Realms of the Gods (The Immortals Series #4) by Tamora Pierce

From the Publisher

During a dire battle against the fearsome Skinners, Daine and her mage teacher Numair are swept into the Divine Realms. Though happy to be alive, they are not where they want to be. They are desperately needed back home, where their old enemy, Ozorne, and his army of strange creatures are waging war against Tortall.

Trapped in the mystical realms Daine discovers her mysterious parentage. And as these secrets of her past are revealed so is the treacherous way back to Tortall. So they embark on an extraordinary journey home, where the fate of all Tortall rests with Daine and her wild magic.

Kathleen Karr - Children's Literature

Book IV, the conclusion of Tamora Pierce's reissued "The Immortals" quartet, finds the young heroine Daine once more at war. It seems the defeated Emperor Ozorne of Carthak-now in the form of a vile Stormwing-has opened the barriers between the Divine Realms and the mortal world. And most of the gods have a nasty streak. In an effort to keep Chaos at bay, the now-knockout, sixteen-year-old Daine and her teacher/mage/admirer Numair are abducted to the gods' realm. Here the story lingers overlong between parental reunions, new additions to Daine's menagerie of sidekicks (this time it's little blob-like "darkings"), a visit to the Dragonlands, and the growing love interest between mage and mageling. Returned to the real world at last, the final battle-probably meant to be epically Tolkien-falls a little flat. Alas, the wonder of Book I's discoveries is gone. When nearly everything can suddenly be accomplished by magic, the result becomes humdrum. There are stylistic problems, too. The book is put together choppily, without fleshing out transitions and many scenes. Pierce has good fantasy ideas, but tosses them around willy-nilly, losing narrative strength in the process. She might take a few lessons from Diana Wynne Jones. On the bright side, the reinforced binding sports impressive cover art by Marilee Heyer. 2003 (orig. 1996), Atheneum, Ages 12 up.

VOYA

In this fourth and final volume of Immortals, which can be read without the others, we meet Daine Sarasri, age sixteen, who can "mind-speak" to animals, and her lover-to-be, the great mage Numair Salmalin, age thirty. They are attacked by nasty enemy agents called Skinners. His Gift and her wild magic seem to be no match for these creatures that horribly destroy everything in their path. Things look bad, but just in time, the two get pulled from earth to safety in the realm of the gods. Here Daine meets her dead mother, Sarra, and the father she never knew about, the god Weiryn. The courageous pair cannot stay. The barriers which once protected humans have tumbled and all of those "near and dear" at home are now at peril as war rages. It takes "pilgrim's progress" kind of arduous journey to get them to the land of dragons and a beggar's chance of a way home. The plot is standard good vs. cunning evil. It is the detailed descriptions of the characters that etch the tale in memory. The stinky stormwings, the daring tentacled darklings and the individual dragon characters are equal to the "entities" found in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials (Workman, 1987). Daine is a feisty, liberated lady. Her human problems provide special spice not found in conventional teen fantasy. The epithet "illegitimate" had caused her much pain, but after seeing her "da," a muscular man with a crown of antlers, she better understands why he was not around for her childhood. Daine and Numair become aware of passionate feelings for each other, yet they remain chaste. (Girls with crushes on teachers will identify). When Numair accidentally sees her naked, he blushes! The attractive cover portrays Daine with her protector, the badger god, her parents, the handsome Numair, and Gainel, Master of Dreams, "said to be terrible at good-byes." Who could resist the invitation to join this improbable group wherein humor, action, and human foibles freshly mix? The series opener, Wild Magic (Atheneum, 1992), was published five years ago, and readers are still waiting for the series to be out in paperback. VOYA Codes: 4Q 4P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Broad general YA appeal, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

School Library Journal

Gr 7-10-In this final installment in the series, Daine and her mentor, Numair, are about to be killed when Daine's parents, both of whom are minor gods, sweep the pair up into their domain. Their lives are saved, but both Daine and Numair desperately want to return to mortal regions to help their country, Tortall, fight against the deadly foes introduced in the earlier volumes. The only way for them to do so is to seek the help of dragons, who owe Daine a favor for raising one of their young. Although the young woman is able to shape-shift and communicate with animals, and Numair is a powerful magician, the journey to the Dragonlands is fraught with dangers. Along the way, they discover unlooked-for allies and their love for one another. Arriving in Tortall at last, Daine faces her bitter enemy, Ozorne, with whom she struggled in Emperor Mage (Atheneum, 1995). A bloody battle wraps up both the series' earthly struggle and the divine battle at its root between the evil Queen of Chaos and the other immortals. Daine, now 16, can look forward to a normal existence, at last. She is an ideal heroine-adventurous, intelligent, and gifted with magical powers, yet down-to-earth and kind to anyone who is not an open enemy. Some of the animal characters are a little precious, especially the young dragons. However, the dream sequences, in which Daine is able to see what's going on in mortal lands, are intriguing. Fans of the earlier titles will appreciate this satisfying conclusion.-Mary Jo Drungil, Niles Public Library District, IL

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents