Finally I’ve reached the last book in the Circle of Magic series!! There are more books about our friends, the Circleteers, but I’m hoping they take place when the Circleteers are older and therefore ready to have ridiculous romantic drama. Once again, the main antagonist in this book is NATURE, this time in the form of an epidemic called Blue Pox which no one has ever seen before. Briar is the main character since 1) one of his street urchin friends contracted one of the first cases and 2) plant magic is ALL ABOUT finding cures for stuff since all medicine is made from plants. Most of this book is descriptions of sick people and Briar trying to help them, which was not really enjoyable since it made me vaguely queasy. I also realized for the first time that Briar’s teacher, Dedicate Rosethorn, is not an old lady, since a bunch of people remark upon her beauty and call her “young lady”. This discovery makes me wonder how old she really is, and whether or not this heralds a Daine/Numairesque relationship between them. The truth is anyone’s guess, since I also suspect that Dedicates Rosethorn and Lark are already in a secret relationship with each other.

The problem with these books is that all the characters love each other so much it’s impossible to tell if there’s supposed to be subtext or just “EVERYONE IS BFF WITH EVERYONE ELSE.” That is, except Dedicate Crane, Rosethorn’s chief rival and the guy in charge of finding a cure. He’s totally devoted to his work, but also totally grumpy and annoyed with every other character. Much like Tris, towards whom he is relatively cordial. Needless to say, Crane is my new second favorite character, and I secretly hope he and Tris get together later, leaving Winding Circle and its insufferably self-righteous spirit forever.

The other funny part of this book is how much of the plot is furthered by the simple truth that the Water Temple and its dedicates are apparently way stupid. Other books have included people remarking in passing about how everyone in Water Temple is an airhead and causes extra work, but in this book pretty much everything that goes wrong does so because someone at the Water Temple screwed up. There’s only one Water Temple dedicate portrayed as competent, but then she uses too much of her healing power and dies.

Briar’s Book by Tamora Pierce

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
Briar and Rosethorn are going to the slums! Rosethorn is going to give medicines to the free clinic and Briar is going to hang with his streetrat friends! Alleypup leads Briar into the sewers where his friend Flick is totally sick with blue spots.

Chapter two
Sandry’s appraisal of Tris: still fat and a bitch, but at least now she’s wearing nice clothes. Rosethorn, Briar, and Flick all go into quarantine because blue spots are an unknown illness! Usually during an epidemic, Rosethorn and her chief rival Crane work together to find a cure, but now she’s in quarantine!

Chapter three
Of course the stupid Water Temple is low on metal sample boxes so Daja and Frostpine go into box-making frenzy. Also, they’re low on magical gauze masks and gloves, so Lark and Sandry weave up a storm.

Chapter four
A few more people are brought to quarantine! Plus, Henna, the one competent person from the Water Temple, comes to help Rosethorn and Briar nurse. Lots more sick people are being found, mostly in the slums. Henna explains to Briar that if he’s not a healer he can’t use his powers to heal. All of the free clinic is now in quarantine since there are so many sick people!

Chapter five
Niko asks Tris to make the rain stop, because apparently WATER is spreading the disease! Tris points out that he has spent the last three books telling her not to mess with nature, but he pretends that this time is totally, totally different. She uses her Dopler 90000 powers to tell him that there is a 100% chance of rain for the rest of the book and there’s nothing she can do. Also, the Blue Pox has spread outside the slums! Read the rest of this entry »