Tag Archives: Magic

The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, Volume 1) by Brandon Sanderson

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
The first installment in a planned 10-book series set in a world where the remnants of long-forgotten magic may prove to be the undoing of all mankind.

Review:
My brother has been begging me to read The Way of Kings for ages, and he finally went and bought it for me. I’m ever so glad he did because it was a highly enjoyable read and a cut above Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, which I enjoyed but found a bit flat. I am going to have to thump my brother one for getting me into a series that (a) is going to be 10 books and (b) only has 1 of those 10 books written so far. The next one is supposed to come out in November and Sanderson does seem like a fast writer.

The Way of Kings follows three main characters. Dalinar is an Alethian prince, brother of the murdered king and uncle to the current king. He has been plagued by crippling visions that come upon him during the high storms of Roshar. These storms ravage the land and kill anyone caught in them, and also infuse gems with Stormlight, which can be used to perform small bits of magic. Dalinar holds a Shardblade and Shardplate, Stormlight-infused weaponry that make him nearly invincible. Winning any Shards in battle automatically lifts any man up to nobility in the Roshari caste system, where the light-eyed rule the dark-eyed. I think if you win Shards your eyes change color but I was a little unclear on that point.

Anyway, Dalinar and the other princes are waging a war on the Shattered Plains against the Parshendi, a people with mottled red and black skin who sing as they fight. The Shattered Plains are home to chasmfiends, who lurk the deep crevices between plateaus. If you find and kill a chasmfiend in its chrysalis, you can rip out its gemheart and those hold a lot of magic. The princes want to get the gemhearts before the Parshendi can, and the king has them competing against each other instead of working together. Dalinar’s visions tell him that he is supposed to unite them all, but since everybody thinks he’s crazy that doesn’t seem very likely.

Kaladin is a bridgeman in another prince’s army. Sadeas isn’t honorable like Dalinar. He enslaves men to carry heavy bridges so the soldiers can quickly cross the chasms. A bridgeman’s life basically sucks, but Kaladin isn’t the kind of man to just suck it up and die. A former soldier, he’s haunted by the idea that he’s doomed to survive, unable to save anyone around him, starting with the battlefield death of his younger brother. Kaladin decides to rewrite the bridgeman’s script, and in so doing, unleashes Sadeas’s anger. However, he discovers a strange connection with Stormlight that links him to heroes of old called Radiants–the same ones who may be speaking to Dalinar in his visions.

Lastly, Shallan is a noble girl charged with stealing a powerful Soulcaster from a noteworthy heretic, Jasnah, who is also sister to the king. Here is where the book really shines–the theology is complicated, deep, and well thought out enough that the heresy makes sense. I felt like there was a lot to discover about the belief systems in the book and I appreciated that not everyone was on the same page, religiously speaking. Needless to say, Shallan’s plans go tragically and terrifying awry.

There’s also a scary guy who can walk on walls while he kills everyone in sight. This bit reminded me too much of Mistborn, but I’m curious to see where it goes.

If you have read this far, you’re either a fantasy nerd who will probably like this book if you haven’t read it already, or you are just amazed at the depths of my geekery. I am the real deal, okay? I am really and truly an epic fantasy nerd and I don’t care who knows it!

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks (Lightbringer, Book 1)

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
Color is magic and war is imminent, and when a corrupt leader discovers his bastard son, the game may change forever.

Review:
Wow. The Black Prism completely blew me away! I had heard absolutely nothing about it before buying it thanks to a $2.99 Kindle deal. I figured I could risk it. I had a little trouble getting into it at first, mostly because I have started and given up on so many bad fantasy novels that I’m primed for disappointment. I wasn’t sure about it but I was interested enough to keep reading–and then all of a sudden I was totally hooked.

I can’t judge the story because this is only book 1 of a trilogy. So who knows, maybe it will totally fizzle out. But I will say I am DYING to read The Blinding Knife because Gavin Guile is on par with Tyrion Lannister as one of the most multi-faceted, intriguing characters I’ve ever come across in a fantasy novel. Weeks does a masterful job of creating such slippery moral edges that I have at least two opinions of every character, and when it comes to Gavin I’ve got 7–one for each color of the rainbow.

The basic premise is this: magic works through colors. Each color has a different fundamental character and solidifies in a different way. Blue makes hard, sharp structures, where orange is slippery and oozy. Magicians can manipulate one, two, or many colors, and this is a skill you are born with. Almost all magicians need to be able to see a color in order to work with it, but Gavin Guile is an exception. He can split light himself, and that is why he is the Prism, the religious leader of the realm. He used to be the military leader but gave that up.

Gavin Guile’s reign is haunted by the circumstances surrounding his installation as Prism. He fought with his younger brother, also able to split light, and killed him in a war that tore the land asunder. 16 years later the echoes of war are still being felt, and revolution is brewing in a satrapy that has been occupied since the war. Gavin has also just learned of a bastard he fathered while betrothed to Karris White Oak, a powerful magician who serves as an elite warrior in service to Gavin. This bastard, Kip, has great powers–but is running an agenda of his own.

The intricate politics, deft characterization, and suspensefully crafted narrative make this book a must read for all epic fantasy fans. I can already think of a dozen people I need to recommend this to.

Brent Weeks just earned himself a new fan. A big new fan.

Bewitching by Alex Flinn

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
A 500-year-old teen witch crosses paths with a reverse-Cinderella.

Review:
Bewitching is Alex Flinn’s latest fairy tale retelling and I just loved it. She sets the Cinderella story in a Miami middle school, then frames it with the story of Kendra, a girl who became an eternal witch during the plague of 1666. Kendra tells us two stories of her own, both fairy tale retellings that can stand alone as lovely and poignant tales, and also shed light on the larger story. Structurally it’s quite brilliant, and she’s also come up with a really original voice for both of her heroines. I can’t say enough good things about it!

The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King (Dark Tower, Book 4.5)

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
On their way to Calla Bryn Sturgis, Roland and his ka-tet take shelter from a starkblast, and Roland tells the story of his first quest after killing his mother, and within it tells a fairy tale about a brave boy who tangles with a demonic trickster.

Review:
Oh, my, and it was good to hear Roland’s voice again, you say true and I say thankya. With the series complete, King didn’t need to add to his Dark Tower saga, but The Wind Through the Keyhole feels like it’s been there the whole time.

The framing story follows Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy the billy-bumbler as they leave the Emerald City and follow the Path of the Beam towards the Dark Tower. Caught in a sudden, immense freezing storm called a starkblast, the ka-tet finds shelter. To pass the time, Roland volunteers a story in which he tells a story about a fictional starkblast and a boy named Tim Stoutheart.

In Roland’s story, he goes back to the time just after he killed his mother, when is father sent him out to a remote mining town where a skin-man is performing brutal murders in the form of an animal. One survivor holds the key to trapping the vicious monster, but Roland is inexperienced and may not have what it takes to bring peace to the town.

To wait out a terrifying night with the witness, a terrified young boy, Roland tells him a story that his mother used to tell him. Tim Stoutheart loses his father and his mother remarries. Her new husband is a brute, and when the Covenant Man comes to town, he gives Tim a token that unlocks a devastating series of events for Tim and his family. Tim, just a boy, must gather all his courage to take a magical journey into a forest populated by dragons, bad fairies, venomous pythons, mud people, and a wizard out of mythology.

Much has been made of the changes that happen offscreen between Wizard and Glass and The Wolves of the Calla (my personal favorite). Eddie, Susannah, and Jake become true gunslingers and we don’t really see how it happens. This is King’s answer. Becoming a gunslinger, in the end, simply means choosing to be a gunslinger. That’s how Roland and Tim Stoutheart survive their tales. It’s like they put on an identity, and when they succeed, it’s like they’ve never not been gunslingers. And that’s what Jake, Susannah, and Eddie will have to do.

The three stories are deftly embedded and the whole thing moves and I just didn’t want it to end.

Hapenny Magick by Jennifer Carson

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
A tiny Hapenny named Mae finds herself fighting against a disguised troll who wants to turn Mae and the other Hapennies into food for her troll friends.

Review:
Hapenny Magick is an adorable little fantasy tale, perfect for middle grade readers who enjoy fantasy stories. The world is charming, the characters imaginative, and the illustrations captured my four-year-old’s attention in a positive way. I think she’ll enjoy this one when she’s old enough to read it.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
Against the backdrop of a dreamlike traveling circus, two magicians pit their powers against each other in a battle royale complicated by the transcendent love growing in spite of the rigid constraints of the game.

Review:
I had low-ish expectations for The Night Circus. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the weird plot description, and the glowing reviews had me suspicious that the book was all superficial charm.

I could not put the book down. I was utterly transported into the world of the circus, where every tent holds ethereal, poetic, supernatural wonders, like a labyrinth that keeps growing new rooms, or a chamber filled with vials that hold scents evoking specific times and places and memories.

The core of the book is a love story between Marco and Celia, two magicians bound in childhood in a mystical competition, trained to hide their powers in plain sight in a world that doesn’t know that magic is real. I totally fell for it, completely and utterly and heartbreakingly. I loved every detail, believed every nuance, and wished the book weren’t over quite so soon. I was reminded of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (and I don’t think I’m the only one), but this book had so much more heart and soul that I know I won’t soon forget it, the way I did with Jonathan Strange.

Against the Light by Dave Duncan

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
A reimagining of the “Gunpowder Plot” with religious persecution against those with magical powers.

Review:
Against the Light moved at a brisk pace, not wasting much time in getting characters from one place to another. I really liked the relatively contemporary setting, with English manor living and firearms, instead of the usual feudalism of epic fantasy. And there was a bawdiness in the telling that made the whole thing feel fresh and cheerful, even amid the darker elements of the story.

Basically you have an official state church, which follows the “Light,” pitted against the Children of the Mother, branded heretics because they celebrate special powers granted to some, not all, like “inspiration” and “mastery.” The story follows gifted siblings from a persecuted family who all take different paths in their quest to avenge their parents’ murder and the loss of their ancestral home. The various political forces converge and threaten to ignite the whole country.

I am pretty sure Dave Duncan means to write more books in this world, and I hope he does! This is a great entry from one of my favorite authors.

The Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
In a magical version of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of a sculptor/mage finds herself embroiled in a deadly political dispute as she struggles to free her father’s soul, which a wicked lord wants to imprison in a magic ring.

Review:
Lois McMaster Bujold crafts a suspenseful tale of intrigue, sorcery, and politics that really satisfied me. The Spirit Ring is grounded in the kinds of real squabblings that mark territorial disputes, and the magic serves that story, rather than being the sole purpose of the story. It’s also a love story, and quite an unconventionally romantic one. I definitely prefer McMaster’s fantasy to her scifi, and this is now one of my favorites of hers.

Spoiler Edition: A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5)

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
Tyrion becomes a slave, Dany pines for Daario while marrying someone else, her dragons eat children and incinerate a prince, Jon Snow upends 8000 years of tradition, a couple of no-goodniks get baked into a pie, Stannis can haz teh dumb, Theon Greyjoy lives the worst version of a Lifetime movie thanks to the Bastard of Bolton, Arya kills time, Ser Barristan the Bold displays mad skillz, Davos is not dead, Victarion rows his boat, Asha picks the wrong fort to defend, Cersei and Jaime don’t get back together, everyone eats something called “neeps” and Bran turns into a tree.

Review:
My second read of A Dance with Dragons was the audio version, narrated by the no-longer-incomparable Roy Dotrice. Unfortunately, he turned Daenerys into a ninety-year-old Irish crone and gave Cersei almost the same voice as Tyrion. But I forgive him because he still brings incredible thespianship to his reading and I was definitely excited to take any chance I could get to listen.

Many have complained that Dance is just A Feast for Crows part two, complete with aimless wandering and annoyingly resurrected characters. However, I forgive Martin, too. I am too invested in this world to give up now. When we get to the end is when I’ll decide if it was worth it. For now, I’ll just assume that it is.

Oh, and I am in love with A Podcast of Ice and Fire.

Taliesin by Stephen R. Lawhead (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 1)

Posted on by
1

Synopsis:
A princess of Atlantis flees to ancient England where her paths cross with a mage-in-training whose parentage is unknown.

Review:
I was drawn to Taliesin (which I desperately want to be an anagram of Atlantis, but it’s not) because it’s a retelling of the King Arthur legend with historically accurate place names and details, and with the Christianity an important, unoppressive element. Several major characters are converted to Christianity in episodes that are emotionally and spiritually powerful, but Lawhead doesn’t make that the happy ending. He understands that the Christian life is filled with drama and conflict, both inner and outer, and Lawhead doesn’t let his Christian characters have all the answers.

Where I disengaged from the book was with the character of Charis. Charis was proud, fierce, headstrong–all character qualities I normally love–but I think Lawhead romanticized her too much and made her inaccessible. All the men worshipped her but he didn’t give her any qualities that let me identify with her as a woman.

I really liked the character of Lile, the pagan wife to the king of Atlantis. She was a very nuanced character, set up to be the “evil stepmother” but proving to be both friend and enemy to Charis. I really appreciated that aspect. I’m hoping that her daughter Morgiane doesn’t end up being one-dimensional.

As for Taliesin, the bard/mage discovered in a river as a baby, I’m not sure how I feel about him. He’s certainly heroic, but like with Charis I experienced some distance from him. I think he was put on a pedestal by Lawhead and I couldn’t totally connect with his struggles.

I will definitely give the next book a try because these criticisms could just be first book issues. I’ve never read a memorable King Arthur telling so I’m keen to see this one through.