The Protector S War

Ten years after The Change rendered technology inoperable throughout the world, two brave leaders built two thriving communities in Oregon's Willamette Valley. But now the armies of the totalitarian Protectorate are preparing to wage war over the priceless farmland.

Tamora Pierce is a prolific and very unusual modern master of fantasy for young adults and the first such author to appear regularly on the New York Times bestseller lists. The four books making up The Protector of the Small are the 9th to 12th (of 15) novels set in Tortall, and follow the progress of Keladry of Mindelan from the first openly female page in more than a century to her attainment of Knighthood and introduction to war. The Notes cover Tamora Pierce's life and work; the world of Tortall (including the geography, cast, and neighbouring cultures); the strange menagerie of immortal creatures who may be friend or foe; the pantheon of interfering multicultural god/desse/s; knighthood; and the school series format that Pierce adapts. The well-illustrated Annotations cover unusual words, ideas, and objects mentioned, real-world cultural, historical, and literary references, and the major thematic issues that develop throughout the quartet. First Test, Page, Squire, and Lady Knight are all covered on a chapter-by-chapter basis. The Essay considers The Protector of the Small as a revisioning of Song of the Lioness, the structure of the quartet, and the nature of Blayce and the killing devices. A Note on Fanfiction surveys the enormous Tortall archive of fanfic as a resource for readers of the quartet, and a Bibliography provides checklists both of Pierce's works and of writing about her. Tamora Pierce read the book in manuscript and has generously allowed her comments to be published, including new extracanonical facts about Jump, women in combat, the death magic that powers the killing devices, and much more.

“A major work by an authentic master of alternate history.” – Booklist (Starred Review) In the tenth year of the Change, the survivors in western Oregon live in a world without technology. Michael Havel’s Bearkillers hold the lands west of Salem in peace and order. To the east, the Clan Mackenzie flourishes under the leadership of Juniper Mackenzie, bard and High Priestess. Together, they have held Norman Arminger—the warlord of Portland—at bay. With his dark fantasies of a neofeudal empire, Arminger rules much of the Pacific Northwest, spreading fear with his knights, castles, and holy inquisition. Even more dangerous, and perhaps Arminger’s most powerful weapon of all, is his ruthlessly cunning consort, Lady Sandra. These factions haven’t met in battle because Arminger’s daughter has fallen into Clan Mackenzie’s hands. But Lady Sandra has a plan to retrieve her—even if it means plunging the entire region into open warfare…

The first white intruders in the area north of the Great Divide to the Murray River drained by the Goulburn, Loddon and Wimmera rivers were cattle and sheep ‘overlanders’ from the Sydney-side searching for green pastures in drought-affected NSW and a route to South Australia. Echo 76: THE NORTHERN CONQUEST – Drover’s accounts of overlanding sets the scene for the later Echo 83: REVIEWING THE FAITHFULL MASSACRE, WANGARATTA AND SCOURING THE OVENS. With a military escort, the wife of the Governor of VD Land Lady Jane Franklin wrote travel diaries and letters of her visit to Melbourne and ‘tour’ of Australia Felix in 1839. Sounding 5 introduces the journals of Protector Dredge camping with the Goulburn clans and is followed by Echo 79: THE HUTTON & MUNRO AFFAIRS, being the invasion of Djadja Wurrung country as revealed in Chief Protector Robinson’s journal for January 1840. This leads into Parker’s Mount Franklin Protectorate Station combined with shire history snippets of Maryborough, Avoca and Boort before a section on the Djadja Wurrung who survived colonization. Another group of shire histories cover Kyabram, Shepparton, Murchison, Benalla, Tallangatta, Benambra and Bendigo areas before Ian D Clark’s depiction of the box-ironbark forests and pre-1840s Aboriginal land tenure in north-central Victoria. Included here is an ecological section on ‘fire-stick farming’ replaced by agri-business. The fate of the Goulburn tribe, the Taungurong clans, and pioneer Carter’s early days on the Wimmera lead to echo 87: ORIENTING THE WERGAIA WIMMERA-MALLEE CLANS and then to EBENEZER – archaeology of an Aboriginal Mission Station. Sounding 5 closes with an echo on the bush-life experiences of battler William Kyle and for contrast reveals the dispossession role played by wealthy land speculators in echo 90: BEN BOYD – Royal Yacht Squadron Slaver.

The Kzin were the mightiest warriors in the galaxy, which they were wasting no time in conquering, one star system at a time. Then those feline lords of creation ran into those ridiculous weed-eating pacifistic apes who called themselves humans. And the catlike Kzin found they had their collective tail caught in a meat grinder. When the mighty Kzin moved in to take over the monkey-infested worlds, they got clobbered. The humans, with their underhanded monkey cunning, turned communications equipment and space drives into weapons that cut the dauntless Kzin heroes into ribbons. And then those underhanded humans gained a faster-than-light drive, and no amount of screaming and leaping could keep the Kzin from losing their first war in centuries of successful conquest. But you can't keep a good warcat down, and the Kzin have by no means given up. New weapons, new strategies, and new leaders. Here they come again and those monkey-boys from Earth had better watch their backs. Once again, it's howling time in Known Space! At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).