Emperor Mage

Emperor Mage has always been my favorite of the series and I think I discovered what I love most about it.

After finding evidence that Emperor Ozorne is the perpetrator behind the happenings in the north, in books 2, he pack peddles and tries to offer piece so then he won't have the whole of the civilized world at his throat. Alanna, Gary, Sir Gareth, Numair, and Daine and their friends join them in meeting with the Emperor. While they are there, they find that not all is happy. The God's are angry with the Emperor and have been throwing bad omens at him that he isn't listening too. Famine, more wars, and rats (to name a few) are being ignored. But now that his beloved birds are sick he calls for Daine's aid. She is able to heal them and sees that he cares for them. How can someone so kind to animals be such a horrible person?

But not only is she troubled about the Emperor but now she is visited by the God of Carthak, the Old Hag, and she won't let up. Suddenly dinosaurs are coming to life and she kills herself while doing it...

I enjoy this books so much for two very important reasons: the Emperor is a complex person who is indeed horrible, but also is very charismatic and compassionate, if you are the right person. He sees himself as doing the right thing, as all bad guys should--bad bad guys don't have conviction in what they are doing to destroy the world and those tank the novel. At some points you do question if he is the bad guy or simply "misunderstood." And two: Numair and Daine's development. Throughout the last three books, it's been very subtle. She has been very young and him about... 15?? years older than him. Any romantic relation between them would have been perverted. She was 13 in the first book and that would have been too much of an age gap. But as she's getting older, the gap seems to lessen. They go from very much teacher-student exploring wild magic to very much caring about one another. They aren't fully there yet, but toward the end when Daine believes the Emperor has captured Numair, she very much freaks out and causes a lot of destruction all because she "loses her temper." It was magnificent. That might be a third reason I like the book. The chapter called "Daine Loses her Temper." The climax of the book was fantastic too.

There were some problems though was how jumpy it was. In the middle of the book it jumped a lot and I felt like the descriptions of events lacked so then they were kind of confusing. I also felt, while her temper was building and she was able to see what was going on while she was otherwise occupied was a cop-out and unneeded. It was as if Pierce needed a way to have her know things, when there would have been easier ways to find it out. Pierce could have given us full scenes and actually shown us, the reader, the reason why Daine lost her temper. Make us feel for the characters more. Help us to shed a tear. I think that part could have been better handled.

Even with this fault, I can look it over and enjoy this book. I don't know if other's enjoy it as much as I do, but it is still probably my favorite in this series.