Wild Magic

About Wild Magic

Wild Magic is the first volume of Tamora Pierce's The Immortals quartet and the introduction of Daine—a thirteen-year-old girl with a mysterious gift for communicating with animals who joins a Tortallan trading caravan and discovers that her ability is something far more significant than she understood. The realm of Tortall is facing a new threat: immortal creatures who have been sealed away since the Immortals' War are crossing back into the mortal world, and the magical balance that has kept Tortall stable is fraying. Daine's wild magic is distinctive in Pierce's oeuvre and in young adult fantasy generally: it is not a combat power or a plot-solving ability but an intimacy with the non-human world that carries its own moral demands. To know what animals know—their fear, their hunger, their simple needs—is to be responsible for them in a way that has nothing to do with heroism. The reluctant hero dimension is embedded in this: Daine does not want to be significant; she wants to heal wounded birds and be left alone. The gap between what she wants and what the world requires of her is the engine of the series. The coming-of-age arc is handled with Pierce's characteristic specificity. Daine is not just getting stronger—she is becoming a person who can trust herself and others again after trauma. Her relationship with Numair Salmalín, her teacher, is one of the series' great characterizations: mentorship depicted with warmth and genuine professional respect. Dragons appear in Wild Magic in ways that promise much for the later volumes—Daine's connection to scaled beings is distinctive and emotionally resonant. Wild Magic is an ideal starting point for new readers of Tamora Pierce: approachable, warm, and built on a magic system and protagonist that only grow more interesting across the quartet.

Tropes & Themes