An author biography frozen in August 2003 sits at the foot of this audiobook's description. As of August 2003, it reports, Tamora Pierce has written twenty-one books, including three completed quartets set in the fantasy realm of Tortall, and captured the imagination of readers twenty years ago with Alanna: The First Adventure. The recording itself went out on September 28, 2004. Every fact in that paragraph was accurate once and has been standing still ever since, which makes this listing a small time capsule as well as a product page.
A Closer Look at Trickster's Queen
Aly is the reason to be here. No longer a slave, the description says, Alanna's daughter is spying as part of an underground rebellion against the colonial rulers of the Copper Isles, keeping a potential teenage queen and her younger siblings alive while deliberately keeping that queen in the dark about her own future. A spy protecting someone by lying to her is a durable engine. One reviewer identifies the appeal precisely: Tortall had only ever been seen through the eyes of its fighters and its magic-users, and this is the first look at it from somewhere else entirely. The word colonial in the description is doing real work too. The rebellion opposes rulers the copy itself calls colonial, and the prophecy promises a new queen who will take the throne, which lands a young adult fantasy on political ground that most of them walk around.
Sara's response is not about the book. It is four stars for a used copy carrying a mystery reddish-brown stain through an eighth of its pages, which does not interfere with the words but is, in that reviewer's own term, gross. The cover art gets praised. The condition gets marked down from good to fair. None of this has any bearing whatsoever on a recording, and yet it sits in this audiobook's column, quietly pulling on the average.
Thirteen hours and thirty-one minutes is the recording, published by Listening Library. That is a real commitment for a book the copy introduces as a continuing adventure, and the length makes sense once you see what the plot is holding up: a rebellion, a prophecy, a royal family in hiding, and a protagonist whose entire job is anticipating trouble and who, the description warns, is in for a few nasty surprises anyway. A note on the age of the file while we are here. The recording dates from 2004, and nothing in the record says whether it has ever been remastered or reissued since. That is not a defect, only an unknown, and it is exactly the kind of unknown a thirty-second preview settles.
Trini Alvarado is the sole name on the reading credit. On a 2004 young adult fantasy from a house that specializes in exactly this, a solo credit is normal, no cause for alarm, though it does mean one voice for Aly, for the teenage queen, for the younger siblings and for a rebellion's worth of conspirators. The listing carries no production notes and no indication of how the espionage material gets delivered, which is where a book like this lives or dies. Codes, aliases and misdirection are harder to follow by ear than on a page you can turn back.
Two entries here repay reading before you buy, and both of them run long. L. M. Gulick supplies the spoiler-free context: Alianne is the daughter of Alanna, knight and King's Champion, and of George Cooper, assistant spymaster of Tortall, and she has been absorbing spycraft, codes and other sneaky things since she was a small child. Amanda supplies the enthusiasm, calling this an incredible tale of mystery, power and the strength of not merely one teenage girl but of an entire nation, and rating it inspirational and empowering in the way all of this author's books are.
Diane Jacques, filing from Canada, has read the story five times and explains exactly why this particular copy got bought: the hardcover print was too fine for aging eyes, so the text moved to a Kindle Paperwhite instead. That is a considered, useful and entirely print-based review, and it belongs on a different page. Between it and the stain, two responses here grade an object you can hold in your hands, and neither of them is grading the object you would be buying.
Things to Know Before Starting Trickster's Queen
Which series is this, exactly? The record says Trickster's Duet and marks the book volume two. A five-star response calls it part two of the Daughter of the Lioness series instead, using that name in its headline and again in its opening line. A second entry goes further still, announcing in its own title that it covers both books at once. Both names are in circulation, and the page commits to one of them without acknowledging that the other exists. If you go hunting for the first volume, search on both.
Ratings on a 2004 recording are a strange instrument at the best of times, and this one is broken outright. The counter reports a single vote. Five written responses sit underneath it, four at five stars and one at four. A 4.8 average cannot be produced by one whole-star vote under any rounding rule anybody uses, so the badge and the counter are plainly describing different populations. Read the five bodies and disregard the figure above them, remembering that the lone four belongs to the stained paperback.
Who Tamora Pierce Is Writing For
Fantasy readers who like their protagonists competent, not chosen, have the strongest claim on this one. Aly's advantage is training, and the description is careful to place the prophecy on somebody else entirely, which keeps the protagonist working for every advantage she gets. Listeners already inside Tortall will want it for the change of vantage that L. M. Gulick describes so well. Series completists have an obvious claim as well, since the copy presents this as the continuation of a story the first volume opened, and one reviewer treats the pair as effectively a single book. Teenagers and adults can both take it comfortably, since the espionage plot is patient and the political stakes are genuine, and better than thirteen hours makes a proper immersion in a place that runs on rules.
New listeners who start here will be frustrated, because the description opens on the words Aly's adventure continues and means every one of them. Anyone shopping for a modern production with a full cast will come away disappointed as well, since this is a single reader from 2004 and the page promises nothing else. The spycraft is the reason to buy, the star rating is noise, and a biography written in 2003 is a curiosity riding along for free.
A Few Questions About Trickster's Queen
Why do some reviews on this audiobook describe a physical book?
Because two of them concern print copies. One awards four stars to a secondhand paperback marked by a reddish-brown stain across an eighth of its pages. Another explains that a hardcover's type was too small to read comfortably, so the story moved to an e-reader. Neither response touches the recording.
Can the 4.8 rating on this audiobook be trusted?
No. The counter records one vote, which cannot generate a 4.8 average under any rounding convention, yet five separate bodies are on display underneath it. Four of those award five stars and one awards four, and that single four was given to a stained secondhand paperback, not to the recording.
Who reads this 2004 recording, and for how long?
Thirteen hours and thirty-one minutes, published by Listening Library on September 28, 2004, with Trini Alvarado credited as the sole reader. One voice therefore covers Aly, the teenage queen she is guarding, the younger siblings and an entire underground rebellion. No further production details appear anywhere in the listing.
