From the Vaults – The Novice Review

A mate of mine dropped me an email last week letting me know that I had sent her reviews of the Black Magicians’s Trilogy way back in 2009.

These reviews actually predate the book club (I think) and will be posted under the email receipt date in a few weeks.

Despite every impulse within me, I won’t be editing these reviews at all, except for basic tidy up to follow the usual LBC review format. I’ve even left in the infuriating oxford commas that I now avoid like the plague!!

THE NOVICE

TRUDI CANAVAN

BLURB (Amazon)

“Even if a magician’s powers surface of their own accord, he will soon be dead if he does not gain the knowledge of how to control them.”

Alone among all the novices in the Magicians’ Guild, only Sonea comes from lowly beginnings. Yet she has won powerful allies—including Lord Dannyl, newly promoted to Guild Ambassador. But Dannyl must now depart for the Elyne court, leaving Sonea at the mercy of the lies and malicious rumors her enemies are busy spreading . . . until the High Lord Akkarin steps in. The price of Akkarin’s support is dear, however, because Sonea, in turn, must protect his mysteries—and a secret that could lead a young novice mage deep into the darkness.

Meanwhile, Dannyl’s first order to resume High Lord Akkarin’s long-abandoned research into ancient magical knowledge is setting him on an extraordinary journey fraught with unanticipated peril—as he moves ever-closer to a future both wondrous . . . and terrible.

Emailed to my friend on 6th January 2009.

So, this was the book that I never intended to read.

The dreaded sequel…well not exactly dreaded – I did actually want to know what happened to everyone, and I had been a bit curious about the bigger picture, but in a ‘wait-for-the-tv-movie’ kind of way.The first thing that struck me was that the writing seemed so much more fluid than in the first book (I was later to learn that The Magician’s Guild had been the authors debut novel – honestly, all the pieces started to fall into place).

As the characters had grown, so too had the capacity of the plot to explore more mature elements and though while reading the book everything felt very natural and un-hurried; it was only afterwards that i realised how impressed i had been by how many different themes were intricately woven into the story.

However, I still felt like I was a bit beyond the whole bullying storyline that dominated the main plot. Again I was immersed in the larger scale story before I realised it, and I loved it! As a result, it seemed churlish to whine that too much time was spent on developing the characters!

So much was I enjoying the story that I didn’t bother to report back to the mate that had recommended the books in the first place and moved straight onto the third and final in the series appropriately excited for the finale!