Tortall: A Spy's Guide, published 2017, is a collection of Fictional Documents from the Tortall Universe. George Cooper, Baron of Pirate's Swoop, has found himself needing to clean out a room next to his office because Alanna, to her surprise, got pregnant again, despite being in late middle age. As the newly-retired King's Champion returns home, George finds many interesting documents while sorting through the contents of the room...
Tropes:
- Always Chaotic Evil: In the section on Immortals, Daine gives a rundown on some of the common types and a few are this. Hurrocks and minotaurs especially. She also notes that she's heard baby Spidrens have to be taught to be cruel but she doesn't really believe it.
- Beneath Notice: A Handbook for a Young Spy contains advice on using the guises of a servant, a beggar and a slave, since they're supposed to go unnoticed and/or be thought stupid.
- Benevolent Boss: Several pages from the diary of the head cook at the Palace are reproduced as part of a report by one of his undercooks. The man is fussy and high-strung but has been tremendously kind to the undercook and his other employees, and the undercook does not believe he could possibly be anyone's spy plus feels low for being made to investigate him.
- The Bus Came Back: Several characters either unseen or without major roles in the books play roles in the documents, either having written them or being mentioned. Notable examples include Kourrem Hariq and Coram from Song of the Lioness.
- Company Cross References: In the notes Neal takes while serving as Alanna's squire he spends some time on the use of threads and knots in magic and asks her if there's rope or fishing net magic, or magic using thread made into a net. Neal vaguely recalls reading something related at the university. Magic in thread, and in nets, is a significant part of Circle of Magic.
- Continuity Nod: Plenty. Most every document in the book is connected to some event from one of the various subseries.
- For instance, Evin Larse alerted the Crown to Lord Sinthya's treasonous plots, and the Workbook for a Young Spy that George wrote for Aly quoted in Trickster's Choice is seen in its entirety.
- Although the Provost's Guard is no longer called the Dogs, their name for the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine is "Good Dog/Bad Dog".
- Aly's use of a Liar's Palace on Topabaw is mentioned in a draft of a Shadow Service training handbook.
- Lord Wyldon of Cavall agreed to become the pages' training master, as he was in Protector of the Small, partly so that he could be in a position of power to try to revoke Jonathan's proclamation that women could be knights. This also calls back to Pierce's original plans for Wyldon, in which he'd cause a lot more trouble for the heroes in the name of traditional values. In this, rather than lead an uprising he's content to pursue legal avenues.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In the section about killing devices there's an account of a thirteen-person squad that included a mage encountering one and being completely unable to stop it. All but four died and those survivors have career-ending injuries - and the device went on to slaughter most of the population of a village.
- Ear Ache: George, re-using one of his favoured tactics from his time as the Rogue, sent the King of Tusaine a boxful of the ears of his spies after an operation launched by the king's spymaster that led to the deaths of a dozen people and the burning of three city blocks in the Mire.
- Fantastic Slur: Merfolk call whales "sea slugs". They don't get on in general. Daine points out that some whales and merfolk are close friends but they're each in for mockery from their own kind for it.
- Fate Worse than Death: There used to be spells to trap baby griffins in "undeath", where a fledged baby griffin would be sunk partially into a shield, not living or dead, with no way to bring them back. It goes a long way towards explaining why griffins are so incredibly protective of their children.
- Feeling Their Age: One of the reasons Alanna intends to retire as King's Champion, as she's in her late forties and has been fighting since she was a teenager. Queen Thayet's noticed and has also been suggesting she retire.
- Fictional Document: Presented as a collection of documents George found while he was cleaning out a room at Pirate's Swoop.
- Framing Device: George rediscovered the documents while cleaning out a room at Pirate's Swoop, after Alanna had an announcement...
- Friend to All Children: Three Immortals listed have this tendency - unicorns, merfolk, and Stormwings. Unicorn magic is such that children used as unicorn bait often defend the creatures. Merfolk are vengeful towards those who have angered them but won't hurt children and refuse to sink a target's ship if children are aboard. Stormwings, as has come up earlier in the series, will rescue children from riots. A letter from Corram describes his first encounter with Stormwings - they landed in a tower in Fief Trebond and chatted with his children, who thought they'd get cold and tried to bring them clothing, then waved and called for them to come back as he approached and the Stormwings flew away.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: The Provost's Guard calls this "Good Dog/Bad Dog", but the spy writing about it doesn't know why.
- Good Parents: When young Alan sends a letter to Lord Imrah asking to enter his service as a page, George's agents intercept it along the way and bring it to George's attention. Alan hadn't brought this concern (wanting to become a knight, not wanting to train under Wyldon who hates Alanna) or his plan to his parents ahead of time. George allows the letter to go to Lord Imrah, though he and Imrah and Alanna all correspond furiously about the matter around Imrah and Alan's more straightforwards messages.
- Hard Truth Aesop: At the end of Mastiff, after Prince Gareth was rescued his parents pushed the legislature through to end slavery in Tortall. Beka immediately worried about knock-on effects of this, knowing what a big industry slavery was. The timeline in this book shows that after the pronouncement came a thirty year era of civil wars in Tortall as a great number of people rebelled rather than free their slaves and start paying them. The era only ended when Gareth, then King and about thirty, started executing the heads of rebellious noble houses and keeping the families of their replacements at court, harsh measures that Alanna feels were wrong. It's true what Jonathan told Kel in Squire - the Crown has to take into account how the rest of the country will react if it wants to make necessary changes.
- Harping on About Harpies: Most of the information written about Stormwings isn't new, but Daine does say that any shed Stormwing feather can be used to transform a human permanently into another Stormwing. (When it happened to Ozorne in Emperor Mage, the feather might have been a 'gift' from the Graveyard Hag) Considering that stormwing feathers are collected and used to make Mage Killer arrows, this certainly suggests Ozorne's not the only one since the Divine Realms were breached.
- Immortal Procreation Clause: Most Immortals, Daine notes, reproduce quite slowly and generally with difficulty. The exception is Spidrens.
- Jerkass Gods: The Spy's Guide notes an exception - there is a god of beggars who will allow spies to disguise themselves as beggars, so long as any money they acquire while in such a guise is given to actual beggars, the god's worshipers. With how gods in the setting can be very touchy and reactive, that's very gracious, and perhaps related to how a god of beggars is probably not very powerful.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: It's emphasized that most spywork is boring. Trainee spies or "Nurselings" who yearn for adventure and dramatic skullduggery are watched. If they don't calm down they're evaluated for whether they're suitable to that rare, more exciting form of spycraft - if not, they'll be happy to become Queen's Riders and live exciting lives that require more thought and planning than a rank and file soldier would need, but not a spy's degree of control and subterfuge. But first they have to take a potion or have a spell put on them that removes all memory of their spy training and the people they met while doing it.
- Momma's Boy: Alanna's son Alan wants to be a knight but at ten hated the thought of training under Wyldon, who openly said Alanna wasn't a true knight. He writes to Lord Imrah of Legann asking him to take him on - impoverished would-be knights regularly served as page and squire to an an older warrior and it is an ancient tradition. Lord Imrah fully understands why Alan wouldn't want to learn chivalry from a man who despises his mother. (This also serves to explain why Alan, the only one of Alanna's children interested in knighthood, never met Kel in page training.)
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. Neal mentions a Blayce of Carmine Tower who helps teach mage students about entry-level healing.
- Pet the Dog: From Neal's notes, initially Alanna was a difficult master, but as he applied the things she taught him, she clapped him on the back, quoted back a line from the same poem he'd cited part of, and responded to the look on his face by grinning and saying "Yes, I read." It's his first indication that maybe his time as a squire won't be all threats and bad weather.
- Resolved Noodle Incident: An incident first mentioned in the Trickster's Duet where George took Aly on a mission that went unexpectedly violent, which is one reason why he refuses to let her work as a spy later, is fleshed out in a report she wrote for her father.
- The Reveal: Various individuals, notably Evin Larse from The Immortals and Protector of the Small, are revealed to work or have worked for the Royal Intelligence Service at some point in their lives. Other agents include Lady Uline of Hannalof and Kourrem Hariq. Stefan Groomsman's involvement, however, should come as no surprise — he did used to be George's spy in the palace back when George was the Rogue.
- Ridiculously Long-lived Family Name: The organizational chart for the Tortallan spy service includes Rebekah Lofts, the seven-times great grandaughter of Tansy Lofts.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: In the political sense. The book contains reproductions of a lot of royal correspondence. As non-absolute monarchs who have to take into account the opinions and convictions of a great many people across the kingdom, Jon and Thayet have to write back and forth a good deal to persuade subjects and get many things done, but they do get a lot of things done. A letter penned by a centaur herdmaster complaining about Fantastic Racism and wanting to have his people represented at court is taken quite seriously, with Jon jotting a note in the margins about what he's going to have to do to have this done.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Thom's homework assignment with a list of Tortall's monarchs notably does not include the first and third Jonathans and Bairds, despite Jonathan I having been mentioned in the books, notably Protector of the Small. And there's no notation on the pages from his tutor suggesting an error in this instance, either. This isn't the only discrepancy in this section, either...
- The official timeline at the back also has some odd interpretations regarding things from the previous books that don't quite fit. In one instance, Rikash Salmalín is said to have been born in 464, but in the timeline at the end, the epilogue of Trickster's Queen, in which he appears as a baby, is said to have been in 463.
- A section on the discovery of the killing devices from Protector of the Small describes them as having heads like bowls and glowing red eyes - in Kel's quartet they had longer heads and dark pits for eyes - and an artist's rendition shows them with four arms, though the description, as in the quartet, gives them two arms but with extra joints.
- Shout-Out: There's mention of a group of rogues who were caught after their stick figure cypher was figured out by Deputy Provost Sherringford Adler.
- Stylistic Suck: A few of the poems Neal has written for crushes are included. One he wrote for Yuki has better imagery than what he wrote about an instructor in the Healer's college but it appears to be an attempt at Yamani-style haiku, and it doesn't even have the meter.The shukusen speaks plainly: / You amuse me, sir. / Please stay. Please go. / Bleed.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Alanna, who is in her late forties in 466 H.E., writes George in October of that year to reveal that she's pregnant as a result of a damaged anti-pregnancy charm and them spending time together in May. This is the impetus for both George recovering the documents that form the book while cleaning a room and Alanna's retirement as King's Champion.
- Taking the Veil: Marenite king Qual the Foolish abdicated in favour of his cousin Kirikene before becoming a priest of the Black God and taking a vow of silence.
- Tempting Fate: In the timeline Thom writes out he mentions Roger IV, "the ill-fated", who caught cold while bear hunting in the mountains, didn't take a healer with him, and refused to turn back for "a ridiculous fit of the sneezes", so died.
- 10-Minute Retirement: In her letter Alanna says that she's retiring and having this child and this time will stay at home in Pirate's Swoop to care for it. George, writing to one of his sons, says he expects her resolution will last "as long as winter". She's presumably not returning to being Champion, but there's always work for the Lioness.
- Unicorns Prefer Virgins: In a section on Immortals which covers them in more detail than in any main series books, unicorns do not specifically care about virgins but are instead friends to children, who can be used to hunt unicorns, though the pull is two ways and children often try to defend unicorns. The clawed, fanged, flesh-eating variety of unicorns won't protect children but they won't harm them either and prefer to leave the area.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Stormwings really can't stand the scent of onions, which Daine says smell as bad to them as Stormwing reek does to humans.
- You Go, Girl!: It's downplayed compared to a lot of this author's other works, but in a timeline written by Thom he mentions a king of Maren who abdicated after making a bad situation much worse, and was replaced by a female cousin who the council of nobles chose imagining she'd be easy to control. Instead Kirikene the Clever, as she's later known, was strong, wise, and managed to resolve the conflict and make peace through the realm, and whose consort adored her and refused all efforts to make him take over.
