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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Breathtaking? Not unless you count yawns., February 1, 2009
I was excited to read this book because I've been looking at the Black Magician trilogy for a while, but have never gotten to it. My excitement about the book didn't last long. I think it took me about fifty pages, out of this nigh-600 page book, to realize something: this book is boring. Staggeringly boring.
My one caveat with this is that it is possible that this stand-alone novel doesn't really stand alone; the book might have been utterly fascinating for people who have read the Black Magician trilogy, and so this review should be well-salted before swallowing. Although after reading other reviews posted here, I will also concede that this might be a better, more interesting book for female readers, which I am not. But I have read and enjoyed many "chick lit" books, so I think this is more than a simple gender gap.
(A second caveat: here there be spoilers.)
The book could just as well be named "The Magician's Anticlimax," because everything that happens is built up and then allowed to simply deflate like a leaking bicycle tire. For the first half of the book, everything happens off stage: a messenger comes and tells the magicians that their town has been invaded and sacked; they go to look, and the title character, Tessia, learns that her parents have been killed, but were already buried, so she can skip the whole grieving process. (Not that the book makes her out as heartless; it doesn't. But the story just keeps skipping along past what should be a monumentally difficult loss.) Then as they pursue the invaders, coming on town after town that has been sacked just before they get there, two of their number are captured and tortured, and the point of view characters wait while someone else goes to investigate -- and then refuses to tell the gruesome details. The most important secret of magic, the ability to draw strength from others and store it for one's own use (a fairly horrifying vampiric act, and one that is completely glossed over despite the fact that bloodletting is part of the process), is held back at first, until it is taught to the apprentices in a scene lasting about half a page, when they find out it isn't very complicated at all. The majority of the book is a description of the Kyralian magicians chasing after the invading army, but for most of that time, they do nothing but follow and discuss what they will do if and when they ever catch them. They do love their discussions in this book. Of course, since the point of view characters are the apprentices, they don't take part in the discussions. So for the reader, most of the book is about watching groups of men gather to talk about strategy and other topics which you wouldn't care about even if you could hear them.
And speaking of strategy, the author should have learned some. Not that I expect or want every fantasy book to be a military text, but this book is about war, and so should have at least some insight. Despite spending countless hours debating, the only strategy either side uses in this book is, "Let's wait until we have more men than the other guys." The battle plans are simply this: everybody line up and zap them while shielding yourself. The winner of every conflict is the side that has managed to store more magical strength. And despite an apprentice making an important discovery -- non-magical weapons, especially the element of surprise, can be used to great effect against magicians (He sets a storehouse full of "whitewater" on fire, which forces the magicians pursuing him to use up their stored power shielding themselves from the blast -- which I assume makes whitewater something like kerosene? Turpentine? Maybe petroleum? Oh no, the glossary tells me it is "pure spirits made from tugors [a tugor is a "parsnip-like root]." So there you go.), they never pick up on it, and the next fight is still a magical game of Red Rover. Ten guys with bows, hidden in a forest -- or one sneaky guy at night with a knife -- could take out every magician in this book, and yet nobody has ever figured that out; not even those whom the magicians have oppressed and enslaved. Hard to believe. As is the great magical revelation in this book, the title character's discovery of how to heal with magic. I could understand the magicians in this world not knowing complex things like the inner workings of the body, which is part of Tessia's special insight into healing, as she is the daughter and formerly the apprentice of a healer -- and the parts when she uses her specialized knowledge to heal are some of the most interesting in the book -- but the big secret of actually helping the body to heal itself? Put magical power into the body -- which then heals itself. I refuse to believe that generations of magicians have never figured that out until now. Just like I refuse to believe that nobody has come up with a better way to fight than "Line up and shoot."
For my own self, I think I have my answer about the author's trilogy set in the same world: no thank you.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, March 4, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Prequel to the Black Magician fantasy trilogy, taking place several hundred years before the first book in that series. This is the story of Tessia, a commoner in Kyralia who is a healer's daughter and who wants nothing more than to follow in her father's footsteps. But women in Kyralia are not allowed to be healers, so when an episode of attempted rape by a visiting Sachakan magician reveals that Tessia is a natural magician, she becomes a second apprentice to Lord Dakon, who holds the ley her family lives in.
First learning control of her magic lest she cause serious damage to her surroundings, Tessia's goal is to figure out a way to incorporate healing with her magic, which has to that point not been done. A few months after she is apprenticed, she heads off to Imardin, the capital city, with Lord Dakon and his first apprentice (who is of noble blood and doesn't like Tessia much) to meet the king, beginning a series of political intrigues and growing experiences for Tessia, both as a magician and as a person.
I really wanted to love this book as I did the previously-published trilogy, but it really fell flat. Canavan is a good writer, with an easy-to-read style, but the story in this book was just....well, rather ho-hum. None of the characters really stirred me to either liking or hating them much, and while the story did explain some of the events that occurred later in the trilogy, it wasn't done with the panache I had expected. The best I can say about the book is that it was okay. I don't think writing prequels is an easy thing, and I will be on the lookout for more work by this author, but I hope she's planning something new.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not as compelling as her original trilogy, January 31, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Trudi Canavan revisits the world she created in the Black Magician Trilogy, this time giving us an intriguing look at Kyralia's and Sachaka's history.
"The Magician's Apprentice" takes place an untold amount of time before we meet Sonea and follow her adventures in the Magician's Guild. The protagonist is Tessia, a commoner who lives on the border between her country of Kyralia and the ever-threatening country of Sachaka. With a lifelong knowledge and love of healing, Tessia desires to follow in the footsteps of her father, the area healer, but her plans are abruptly changed when a confrontation with a visiting Sachakan magician reveals magical powers that she didn't know she had. Because Tessia has natural magical ability, she must be apprenticed to a practicing magician, the local lord of her area, Lord Dakon. But while Tessia is trying to figure out the world of magic and social status, an invasion by Sachakan magicians forces her and her friends into a conflict that will have very far-reaching consequences.
Taken as a stand-alone book, it's not bad. "The Magician's Apprentice" is a fairly standard coming-of-age, war between magicians fantasy novel. It's a fairly quick read that is interesting enough to have you turning the pages.
The real gem of this book is the back history it provides for those already familiar with the world of the Black Magician Trilogy. I do feel that Canavan's original trilogy is far superior to this book, and was also disappointed that she started it out the same way (female protagonist, poor commoner, discovering her natural abilities and thrust into a world beyond her social awareness). I thought she could have been a little more original than that.
But what we get out of "The Magician's Apprentice" is the reason behind the things we see in the trilogy. We find out why and how the Magician's Guild began, and get to know the original teachers in the guild. We learn how the magical healing skill was developed, along with other items of magical knowledge that figure into the trilogy. And Canavan gives us both sides of the story - there are good people and bad people on both sides of the war.
If you're already familiar with the Black Magician trilogy, then "The Magician's Apprentice" should definitely be on your to-read list. If this is your first time reading Canavan's work, I'd start with the trilogy and then move to this prequel, it makes for a richer reading experience.
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