These series are similar in the sense that both of them aren’t quartets (one is a duology, and the other a trilogy) and were written when Tammy was allowed to expand her page count due to shifting trends in the YA genre. The increased page count for me works well in Beka’s trilogy, which in many ways strikes me as the most mature entries in the Tortall universe and competes with SOTL to be my favorite Tortall series after POTS, but isn’t able to raise Aly’s series out of being my least favorite in the Tortall universe. Both these books also feature Tammy stepping out of her comfort zone a bit to explore different settings in the Tortall universe whether that different setting is the Tortall of a few centuries ago or the Copper Isles, a country we had never visited before. I do like that Tammy is willing to experiment and take these risks in writing. It helps keep her work feeling fresh.
With the
Trickster duology, I love the setting (which is so different from the typical Western European inspired fantasy setting, so that is refreshing), the politics, and the attempts to explore the consequences of colonialism and imperialism. Unfortunately, I still felt it had a significant white man's burden aspect to it where the white heroine had to save the non-white natives similar to what was present in
Woman Who Rides Like a Man, but even more disappointing given the time and opportunity for education and improvement on Tammy's part between the books. I think that could have been avoided if the books had been written from the perspective of Sarai and/or Dove, and a separate series had been written about Aly's coming of age and establishing her identity because I just felt like telling the Copper Isles story from Aly's perspective didn't do justice to Aly's journey or the Copper Isles story. It was like there were two great concepts here but they didn't meld together well and instead undermined one another.
I also will say that the Aly/Nawat romance made me uncomfortable because I didn't get the sense that Nawat was fully human (I thought he still had many thought processes, instincts, and behaviors that were very crow-like). I also was kind of unconvinced that Aly, who was described as a flirt far more than any of Tammy's other Tortallan heroines, would just decide to marry so young. It just felt like Tammy wanted to show Aly's flirting as somehow wrong for a teenage girl, so it becomes really bizarre that Aly's marrying and getting pregnant so young is treated as somehow preferable. I get that this series was about Aly finding her purpose (though arguably, she had it from the beginning, and it was really just her parents who needed to accept that she had a purpose since Aly achieves her ultimate ambition of being a spy) but did her purpose have to include an early marriage and pregnancy? I guess I just really appreciated having a heroine in Kel that didn't end the series married or even romantically attached to anyone. I would've preferred seeing Aly still being a bit of a flirt or just being an independent woman to the Aly/Nawat marriage that ended
Trickster's Queen. Many women don't find their happily ever after marriage in their teens, and that's okay.
ladylingua , like you, I loved the concept of a medieval fantasy crime thriller, and I enjoyed seeing Tortall from a commoner's perspective. Many of the glimpses into everyday Corus and Port Caynn were my favorites. The city life in both places felt very real and vibrant to me, and each city kind of had its own culture, which was great.
I do think that Tammy's strengths as an author are more in the third person narrator rather than the first person. Overall I did think the first person in the Beka books was far superior to the first person in Melting Stones, though. I would have preferred the books be written without the diary format, however. Even if Beka had a spectacular memory and shorthand for recording, it just strained my belief a bit that she would be able to recall so much or find the time to write while on the run. The dairy format on a whole worked best in
Terrier, in my opinion, though I would have removed Ilony Cooper's journal from the book. That section was just painful to read, and I couldn't accept that an obviously illiterate woman would be keeping a journal at all. It also made me afraid the rest of the book would be written like that, but mercifully it wasn't.
You do have a good point about the cast of characters changing a lot after the first book. I didn't mind it as much as I did in the Immortals since Tunstall and Goodwin were still around (Goodwin in the second, and Tunstall in the third), which provided a sense of continuity for me I didn't get just from having Numair about. I also like that there was a focus on human characters like Nestor/Okha, Farmer, and Sabine rather than more dwelling on animals as is the Immortals. Speaking of Nestor/Okha, I love their relationship and the fact that they were able to be parents of a sort to Haden and Truda.
I did enjoy much of the politics in Beka's books, but if I had a criticism it would be making Tortall's civil war about slavery. That just felt very American to me: to make Tortall's civil war about slavery. In a quasi-medieval society, a war over succession, over who inherits the throne or if a monarch has lost the divine right to rule, would have been far more believable to me.
Also, yes, I agree with you that Tunstall's betrayal felt rushed and rather underexplored. I don't think Tammy writes betrayals particularly well since I also felt Thom's and Alex's betrayals and downfalls were rushed and underexplored. In SOTL, that could have been due to diminished page count, but with Tunstall, I'm not sure that excuse applies.
Overall, I really did like Beka's books. I think they are probably the second best written of Tammy's Tortall series after the Kel books, but SOTL has the nostalgia factor for me, so I can never quite pick one over the other.