The rest, as they say, was history, and heroic fantasy was given its first Angry Young Woman. As it was, Pierce’s heroine was emphatic from the outset that she didn’t want to be trained as a lady and groomed for the marriage market and, seeing as how her twin brother, Thom, was similarly unenthralled with the future planned for him as a knight of the realm, they traded places, meaning that he went (undisguised) to the cloisters in order to learn sorcery, while she disguised herself as a boy, and trained at the Royal Palace to be a knight. Had this been the plot, rather than the catalyst, for Pierce’s novel, it’s unlikely that her debut would have brought her so many fans. Tamora Pierce’s debut fantasy novel, Alanna: The First Adventure, was first published in 1983, it told the story of Alanna of Trebond, a daughter of a scholarly noble, whose fate was ordained to be that of many a mediaeval damsel: she was to be sent away to a convent in order to be taught how to be a lady in preparation for presentation at the Royal Court and, ultimately, to make a good marriage.
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