The Circle of Magic

First off let me apologise if I meander on this outline of the realms the next dozen-ish books are based in. I am writing this with a box of tissues on one side and a packet of cold and flu meds on the other. As you can see these books are well loved an some of the covers have been chewed away by a cockatiel I owned some 15 years ago. These books were first published 20 years ago and though I have not read them as frequently as Pierces books based in Tortall they are still treasured items in my collection.

The circle of magic is the first quartet based in the realm of Emelan and surrounding Nations. It is quite a different world to Tortall. There probably are knights in shining armour somewhere but we never meet them (there is mention of a special shield being made but that's pretty much it). Most of this quartet is based in a university of magic called The Winding Circle Temple that is about a 3 hour ride out of Summersea, the capital of Emelan.

The Lands

The lands of Emelan and surrounding regions is loosely based around Greece and east of the meditteranean with local foods and descriptions of body type and architectural design. With regions having inspiration pulled from Jordan to Croatia. The Northern country of Namorn seems to be a jumbled mix of traditions from different countries surrounding the Baltic Sea and Russia.

Later books go to far away countries that resemble China, Nepal, Japan and the Canary Islands

Religion

One change in this series as compared to Tortall is that gods don't seem to play a part in the lives of people like they do in the Tortall series. In the Tortall series you could not deny that the gods existed, otherwise they may very well manifest and smite you down for all to see. In Emelan, they are also polytheistic, but we never meet, see, or hear of a god manifesting to anyone. They appear to be only slightly more realistic than the god/s of earth because in later books we do meet beings that are the spiritual embodiment of particular mountains or volcanos which is pretty close to meeting a god.

Magic

In the lands of Tortall if you were lucky enough to have the gift of magic you were usually at least assured a comfortable life, even with only a small gift, it gave you an advantage to be a healer, nanny, cook or animal handler. In the lands of Emelan it's a very different story. As a mage you might very well become a beggar if you don't have a back-up career unless you are either extremely powerful or you find a niche to work in.

There are two types of mages in this world. 99.9% are standard mages. They get ingredients, write a few runes, do a few incantations, add some power and bada-bing bada-boom, cosmic vending machine spits out a result. Should another mage come along and do same thing, the cosmic vending machine should spit out the same can of coke. Standard A+B=C type magic. Of course some a stronger and able to bigger spells or have an emotional affinity for a particular field of specialisation. Some people just make for better healers as opposed to others being better war mages etc but theoretically with the training the healer can become a war mage and the war mage can become a healer.

Then there's the 0.01% who are later named as Ambient mages. The power doesn't come from them, the power comes from the things they work with. They tend to arise in fields that are common jobs, careers, necessities of life. Only problem is that because the magic only partially comes from them, they mostly just the conduits, it is very hard for them to be found, spotted or diagnosed. This means they will often go their whole life thinking that they are just an excellent farmer, smith, chef, carpenter, mason whatever. If they are never found and trained that is all they will ever be. Just someone talented at what they do. If they get training however they can change the mundane talent for a job into an artform, a lifesaver and a weapon.

There is one draw back to Ambient magic as opposed to standard magic. If you are say an Ambient Carpenter Mage, no matter how much you train you cannot become a healer mage or a weather mage. You can take training from standard magics and apply it to carpentry like using your power to add a protection against fire and burning on your wood-work, but no matter how hard you train or try or how much magic you use, you could not apply that same spell into cloth like a weaver mage can, and conversely the weaver mage cannot put that protection in woodwork, only string, rope and cloth. Your field of specialty is it. With training you can manipulate it like a weaver mage could manipulate vines and plants because technically you can weave vines and plant fibres and make them into rope and such or a carpentry mage should be able to manipulate paper because it is technically dried wood pulp etc.

Summary

In this series it is centred around four youths found and brought to Winding Circle all with Ambient Magic. The four each come from very different back grounds, Briar was once a street urchin and thief. Daja is/was a trader (think gypsies, they buy low and sell high to make a living and believe crafting and work is for non-trader folk whom they think of as lesser people). Trisana (Tris) Chandler, a girl from a merchant family. Lastly there's Lady Sandrilene (Sandry) fa Toren, a noble girl and niece to the Duke (Ruler) of Emelan.

This Quartet is exploration of what Ambient mages are capable of when they combine their powers. I think it was also an experiment for Pierce as one of the four main characters is male and I think she was expermenting on writing from the perspective of a boy and i think she did reasonably well however i am female so i guess it doesn't count for much. Guys, give this series a read for me and let me know what you think of Pierces portrayal of a young lad is like.