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.
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
