, with its ever-hungry slave culture and its greedy mage emperor.
On the field of battle or in the corridors of noble houses, flanked by companions human, animal, and sometimes other, the Tortall heroes always have their work cut out for them. It is the home of an interesting assortment of heroes, many of them girls, who have found ways to make a difference in a world that can be hard and bloody–as knights, as mages (wizards), as spies, as law enforcement. The area known as Tortall and its surrounding countries is a medieval fantasy universe, emerging from a time in the north when only men were permitted to hold knighthoods.
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