Customer Reviews

Scholarly Magics

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I disagree quite a bit with other reviewers' statements that A Scholar of Magics is not as good as A College of Magics. I think Scholar is much better overall: better development of the characters, more realistic feel to the fantasy side of the alternate Victorian England, more explanation of what magic is as defined by Stevermer's creation.

Plus, a very finely drawn and grown-up romance that is (saints preserve us!) chaste! What a refreshing change to have virtue lauded and not mocked. It's hard, well really almost impossible to find a fantasy or science fiction novel (let alone a romance novel) in which the main characters' romance is both historically realistic and exciting to read AND doesn't rely on near pornographic episodes of lust to keep the story moving. I applaud Stevermer for her writing skills in this. Lesser authors shy from writing about true love sincerely. It was also touching to read of the married Brailsfords' domestic tranquility that was also neither denigrated nor viewed sarcastically.

On the whole, A Scholar of Magics felt more "real" to me than did "A College of Magics." More grounded in experience and personal feeling than her other books. Perhaps it's because Glasscastle is set in England rather than College's Galazon, the imaginary country of the first novel, and also the literary quotes that frame the chapters are from real literature, not imaginary books as in many fantasy novels. I particularly liked how she pulled out the quote from C.S. Lewis to begin the novel, about ever seeking and bringing others to one's true country. I would be interested in reading more about why she chose to use quotations from the play that she did and how it sparked her imagination to take the novel in the direction that it did.

I have read a lot of fantasy, both the literary stuff and the common commercial pulp and despite the time lag between novels Stevermer is an author worth waiting for and holding on to.

Suitable for high school and up, no profanity or improper situations to worry about and the magic used is neither occultic nor frivolous. The villains are villainous but not frightening, and the danger is tense but never gruesome or violent. Highly recommended. Enjoy!

I could not put this down once I had started it. From the first chapter I just had to find out what would happen in this alteranate magic world of Edwardian Great Britain.
Glasscastle is the University of Magic - and a very traditional, English hidebound one full of arguing highly eccentric Fellows and university politics.
Samuel Lambert is a sharp-shooting American recruited by the university on a top secret weapons plan, The Agincourt Project. He is fascinated by the university and its scholarship, if not its prejudices and professors. Then Jane Brailsford sweeps onto the scene. She is a witch, a very feminist one, who is a teacher at the female magical college in France of Greenlaw. She is at Glasscastle not just to harry her professor brother Robert, but to persuade Nicholas Fell (the most eccentric of eccentrics) to take up his post as Warden of the West.
The tale then takes off with great velocity, nearly as fast and enthusiastically as Jane does in her brother's motor car as she sets about her tasks. For there is more going on in England than meets the eye, there is something wrong with magic itself and Fell is determined to refuse his post until he can heal the problem.
The whole magical world created by Stevermer is wonderfully realized and believable through its grounding in realities. Magic is presented as a strong part of this world without too much oohing and aahing.
Then the characters of Lambert and Jane are so well presented, and so very engaging. They strike sparks off each other, but are never shrill or stupid or unnecessarily argumentative. Jane resents the stupid prejudices against women, but does not belay the point continually. She simply goes ahead regardless, but is not revoltingly feisty.
The mysteries and dangerous plots are full of surprises, but not so obscure as to defy our puzzlings. There is a choice of villains and a great piece of villainy in the Agincourt weapon itself. The legend of Comus comes into the tale very magically and is woven into it.
Villainy is of course defeated and Lambert is granted his desire to study at Glasscastle.
I await very impatiently what will happen next.

Jane Brailsford, a student at Greenlaw College in A College of Magics, has now been an instructor there for several years. She visits her brother Robert, a Senior Fellow at Glasscastle University, England's premier school of magic, and his wife Amy while on holiday for the first time in years, and won't quite admit that this is odd enough to need an explanation. On arriving, she meets another visitor at Glasscastle, Samuel Lambert, an American sharpshooter who has been retained by the University in connection with a highly secret defense research project. Mr. Lambert is interesting enough in his own right, but he's also staying with Nicholas Fell, another Senior Fellow, who, it turns out, is the real reason for Jane's visit. The old Warden of the West has died, and Nicholas Fell should be, must be, the new one, but he has determinedly resisted taking up the post, and rejected all efforts at communication from the other three Wardens. Why won't Dr. Fell do what he ought to do? What does the research project Samuel's involved in have to do with it-and what's the goal of the research project anyway? Who are the mysterious figures that keep walking across Glasscastle's lawn and breaking into Fell's study? And why are Samuel and Jane the only ones who can see them?
A very entertaining romp through an alternate Edwardian England.

A College of Magics is my all time favorite book, so I had high hopes for A Scholar of Magics. While it didn't quite meet those hopes, I still very much enjoyed it. Jane, from A College of Magics, is reintroduced and we experience Glasscastle College--where young men go to learn and become wizards. The attitude of the men attending, and of the school itself is very typical and in line with the time frame the book is set in. I just didn't feel like there was quite the flavor and humor in this novel that was present in Stevermer's other books (for example College of Magics, or Sorcery and Cecilia). However, she's still a lovely and wonderful author, and I'm happy to step into the world of Greenlaw anytime I'm allowed the opportunity.

While another reviewer has complained that A Scholar of Magics does not live up to the legacy of A College of Magics, I must disagree. Caroline Stevermer serves up another enchanting mix of history, academia, romance and magic--but one quite different in flavor from the last. If your criteria for enjoying a book are that it should revisit all the characters of a past book and that they should appear unchanged, then you will indeed be disappointed. But if you don't mind meeting new characters with different personalities and preoccupations, you will probably very much enjoy reading this book on its own merits. Samuel Lambert, an American sharpshooter, provides a unique viewpoint on both Enlish imperial pride and on magical studies, and Jane Brailsford shines as the heroine.

After waiting so long for this successor to A College of Magics, one of my all-time favorite contemporary novels, I must admit to being somewhat disappointed. A Scholar of Magic does not have the subtle wit, the compelling plot and depth of character evidenced by its predecessor. On the plus side, if Jane Brailsford was your favorite character from the earlier book, you will find it satisfying to see how her career as a Witch of Greenlaw is progressing.

The Titanic is still setting speed records as it crosses the North Atlantic, the sun never sets on the British Empire, and the mages of Glasscastle University chant their wards and protect themselves and everyone nearby from evil. Britain, threatened by the German Empire, has embarked on an ultimate weapon--the Agincourt Project and has involved Glasscastle in its construction. American sharpshooter Samuel Lambert is a consultant, his aim with multiple weapons providing a benchmark for their efforts. But when his roommate disappears, Lambert suspects that something has gone very wrong.

Beautiful Jane Brailsford isn't a teacher at Glasscastle--no woman would be allowed such a role--but she is does teach mathmatics at a rival university in France. She's in England on a mission central to the world's future. The warden of the West has refused to take up his position and the entire world is spinning toward disaster. Her task, set by the new warden of the North, is to persuade him to take up his post. If she can even find him. Because the new warden is Lambert's roommate, the two form an uneasy alliance.

Author Caroline Stevermer puts her emphasis on world-building and the subtle interplay between characters. Jane and Lambert share an attraction that neither knows how to relate to in the world of Victorian manners and morals. Even as they try to determine what is keeping the warden from taking his job and what is wrong with the Agincourt project, their attentions are distracted by romance. Lambert's fascination with Jane is overshadowed by his fascination with Glasscastle itself--a university where Americans, especially working-class Americans like himself, would never be admitted.

A SCHOLAR OF MAGICS is a leisurely journey through a time when manners mattered, when a woman's virtue could still be ruined, and when the vast speed of thirty-five miles an hour was almost unthinkable.

This book might well have been titled "Pride and Prejudice Goes to Hogwarts". Set in Edwardian England, the action takes place mostly at Glasscastle University, a college of magic. Samuel Lambert, American lately of a Wild West show, is there temporarily as they do tests of accuracy with various guns as they develop a new weapon. Jane Brailsford (excuse me, *Miss* Jane Brailsford), graduate of Greenlaw university in France (which, gasp, is a magical school for women) is there, ostensibly visiting her brother, Robert, who works at the University. But Jane has ulterior motives, as do almost everyone else in the story. Things get complicated rapidly, as assailants walk unseen past guards, people are kidnapped right and left, a don of the university turns out to have the potential of vast magical power- and is resisting taking that power, and the universe has a rift in it. Things move along at a brisk pace, and the tale is told with humor.

This is a sequel tale (A College of Magics is the first volume) and it's set to spin off more. I look forward to them.

I think Caroline Stevermer is an exceptionally good writer. I really enjoyed A College of Magics, and also liked Sorcery and Cecelia (which she co-wrote with Patricia Wrede). That said, I was quite disappointed by this book. Not only was it not up to Stevermer's usual standards, but if I wasn't familiar with her work (and therefore hopeful that it would improve as I went on) I likely would have stopped reading long before the end.

This story was about Jane, one of the supporting characters in a College of Magics. Unfortunately, Jane's character was vastly different than the one portrayed in a College of Magics. The plot mainly revolves around Jane and Lambert (an American she encounters early in the book) and their budding relationship. There is a side plot about a magical weapon, but don't be fooled - that's just an excuse to have these two characters meet and stick together for a few hundred pages.

I hate to say it, because I had such hope for this book, but I was frequently bored. It has little of the adventure of A College of Magics (although it does delve a little deeper into magical theory, something many have complained was lacking from that book). It is not particularly thought-provoking, intellectually stimulating, or interesting.

And, if you're mainly interested in this book because it is billed as a sequel to A College of Magics and what to know more about those characters, you're bound to be disappointed as well. Faris makes a brief appearance, says approximately three lines, and no one else is seen or heard from.

So, you'd be better off trying to find this at your library or borrowing someone else's copy.

Caroline Stevermer's A Scholar of Magics is a fairly direct sequel to A College of Magics, but still can be read independently. (Both books are apparently set in the same world as her intervening novel When the King Comes Home, but that novel is set much earlier and I for one cannot readily detect the links.) A College of Magics was set at Greenlaw, a Women's College in what seemed to be a version of France in the early 20th Century, and it involved Faris Nallaneen and her assumption of the important post of Warden of the North. A Scholar of Magics is set at Glasscastle, a Men's College in a version of early 20th Century England (probably around 1915 or so), and it involves a man assuming the important post of Warden of the West. A major character is Jane Brailsford, a teacher at Greenlaw and a close friend of Faris.

The central character, however, is Samuel Lambert, an American sharpshooter who has been engaged by a group at Glasscastle which is researching a new weapon. Lambert's shooting ability will help them refine the aiming mechanism of the weapon, apparently. Lambert is friendly with Robert Brailsford, a Fellow at Glasscastle and Jane's brother. Jane comes visiting her brother, but she has an ulterior motive. Faris has sent her to track down Nicholas Fell, another Fellow of Glasscastle, who is supposed to become the new Warden of the West. But Fell is resisting.

As it happens, Fell is Samuel Lambert's roommate. So Jane and Samuel spend time together looking for Fell. They encounter mysterious mostly invisible thieves, have exciting motorcar trips, and listen to the music of Glasscastle. Eventually Robert Brailsford and Fell disappear, and Jane and Samuel try to chase them down, helped by a surprising personal property they both share. The nature of the mysterious weapon under development becomes important ...

It's a very engaging, very fun, novel. The characters are likeable, believable, and unexpected in some ways. The love story is very understated, to good effect. The magic is interesting and nicely handled. The pace is a bit leisurely, but the book remains involving, even through an oddly extended denouement. My favorite Stevermer novel so far.