In her previous adventures, fifteen-year old Daine Sarrasri has helped keep a siege and rebellion at bay all the while learning more about her own wild magic and the animals around her. Now, able to shape-shift into animal form at will, Daine faces perhaps her greatest challenge yet: going into Carthak, possible enemy territory, with the ambassadors of Tortall in the hope that a peace treaty can be reached between the two lands. Daine's duty? To help heal the emperor's sickened birds. But she ma More...

A trip down South and a brush with death

Daine, her master, Numair, the King's Champion, Alanna, and other Tortall diplomats head to Carthak to try to negotiate peace and keep the two countries from war. Daine's mission is specifically to heal the Emperor Mage's beloved birds. But Daine sees an old slave woman who shouldn't be there and gets warnings from the Beaver God to stay away.

Let me preface this review with the note that I listened to this on audiobook and thus may grossly mispell the name More...

I think this is my favorite one yet! (The fact that I'm writing this review having stayed up until 4 in the morning to finish the book may be a hint.) It's pretty much FILLED WITH AWESOME. The Graveyard Hag is one of my favorite fictional gods now. Zombies and dice and rats!

In this volume, Daine goes to Carthak and finally gets to confront their power-hungry Emperor, who caused the trouble she faced in the first two books. Along the way, of course, she makes friends with new animals and experien More...

Daine returns in the third book of the Immortals quartet. Here she is brought on a diplomatic mission to a kingdom south of Tortall (which is strangely like Egypt. . .hmmm) where the all-powerful Emperor is plotting a war. A war with Tortall.

In order to stave off the potentially devastating consequences of war on their small kingdom, a mission of all the knights you remember from previous books in order to wage peace, as well as heal the Emperor's birds, whom he cares about more than life itself More...

More like 3.5 stars than four, really, but this was a better book than the first two, so rounding up to four. Also, I read this in one evening, which doesn't happen very often these days (okay, it's a reasonably short book, but even so), so that counts for something, too.

Daine's getting more and more super-powered was a little annoying, but at least there were good reasons for it, but I do wish the other characters existed for more than props for Daine to interact with when needed. It's been thr More...

Now, THAT'S more like it! Major major redemption for the yawnfest that was book 2. In Emperor Mage, Daine gets to pretend she's actually a girl sent from a royal envoy as diplomats into a foreign land instead of a girl who wants to be an animal and surrounded by animals all the time. Human interactions are awesome, and I'm so glad Daine isn't just talking and plotting with animals all the time now, and that she's actually solving a decent mystery and dealing with major international intrigue. It More...

This is probably my favourite book in the quartet -- if not my favourite thing that Pierce has written.

Not just the entire climax being a crowning moment of awesome, but the writing itself seems to be more elegant than the books before and after.

The book is possibly a bit problematic in how Pierce approaches Carthaki culture , with super vague allusions to it requiring a veil for woman? yet we never actually see a woman wearing one or hearing what the hell that's about besides some ~modesty bull More...

Having read all four in this series now, I can truthfully say this is the best one out of the bunch.

The political tension makes sense, and Orzorne is a well-developed villain: a man who used to be friends with Numair and claims he only wants what's best for his kingdom. He has his weak points and his good points. In fact, Daine finds she understands him very well when it comes to his birds.

The other villain didn't. In fact, by the end, I was disappointed in how the old lady was handled. It was v More...

UGGGGH YOU GUYSSSS /whine. This is actually both my favourite book in this series and the one that gives me the most "problematic!" vibes. I wish I could nut out this problem. Basically what I love about it is the evocation of Carthak, a city/country I wish Tamora Pierce would write more about, because it's a fascinating amalgam of Carthage and Rome and probably a whole bunch of other classical civs I don't know about. Wasn't Pierce meant to write that book about Numair's younger years at the un More...

Third in the Immortals fantasy adventure series for children about a young girl with the ability to speak and heal animals. This particular adventure occurs in Carthak.


My Take
All I can say is that I hope King Jon realizes what a treasure the kingdom of Tortall has in Daine! And Daine is beginning to see Numair with a different eye than that of a young girl...more that of a young woman.

It's another moral tale, the kind that Pierce does so very well, cloaking it in a fascinating story full of ad More...

I'm pretty sure the last time I read this book was before I started college. I have to say it was pretty cool to reread it now that I am a geology graduate student. All I can say is: dinosaurs. In a fantasy setting. I loved Tamora Pierce's description of the different types of dinosaurs. There was even a description of an Archaeopteryx, the missing link fossil between birds and dinosaurs! And they actually played a pertinent part in the storyline!

(view spoiler)[I am kind of glad though that Daine's power to an (hide spoiler)] More...

After the treason and attempted invasion that occured in Wolf-Speaker, tensions are running high between Tortall and Carthak. King Jon knows that the Carthaki have attacked his land and plotted against him, but he doesn't have enough proof, and the Carthaki army and navy far outnumbers his. There are also growing concerns about the barrier between the human and immortal realms. The immortals are coming through more and more every day, and the humans aren't prepared to deal with them.
Daine is se More...

Emperor Mage, the third in the Immortals series, is my favourite of the four books. It's rich with great characters, excellent story, fabulous action and above all a fantastic local that's full of colour and verve all on its own.


Daine has come to Carthak, with a diplomatic tortall delegation, to cure the (probably evil) Emperor Ozorne's sick birds in his beloved Aviary. But after three years, or more, of warmongering being credited to him is it possible that this diplomatic mission is simply a More...

Reviewed by Candace Cunard for TeensReadToo.com

EMPEROR MAGE follows the story of Daine, now fifteen years old, a girl with the rare power of "wild magic" that gives her an extraordinary affinity with animals. With her wild magic, Daine can communicate with animals, see the world through their senses, and even transform herself into one, all skills that the first two books of THE IMMORTALS series have shown her develop.

In this third book, the stakes are raised as Daine accompanies an ambassadoria More...

What I liked:
-Daine. She has full control of her powers in this book, aside from the temporary power granted to her by the graveyard hag, and Daine has become a young woman in this book. She’s matured and grown and she’s become respected by her peers. She’s not my favorite heroine in the Realm of Tortall, but she’s still pretty cool. I’m envious of her bond with animals and her ability to make friends everywhere she goes.
-Palace life. There was fancy clothing, beautiful banquets, dancing, and po More...

I'm slowly making my way through Tamora Pierce's oeuvre during my night-time listening routine. Emperor Mage is currently my favorite (and looking like it will not be overtaken) of the Immortals Quartet. In this third installment Daine and the gang for to Carthak for peace negotiations. Daine has been specially requested because the Emperor's birds are ill. But things in Carthak are precarious at best and few people are who they seem. Not to mention that Daine discovers she can wake the dead.

L More...

For those of you who read my previous reviews you know I love this series but this novel is particular has a turning point for Daine and I feel even for Tamora Pierce and her writing. This novel (without giving anything away truly) is when you really start to see Daine in a new light and her character starts to grow. Instead of thinking of her as awkward in any way suddenly the main thing you think is just ‘human’. You grow to love Numair even more and see their friendship grow and Kitten is jus More...

Following Wild Magic (1992) and Wolf-Speaker (1994), this third entry in the Immortals series again centers on the adventures of Daine, now 15. Because of her wild magic, which gives her a strong affinity with animals and the ability to heal them, Daine is part of a delegation sent to work out a peace treaty with a barbarous emperor whose beloved captive birds are deathly ill. Pierce continues to build on the universe she created for the Song of the Lioness series about Alanna, who's a secondary More...

Aaaaand, we’re back. Everything that I felt was lacking in the second book (eg, my interest) was revived completely in this book. Daine is back in the land of the two-leggers and is facing the oft named but never before seen Emperor Mage Ozorne. And it turns out that Ozorne really shouldn’t have messed with our Daine. There’s a whole chapter called “Daine loses her temper” which I’m still grinning about.

Daine may seem cute with her crunchy granola, tree-hugging, “save the whales” exterior but i More...

I'm quite pleased with my decision to stick it out with this series! I was indifferent towards Book #2 Wolf Speaker but decided to check out this book (Book #3) and it was worth it. The story was on a much larger scale with many more human (as opposed to animal) characters in it. This story is about Daine, along with a bunch of other notables like Numair and Alanna, as they are sent as a delegation to Carthak to negotiate a peace treaty with Emperor Ozorne. This book was a lot of fun, and I foun More...

Since the first book in this series was good, and the second was okay, I wasn't really sure what to think when I started reading Emperor Mage. In my opinion, this book was amazing.

At first I thought it was a little strange that this book didn't take place in Tortall, and I did miss Cloud because of how wonderfully she differs from Daine, but the setting was really fantastic. The tension and the politics really kept me interested and dying to know what was going to happen next.

The villain was

More...

The book opens with a group of familiar heroes headed to Carthak on a diplomatic mission. Young Daine is there to help with the Emperor’s sick birds, but her role of course becomes much more than that. I like that this book gives you a whole new culture. In other books you travel but not to somewhere so different. Of course there are new animal friends but there are also new human friends too and some of them from very unexpected places. Daine also gets to learn more about her origins. I think o More...

I think I liked this Immortals better than the second.

I listened to it on CD over about a month. Please excuse spelling as I didn't see any of the names written.

Zek (sp?) the pet (enslaved) monkey Daine saves, is very entertaining and is good at proving that smaller animals can have important thoughts and feelings, too.

I really liked the storyline and the host of characters. I liked how Ozorne, the "bad guy", has a nice side to him when he is with his birds. It would have been easy for him to More...

Dinosaurs are awesome, and I liked that the paleontology was explained by magic. Yes, people who can look back into the past with a magic mirror or whatever would obviously be able to learn about dinosaurs without modern methods like carbon dating, radar, and earth-movers. And once they were there, well, it was obvious that we would get zombie dinosaurs, which are my favorite kind of zombie.

So that was all fun, as was the plot of the book. Daine goes with a peace delegation to Carthak and we ge More...