Customer Reviews

The Magicians' Guild

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

If you enjoy cozy mysteries that contain very little violence, sex, profanity, or even blood, you might also enjoy this cozy fantasy. By the end of "The Magicians' Guild," the bad guy is revealed, order is restored to the magical community, and the heroine and her friend from the Thieves' Guild appear to at least have a chance of living happily ever after. There are a few loose ends, but this book is the first of the 'Black Magician' trilogy, so a teaser is to be expected.

If this is your first fantasy, "The Magician's Guild" is a fairly decent read. If it's your hundredth, then you'll recognize the plot, background, and characters: poor, but courageous heroine is cursed with a magical talent that is getting stronger by the day, and is not under her control. The only people who can save her belong to the hated Magician's Guild and she would rather die than deal with those meatballs. Her friends in the Thieves' Guild hide her as long as they can, but eventually her uncontrollable magic is exploding walls and setting whole blocks of slum on fire. The heroine finally gets with the program in the Magicians' Guild, and much to her surprise discovers that some of the practitioners are actually pretty decent folks.

Most of the story is taken up by the heroine's struggle to keep hating the magicians, in spite of the fact that the reader can spot from a million miles off that she's going to become one of them.

Cozies tend not to have much in the way of suspense, complex characters, or imaginative settings, but if they are your cup of tea, then "The Magicians' Guild" is recommended reading.

I've read so many fantasy novels lately that I'm on the run for new authors...I'm so glad I found Trudi Canavan! This book just flew, and left me panting for the next.

Sonea is a slum girl who, accidentaly during the yearly 'purge' of unwanted poor folk from her city, throws a rock at a magician and breaks through the barrier. This sends both the slums and the Magicians into chaos as Sonea seeks to control her new found powers and hide from the magicians and the magicians squabble amoung themselves about what to do about this. They never test people from the slums for magic. A good half of the book is this cat and mouse chase between Sonea and her allies and the magicians...and the rest...well I won't give the plot away.

Canavan is excellant at creating characters. Sonea is vivid in her terror and her stuborness and the loyalty of her friend Cery is touching. The Thief she hides with for a while is an intriuginig character as is the head of the Magicians, Akkarin. There are good magicians and not so good ones, but they are all so colourfully created that I know them well in my mind. Her two most central magicians, Rothen and Dannyl, so remind me of excentric proffessors at a universit...they certainly made me smile.

In anycase, this is a charming, wonderful book. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

I'm not an avid fantasy reader but everything about Trudi Canavan's first book, the Magician's Guild, feels cliched. First of all there is a Magician's Guild and a Thief's Guild, and I have played enough RPGs to know those are fantasy staples. Mix that lightly with a vaguely mideval European flavored world. Dash in some characters that haven't fully ripened. The end result is a plot that feels half-baked.

In this kingdom every year the king has the magician's guild chase the poor and downtrodden out of the city. Needless to say, the poor don't care much of this turn of events but they are no match against the forces of the magicians' magic barrier. That is until a slum girl named Sonea uses the latent magical talent within her to penetrate the barrier. Suddenly this unassuming girl is running for her life, thinking that the magicians will try to kill her because they don't want anyone outside the good-old-boy network to have magic. The Guild Magician's must track Sonea down before her uncontrolled power destroys the city.

The plot itself is okay, but it's like Canavan was trying to stretch a the story to twice the length it needed to be. The characters never really seemed to come alive either. The first half of the story is pretty dull because very little of interest happens to Sonea as she hides out and the guild rushes around trying to find her.

The second part fares a little better when Sonea begins to learn the ways of magic, but it remains a very flat and dull book. The story ends just as it seems ready to roll. I'm a little suprised that what was a little throw-away detail is what will become the plot that will carry the rest of the triology. Maybe the next book will be better because it may have a larger focus, but I'm not eager to find out.

The first few chapters, where Sonea discovered her magic and the Guild discovered her, were interested. After that, the book went downhiil quickly.

Almost the entire first half of the book involves Sonea hiding from the Guild, being discovered, running, and hiding again. Occasionally the reader gets a glimpse of the Magicians discussing her, which is interesting, but then the book goes back to endless hide-run-hide.

I almost gave up in disgust, but hate not finishing a book. Once Sonea is found by the Guild, the book picks up considerably. There are still several places where it drones on, however. It never got to the point of flipping pages, looking for when the action picked up again, but it got close a few times.

I feel almost guilty for enjoying this book. Its obvious fluff. There was no suspense. The characters had the depth of a puddle. The chase went on for far longer than it needed to. Yet, despite these problems and more, I enjoyed reading this book. It was charming in its concern that people be judged as individuals, in its almost complete lack of violence despite the rough world that it portrays, and in the way that even the villain of the story shows compassion by healing the hostage he's taken. The city was well-developed in its class system, with a history behind it and a world outside its walls, all of which influence the events that unfold inside. The instigating event itself - Sonea's manifestation of magic - hooked me securely enough to get through some of the slow sections that followed.

There were a few serious problems that need to be addressed, even though it is a fluff book. The chase for Sonea goes on for nearly half the book, which is far too long. After the characters and their relationships were established but before Sonea starts to lose control over her powers is a lot of stuff that doesn't need to be there and I nearly dropped the book at that point. I knew the magicians were mainly good and just wanted to help, and watching them come close to finding her only for her to escape again and again became frustrating. Later, when Sonea does start loosing control we don't actually see it, we are told of it happening 'off-stage,' which is also frustrating because it would have livened up the story a bit at a point when it was dragging heavily.

Another important problem concerns a scene that should have packed a huge punch emotionally, but instead fell flat. Sonea has a male friend, Cery, who has a crush on her, and he makes a grave choice for himself out of love for her, one that involves a personal point-of-no-return. The author never returns to this choice to reflect on how it changes him, or what consequences it has for him as a person. Does he feel guilty? Does he second-guess his choice? Does his choice get him what he wants? By never returning to explore the after-effects, the author almost makes the choice seem trivial. Throughout the book most of the characters don't make decisions, as Cery did in this scene. They tend to allow things to happen to them, especially Sonea, who is passive and lets everyone around her do the thinking for her. Cery, as a result of his choice, had an opportunity to develop into a more complex character. However, when the author ignores his big scene as though it never happened, the result is the opposite: he flattens out even further than before.

Despite the problems I outlined above, it is likely that I will read the rest of the books in this trilogy. Its light, its fluffy, and except for the occasional disturbing Cery scene, it won't weigh me down with dark thoughts after I'm done with it. When it comes to entertainment, that's as much as I ask for.

We discovered Trudi Canavan's first trilogy while on a vacation in Australia and we LOVE her. Even had her books shipped from Australia before they were published here (before there were even plans to publish here, I think). Her model of magic and society is very interesting and her storytelling skills fantastic. The author also has an interesting personal website with sketches and paintings she did as background work. A truly compelling read-you will be unable to wait till the other two are published here in the U.S.!

Canavan does an excellent job of developing very real characters-something not always found in fantasy novels. She also has an interesting way of painting a totally complete world while still allowing the reader to fill it in as they see fit. My husband and I had an interesting discussion about what 'time period' this book might be set in (or what it correllates to in real history)-she certainly doesn't beat you over the head with allusions to a Tolkien like world (not that Tolkien is bad, but a change of pace is nice in fantasy!).

Truly a fabulous author (and a fabulous first effort!) and a great read!

This book is not getting the credit it deserves and many of the reviews are unfair. I picked this up and didn't stop reading but for food and sleep until I finished all three books.

Pointing out that this book uses devices found in other books is not a valid criticism. All stories use devices found in other stories. What matters is not the materials used but the end result. Put another way: don't criticize a log cabin for being made of logs; criticize it for looking like the log cabin down the street.

Now the first book does have a certain amount of predictability not found in the sequels due to the point of view shift; however, there is still plenty of room for the author to surprise an experienced reader without the spoilers in another review.

The books are pretty scarce with foul language, but the plot begins with violence and death then retains an ongoing threat of violence that made Sonea seem like a mouse eating cheese off a mousetrap always waiting for the trap to snap. However things might appear, nearly every good thing that happens to her ends up being bad.

The only thing that bothered me with this series was the POV shift. It all works out in the end and story does require them, I just prefer fewer perspectives in a book. This book read fast, but I was biting my nails the whole way though, I was always expecting the hammer to fall. This book makes a good platform for the sequels.

This entire novel felt like a VERY long introduction to a series of books, which I am supposed to believe will be more interesting. Not much happened until the end of the story. I couldn't decide if I liked any of the main characters, who all seemed a little morally ambiguous (Are the Thieves good or bad?, Do we like the Magicians Guild or not? Do we like anyone?). The end of the book was fine and followed a common fantasy formula. Clearly not in the same category as David Eddings or Raymond Feist, but an acceptable read.

The Magicians' Guild introduces us to a pantheon of fun characters and a wonderfully developed backdrop. Being an avid reader of fantasy, I was especially glad to see a good plot develop through this trilogy as well. It's been a long time since a new work came out that had all the major elements(plot, character, background and dialogue) nailed down in a well written fashion.

This series would be just about perfect if the there was a pronunciation guide for the character names. Sonea and Ceryni, two of the first characters you get to meet have names that could be pronounced any number of ways. It's a real drag to find out after several years that you've been pronouncing your favorite character's name incorrectly. Might be easier if I were Australian(like the author).

That aside, Kyralia and Imardin are wonderfully deep in detail. After you've read the books through once, you almost don't need the maps that are provided. The characters, while stronger than most of the others, are not perfect or constantly rescued in some improbable or unimaginable way. Lastly, the magic system isn't overly hard to grasp. This makes it easier to get lost in the story without getting bogged down in the mechanics like so many other books lately.

I highly recommend this book and the rest of the trilogy.

Poor girl discovers she has magic powers, rich powerful magician's organization must find her or her uncontrolled power will destroy her, many others and perhaps the whole city. She thinks the magicians are evil and trying to kill her, so she hides. Two magicians are leading the search. One who wants to find her out of the goodness of his heart and the other for revenge/his own evil ends. After finding her, the two magicians manuever to control the girl and convince her to join them. At the VERY end (last 10 pages) a great evil is revealed (which will obviously be the center of book two).

All of this info is pretty much laid out for you in the first 30 pages (so I don't feel I'm giving anything away) and NOTHING else really happens for the rest of the book!

Trudi Canavan is an excellent writer. The writing was very suspensful and engaging. Like other reviewers I couldn't put the book down. But nothing really happened! It feels like she has taken an excellent 500 page story and stretched the material into a 1200 page trilogy. This would be the death of a book for most authors, but Trudi Canavan manages to keep it entertaining.

I will read the rest of the series because Ms. Canavan is such a good writer, that I really do want to know what happens next. I Advise others to buy all three books at once (so wait for the third to be released).