Terrier (The Legend of Beka Cooper, Book 1) (original 2006; edition 2007)

This author is wonderful. A tale set long before the events of her Alanna series. She doesn't shy from some unlovely aspects of life but since this is for teens, her heroes are quite noble and her villains are quite despicable. ( )

As usual, Ms. Pierce is phenomenal with her beautifully written, strong female protagonist! :D Beka Cooper's story sank its teeth into me and wouldn't let me go until I'd finished it up. It's a great read, and I REALLY recommend it! ( )

Loved this, as usual with Pierce; she just keeps getting better. With Beka, Pierce for the first time explores more of the common side of Tortall, albeit at an earlier time than most of what we've seen. Beka's fear of public speaking keeps her from being too perfect and her doggedness and sense of justice really appealed to me. The narration by Susan Denaker was excellent. I think I like that for the single narrator editions of Pierce's books they appear to be going with a different narrator for each series because each character seems to get their own voice. I can't wait to read the next one which sadly will not be out until next spring. Listened to CD edition. Previously read. ( )

Though I'm never any good at writing reviews, i will say that this was a really refreshing "Who dun it." drama. I loved it. It was a crime drama set in a world just sprinkled with magic and great characters. I highly recommend it. ( )

Last year, I ran across a short story collection of Tamora Pierce's in the library, and picked it up, under the idea that I liked her stuff, and particularly the Song of the Lioness quartet, when I was growing up, and I should give it another shot now. I ended up being fairly disappointed in the collection, but I thought some authors find the short story too constraining a format to really shine, so I made a mental note to come back and try something longer, and in particular the Provost's Dog trilogy, of which Terrier is the first, since I remember having seen it get some good press.

It turns out that this hypothesis was largely justified, since Terrier was much more enjoyable of a read. I think a lot of the fun of Pierce's books comes from the world-building aspects, and that's much easier to do with a few hundred pages to play with, building up your city and its cast of characters. Definitely that's the case in this story, set in the capital city of Pierce's oft-visited fantasy kingdom Tortall, Corus. There's a small frame story telling you of the time frame (a healthy number of generations before the Song of the Lioness books) and some of the setup for the main character, her skills and background, by giving you bits and pieces from a number of characters' diaries.

But then it settles into the diary and voice of Beka Cooper, a Puppy or trainee city guard, in the most hardnosed district of Corus. It's not the easiest place to live, but it's somewhere she's very familiar with, even after having spent a number of years with her siblings in the household of the Provost himself after helping crack a case when she was a young girl. She's wanted to be a Dog for a long, long time, and she's determined to find her way, even if it's lonely at first. But she's got some small degree of magic, and she's got the best guardsmen in the precinct as her mentors, so the road isn't too hard to see. Over the course of the story, she gets entangled in two mysteries, dealing with an influx of incredibly precious rare stones and abductions and murders among the poorest parts of the city.

The mysteries are actually pretty well presented and clever, but the prize of the writing is Beka's voice and the world-building. Pierce isn't the world's foremost prose stylist, but you do sink very solidly into Beka's world, between all the local argot that shows up in her speech and her particular view of how the world should be, and how she can best find her place in it. She's a talented young woman with drive and curiosity, but she's also realistically sensitive and real. You get a real sense of her and her life, and of the city she's in. Pierce populates the place with a wide variety of interesting characters, and makes Corus breath to their rhythms, from the Rogue's Court to the Dogs, Beka's friends on both sides of the law, the little shopkeepers and the nobility. Corus feels like a real city, and even if you don't see the nicer parts, you hear of them, alongside the hardships and the people working to keep their lives whole, staying away from slavery and poverty as best they can.

This is a different world from the Tortall of the Alanna series, a rougher and looser society, in need of lots of obvious reminders of how the place should be in order for the people of the capital city to be satisfied in life. Considering how well imagined the later chronological books dealing with Tortall are, this is no small feat, and it's an impressive feat. I'm glad to get back to the world of Pierce's novels, and I'm looking forward to seeing Beka's growth and the widening world in the next books. I'm definitely not going to go as long before I pick up her series again. ( )