Customer Reviews

The Un-Magician (Outcast)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me start off by pointing out that my pre-teen son, myself, and my aunt all read this book separately and thoroughly enjoyed it. Arcanum is a world, a society, where everyone has magic powers. The homes that float in the air, shops, manufacturing, lighting, food preparation, mage robes, door locks, vehicles that fly, everything... is created and powered by magic. The social structure is set up by the politically powerful guilds that run everything. The guilds are hostile to one another, forming political alliances and enemies. They are often made up of different races and species, who have brutalized the weaker races to the point of extinction.

Thrown into this chaotic world is Timothy, who was believed by the guilds to be dead at birth, but was secretly whisked to another dimension that has no magic by his father. He lives with a few companions there where he grows to a teen and becomes educated in making mechanical devices that are completely unnecessary on Arcanum. Why would his father, the most respected and powerful wizard of his day do such a thing? Because Timothy was born without any magic powers at all! He would be a weakling in the world of powerful mages. You would assume as I did that this means that he would be ignored when he returns to a world run by magic, but this young man is feared enough to suffer multiple attempts to assassinate him as soon as he arrives in his fathers house. He has been labeled by the suspicious guilds to be the most dangerous person in the world, and he doesn't know why. The government weighs in and wants him destroyed too.

No one can be trusted in this environment, and danger leaps from every corner and even those that are supposed to protect Timothy may be his next attackers. This one keeps you on edge and guessing throughout the story.

Personally I couldn't put this page turner down to sleep at night. It is a shame that another reviewer stopped reading the book at a slow moment and never returned, and yet felt compelled to review an unfinished book. Yes, it does slow down a bit in parts, only to whisk off again like a roller coaster that gets over the hill. I like this variation of pacing, since real life is like that as well. I highly recommend and look forward to reading the sequel, "Dragon Secrets", also sold here at Amazon.

A cut above your normal teen-market fantasy that wouldn't be out of place on the adult shelves. In the same vein as 'Mortal Engines' this novel has a fluid quality that a collaboration of two authors doesn't normally have.

An unusual situation is presented; in a world where magic is the norm - in fact a must - appears a boy who possesses none. Moreover, magic doesn't seem to recognise him, and his touch dissolves spells. Add to this his extraordinary mechanical aptitude, which makes him an extremely dangerous quantity to the panicked establishment, who will stop at nothing to be rid of him. But is all as it seems? ...

Credulity is stretched at times, but one can forgive that as the pace and flow of this engaging fantasy carries one along, immersed in the story, that ends rather abruptly, in preparation for the sequel. ****

In the world of OUTCAST, everyone and everything is magic. Everyone, that is, except for Timothy. For his own safety, his kind father kept him hidden away for years, providing him with a safe haven and a chance at a decent - albeit magic-free - childhood.

When his father passes away, Timothy is flung back into the world. Now everyone knows he exists. Who can he trust? Where can he go? He must decide who his allies are - and quickly, because assassins are coming for him.

The books are packed with action, fantasy, and drama. Timothy is surrounded by intriguing, strong characters: a warrior who can blend in with his surroundings; a robot buddy of his own creation; firebreathing, war-torn dragons; a talking raven named Edgar; and Cassandra, a girl who may or may not be on the same side as her power-hungry grandfather.

THE UN-MAGICIAN is a magical beginning to the OUTCAST quartet. Grammar school kids can read the series with very little trouble. The books are also great to read out loud. I recommend OUTCAST: THE UN-MAGICIAN to any family that enjoys fantasy series. There's something here for everyone, whether you like the otherworldly creatures in The Spiderwick Chronicles or the battles and tribunals featured in Star Wars.

This book is the best! I couldn't have asked for a better book. If you are thinking about buying this, do it. I couldn't stop reading it was so good! ( I would have rated this book a ten if possible)!

Awesome fun read! Golden and Sniegoski do it again.
If loved their other books this one won't disappoint!
Absolute fun, full of imagintive wonderful things and a super fast read too!

The authors have created an interesting concept. A world of magic except for one person who is not only immune to magical spells, but can nullify magic with his touch. He can be harmed by physical attack, but has been trained by a deadly warrior and has better reflexes and physical skills than the magicians who are used to using magic.

The novel starts a bit slow as the scenes are set, but the action picks up speed as the novel progresses. It ends with unanswered questions that probably lead into a sequel, e.g., an evil entity still to be identified, a cat familiar hiding out and seeking revenge, and the mysterious young woman in green.

In regard to the negative reviewer who admits to not finishing the novel, you should not attempt to write a review of something you have not read. Many novels, including some classics, start out slow.

I recently read the Outcast series by Christopher Golden and Thomas E. Sniegoski and was so thrilled by it, I couldn't put the books down for anything. Well, needless to say that I consumed all four of them in rapid succession.

Marked as a children's book / book for young people I disagreed more and more the further I progressed in the series. The whole story is amazingly well written, so full of stimulation for my imagination which instantly ran wild with pictures of liquid fire dripping from the maw of the dragonkin or the shifting of the tribal marks on Ivar's skin. Had I any talent as an artist that had the ability to do those pictures justice I would certainly try myself at it. As it is, I could not even find any art made by other people on the internet which saddened me to a degree that unsettles me today still.

Even though this is a review rather addressed to readers like me who still feel excitement tingling in their guts long after finishing the novels, I cannot skip the obligatory summary:

Outcast is a series of four books, beginning with the book "The Un-Magician" which features the boy Timothy Cade, who is the only one in a society of sorcerers who does not have even the slightest bit of magic in him. When I first read this I instantly thought of someone who might be considered weak, maybe even someone withdrawn, especially considering that his deceased father had kept him away on a lonely island in a parallel dimension. Instead though, I discovered that the whole of the magical society feared him as a real danger to their lives and their whole world. And not without reason: This absence of magic in him exceeds far beyond a mere lack of it. He possesses a kind of magic of his own, an antiforce if you will. Whatever magic he touches, he nullifies. The strongest magic falters before his un-magic. Thus, magic can't hurt him. Combined with the fact that the common magician is bodily weak and untrained - for there is a means to overcome every and any obstacle with magic - to said magician he is all but invincible.

But that is not all: I was impressed to find Timothy Cade very strong of mind and character, an inventive genius, who had to learn to cope with the situation he was in - stranded on that island - yet I found him to be very human as well. He didn't meet my initial expectations, and for that I liked him from the start. He just refused to fit into any known pattern, so he was special to me throughout the whole series.

At the end I really had the strong feeling to know him and I didn't want to say goodbye.

Another aspect that stunned me while reading is the fact that - where there are supersticions and prejudices ruling the society - Timothy Cade is a blank page at the beginning of the story. As an equally blank page the reader is able to see through his eyes easily. And in his rather short life he experienced quite the opposite: Timothy Cade grew up with an Asura - who is the last surviving member of his tribe which were anihilated by the mages - and a robotic man he built himself and considered a friend. Having lived with two entities so different from himself taught him that people could be alike and understand each other even though they looked and were different. And because he is not influenced by these prejudices, he is able to make allies from every side throughout the whole series, managing to bring them together despite their negative past. I can't even count how often some situations left me grinning like a maniac right on my way to work. I think people on the train were staring at me strangely more often than not, but I couldn't seem to make myself care...

To conclude my review: I recommend these novels to everyone from young to old. Don't let yourself be turned down by the rather slow beginning! Just don't, because these books are special, full of unanticipated ideas, taking on clichés and refreshing them with twists and new concepts. They will leave you hungry for more!

This was a fun and fast read. As the first book in the series, it is expected that a significant portion of the text should be devoted to describing the world that the characters inhabit. Fortunately, that world is interesting enough to not let the book drag.

The "companions" are also an interesting mix. It was a little jarring to find a mechanical man, i.e. robot, in a fantasy story, but it fits fairly well in the framework. Instead of the stock older and wiser wizard as mentor, we have instead a warrior from an extinct tribe to guide our young protagonist. And finally, the wisecracking rook for comic relief. The group has an easy camaraderie going, and it's certainly a group that you won't mind spending a lazy Sunday afternoon with.

Even though the story starts to take the familiar form that pretty much every other fantasy story takes (they're about to go on some sort of quest in the next book, which I haven't started yet), the authors' world-building and sympathetic characters are enough to keep me reading the rest of the series.

This was an interesting idea. It's a world where everybody has magic, but then there is this boy born who does not have magic. His father keeps him on an island in this different plane, so no one is aware of his existence.
But when his father dies, Timothy goes into the care of his father's friend, Leander, a member of the order his father was part of. Leander likes the boy immediately, but doesn't think it's right to keep him away from the world. So he bring him out to join the world of magic.
But Timothy, who is an inventor, turns out to be more of a threat to the magical world than he would have thought. Timothy has no magic - but magic has no hold on him.

An interesting story, yes, but that is all. It was very poorly written. All the characters talk the exact same way, and all act the same - except for Nicademus, the head of the order of the Alahazad (~), the order in which Timothy has now joined. This man has a little different attitude. But otherwise, the characters seem the same.
And Timothy, called a 'brilliant' boy throughout the book, aside from inventing things, doesn't seem very brilliant.

I found the characters rather hollow, and it was hard to enjoy reading this book.
Still, it's not a very long book, and the story does have many interesting ideas.

The concept for this story is very promising--one boy DOESN'T have magic, as opposed to the predictable boy who DOES have magic. And the world was beautiful and interesting. But the writing was so sluggish, I couldn't get into it. The paragraphs were too loooooong for the target age group. The plot chugs along at an agonizingly slow pace. Even the action scenes are sluggish, rather than exciting. I tried skipping every other sentence. A good editor should have eliminated a quarter of the pages, which would have improved the pacing. It's a shame no one did, because the idea is worth the effort. Instead, the intriguing concept fails due to the slow pace. I read stacks of books every month, and it's extremely rare for me to stop in the middle . . . but this one did me in. I stopped half way through and put it back on the shelf. I didn't even read the back page to see how it ended, which shows how bored I was. Sorry.