in one of the Keladry books one of the convicts who kidnapped Lalasa was named Noll. Would he be any realtion to the Noll family of Terrier?
Tammy: Sometimes these things run in families. }8-D
And sometimes not! But yes, as I’m working on Beka’s story, I am trying to have some names recur. Nice catch!
SOURCE: [LJ 19169]
Will I ever see my beloved Alanna and the rest of the crew from the original quarter again?
The Song of the Lioness quartet is the favorite for many of us.
Tammy: Actually, you’ll get to see them in Numair’s book, which I will write when I am finished with the Beka Cooper trilogy. And you will see them in Maura of Dunlath’s book, which follows Numair’s. And in the Kel books I mean to write after that. So if you can be patient with me, there will be more Alanna and her friends!
I don’t plan any books which will be about the Lioness characters alone, though. I prefer to write about young heroes, because they are still finding their way in the world. I love to write about people who are just seeing the world and learning who they are and what place they will fill in it!
SOURCE: [LJ 8192]
If George didn’t want Aly to become a spy, why on EARTH did he teach her so thoroughly to be one? From the inserts in TC about lessons in spying, the letters with advice about spying from Myles and George, and the fact that she reads as if she’s VERY practiced at spying, I find it a little hard to believe that George wasn’t teaching her deliberately. And why, if he taught her so well and she was so good at it, did he not want her to continue doing it?
Tammy: George would have been very happy if Aly had chosen to stay and be his executive assistant, as it were. See, he had a bit of a shock when she was twelve. He took her along to a meet with one of his spies, as he’d been doing over the last couple of years, and this time the meeting went south. It turned into a knife fight with uninvited parties dropping in. Aly, who was supposed to hide, took care of herself quite nicely, thanks to Da’s teaching, but George sustained a dreadful shock. He’d almost gotten her killed. It was the thought of his little girl getting killed in the field that set him back. If she’d been happy with a nice desk job, decoding things, tracking agents on maps, and helping her old dad with paperwork, he wouldn’t have twitched.
Parents get twitchy like this. It’s all fun when you teach the kids in play, or when you live your own life without realizing the kids are soaking it all in, but when the kids want to do the risky stuff, the parental nature kicks in. Other people’s kids can do that, but not their kids. Their kids are supposed to be safe. Except most of the time it’s not possible to be safe, as George learned, the hard way. If he’d been sensible, maybe now he wouldn’t be staring across the strait at his greatest competitor. I don’t think their Majesties are pleased–do you?
SOURCE: [LJ 8192]
Tammy: So I have a confession to make–this book isn’t coming as easily as some of the others. I suspect that counterfeiting just doesn’t appeal to me as much as murder, epidemic disease, war, forest fires, and earthquakes do as plots. There’s so much explaining to do with counterfeiting to do. I have to come up with a ring of counterfeiters (colemongers, in the book), and hide them where you won’t spot them so easily. (Coles are fake coins.) I have to figure out who’s making the coles (colesmiths), and hide them even deeper. How do you know a coin is fake? And how do you set out a major hunt for the counterfeiters without tipping off the whole country?
Because you see, that’s the last thing Lord Gershom wants, and it’s the last thing the Dogs who know there are false coins making their way into Tortall’s moneystream want. There are always a few coles about, but this is a lot of them, which could turn the whole national economy on its ear. A search for the colemongers and the colesmiths has to be done quietly, by Dogs who can be trusted to keep it close. And how many Dogs would that be?
The hard Dogs of the Lower City have assembled some information, and all of it’s bad. They know gamblers from Port Caynn are losing a lot of false silver coins in games in Corus and on the riverboats. Lord Gershom decides to start a quiet search within Corus for the fakes, and to send word to the Deputy Provosts of the cities, to warn them and to get them started on their own searches for colemongers. He sends Dogs out on the riverboats.
And to Port Caynn he sends two Dogs who just happen to be free. Remember that riot? Tunstall got both his legs broken. Yep. Both. And the problem with all those healings in the past is that he’s built up an immunity. Healing now only takes him so far. The rest he has to do the hard way. That means Beka and Goodwin have each other. Goodwin is familiar with Port Caynn, as it happens, and she worked on the report about the colemongers for Lord Gershom. So did Beka. She also has the powerful Duke of Queenscove screaming for her hide because she talked back to his drunken son. Lord Gershom thinks Goodwin and Cooper are just the pair to send to Port Caynn to snoop around off the leash.
On the surface, they are there under the guidance of Sergeant Nestor Haryse, Gershom’s cousin, posted to the Day Watch in Deep Harbor District in the port city to learn the way Dog work is done Port Caynn. They wander the city during the day, talking to people and looking around. At night, they’re supposed to party in the gambling dens, losing money, winning coles, being sociable, making friends, and keeping their eyes open for the colemongers. Because all threads lead so far to Port Caynn.
Beka has already made friends in Port Caynn, too, it seems. It happened while she was still in Corus. One is a limber, laughing gambler named Dale, another is a hulking, hard-handed caravan guard named Hanse, and the third is his fellow guard, the slab-like Steen. (They all met during the riot.)
The problem is that Beka’s and Goodwin’s hunt may be over before it begins. Port Caynn’s Rogue, Pearl Skinner, just had them kidnapped and brought to her. Pearl is a very nasty piece of work, and she doesn’t like having strange Dogs in her city. She really doesn’t like them interfering with her pickpockets, as Beka has already done. And she suspects that Beka may be a spy for Rosto, and that Rosto may be planning a move against her. Pearl’s not as cool-headed as Rosto. She’s thinking that now that she has these two Dogs, she might just send them back to Rosto in a box.
SOURCE: [Official LJ]
Words of Tamora Pierce 