Customer Reviews

The Wizard of London (Elemental Masters, Book 4)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

still not up to Misty's usual standard.

Each of the books in the Elemental Master's series--and FIRE ROSE, which, although set in the same 'world', using magic that works the same way, is not counted as it is set in the US, while the others are in England--is based on a well-known fairy tale. FIRE ROSE, was "Beauty & The Beast", SERPENT'S SHADOW was "Snow White", etc. This one is based on Hans Christian Anderson's "The Snow Queen", with the title character in the place of Kay.

Like a previous reviewer, I had read the "Grey" series, about the two little girls in the school in London, and very much enjoyed them; they were sort of 'Frances Hodgeson Burnett meets E. Nesbit'. When I heard that Ms. Lackey had worked them into a novel, I looked foreward to reading it, and those parts of the novel worked very well; however, the "Snow Queen" parts did not mesh well with the "Grey" parts--it felt thrown together. And the character of Lord A. (the 'Kay' figure) didn't seem very interesting or compelling; I, at least, didn't care enough about him to want him to be saved. Even worse, he didn't seem hateful enough for me to NOT want him to be saved.

That being said, it was a good read, even if not quite up to Ms. L.'s usual standards.

I have been a fan of Mercedes Lackey for many, many years, most of her work is engaging and enjoyable. This, however, was not. I was very disappointed in the lack of character development, which has always been a strenth in her other novels (and even in some of the short stories). This lack of sympathetic characters would not have been so bad if the story had enough strength to stand on its' own; unfortunately it does not. There are many parts of the book that are repeated-The Harton school is for the Gifted and Talented and for the children of expatriots-David and Isabelle were once involved-Isabelle has employees of various backgrounds working for her and so forth-those scenes and information is repeated ad nauseum. It's almost like Ms. Lackey had a page requirement and didn't have enough story to meet it, so in comes the fluff and padding--anyone who has had a 25 page history paper due knows what I'm talking about. There were parts of the book that really could have been expanded and could have been interesting, particularly when Cordelia meets the Ice Lord and begins her transformation, or when David's father met with the Phoenix. The parts that I wanted to know more about were filled with useless, extraneous information. The repetitive nature of the book, the lack of character development, and the glossing over of parts that could be interesting, led to a great disappointment when I finished.

The Wizard of London (2005) is the fourth Fantasy novel in the Elemental Masters series, following Phoenix and Ashes. In this novel, Isabelle Helen Harton is headmistress of the Harton School For Boys and Girls, a boarding school for the children of expatriates in India and elsewhere. The school is staffed by Isabelle's former servants and friends from India and thus provides a sense of home in the strange homeland. Unlike many other boarding schools, the Mems'b and her staff are always willing to let a homesick boy or girl cry on their shoulders.

Then too, the Harton School provides special training to boys and girls with different Talents than Elemental Magic. The Mems'b has various psychic skills such as telepathy and psychometry and some of her staff have similar talents. Frederick Harton, her husband, also has some precognitive ability.

The Harton School has been praised by mages and psychics around the world, especially for its warm and caring atmosphere. The parents of Sarah Jane Lyon-White have heard about the school and have written to reserve a place for her. Isabelle meets the ship at the dock, sorts out Sarah's luggage, settles her in a cab, and then welcomes her with a hug.

Although she loves the Mems'b, Sarah is still lonely at Harton. She gets along with the other students, but lacks real friends among the children. She also misses Grey, her parrot and protector.

Since she is more used to conversing with adults than children, Sarah's best friends are the Gurkha, the Sikh and the Muslim warriors who protect the school. One day she is asked to help Karamjit pass on a basket of food to poor children at the back gate. There she meets Nan, a gifted child of the streets. After several talks and one very frightening experience, Nan joins the school as a student who pays her way by helping in the nursery. Sarah and Nan bunk together and become best friends.

Sarah has the unusual psychic ability of communicating with ghosts. While false mediums are very common in Europe, only a few have real talents. One day Sarah and Nan accompany Mems'b and her friend to a seance and expose a fraudulent medium. Thankfully, Sahib Harton and the three warriors are nearby to protect them from a dangerous situation.

After this incident, word of Sarah's ability becomes common knowledge among the Talented set. Isabelle always refuses any request to use this talent; after all, Sarah is not surrounded by ghosts clambering to speak to their parents or other loved ones. Then a cabby comes to the door with orders from Isabelle to pick up Sarah and Nan and deliver them to a fashionable address; only Mems'b has no knowledge of these orders, the house is almost empty, and something evil lurks upstairs.

As in the previous novels of this series, the flavor of England's past suffuses every page. In this case, the tradition of the late Victorian era is a very pertinent factor in the storyline. It is a time when women of the gentry are only expected to provide "an heir and a spare" to their husbands of convenience. After all, even the Queen defers to her male advisors just as she had to Prince Albert.

Highly recommended for Lackey fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of mysticism, courage and even an Old Sprite.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Over the years, I don't read quite the number of fantasy novels that I used to. Now I am a touch more selective in my reading tastes, and a book needs something unique to catch my attention -- say, a setting that isn't the usual Tolkeinesque, or medieval world, or characters that aren't just pasty little copies of heroic warriors or wicked sorcery and the like. After a while, they get very dull and forgettable.

However, there is one genre of storytelling that I've always enjoyed -- that of the fairy tale, and it's proved to be a nearly inexhaustible ground for writers and artists. Popular author Mercedes Lackey has written several novels in her Elemental Masters series, with The Wizard of London being the fourth one published so far.

The story opens in a world that is very much like our own Victorian London, where poverty and riches exist side by side. On a dockside, a woman, Isabelle Harton, is waiting for a child from Africa to arrive. Officially, Sarah is being sent to live in England for her health, the heat and diseases of the Congo being too much for a little girl. But the reality is that Sarah's missionary parents, who are Elemental Mages, are not able to train her as her own talents demand, and have persuaded Isabelle to take her into her school.

As we see, Isabelle and her husband, Frederick, run a school for children in one of the more seedier parts of London. They try to manage on what few funds that they do have, but it's a struggle -- the couple are more concerned with providing a safe, comfortable place for their charges instead of having the latest in deportment or dancing lessons. Most of all, they are trying to teach them how to protect and use their paranormal gifts.

Of course, they can't always keep the outside world out. For the school, it is a child of the streets, Nan, streetwise and pure Cockney. An act of charity causes her and Sarah to meet. Despite some wariness on both sides, Nan and Sarah become friends, and Nan is taken into the school as well. And for Sarah, her beloved parrot, Grey, is returned to her from Africa.

At first, the story is based more on introducing the various characters in the school, from Sarah, Nan, the Hartons, and assorted servants. But then we get to see that there is something that is hunting the children of London after the girls are lured to an empty townhouse and nearly killed by a powerful Elemental spirit. And then Isabelle is forced to confront her past, when she was heartbroken by none other than the Wizard of London, Lord Alderscroft...

David Alderscroft is not a particularly sympathetic fellow. He's cold and manipulative and the only time the reader really sees him is when he is interacting with Cordelia, a society lady who is just as snobbish and proud as he is. How the various characters' lives intertwine is handled in a leisurely fashion by Lackey as this story of passion and malice plays out in the streets of London and the verdant countryside of an English summer. I really don't want to give away much more of the setting or plot away, as part of the enjoyment of this story is the gradual unfolding of the plot.

Yes, at more than four hundred pages, this does drag a bit, and it does get bogged down in the details of Victorian life, social customs and the magical system that Lackey has built for this alternate world. On the other hand, this attention to the little things does provide much needed colour to the story, and at times I could easily picture the scenes as they took place.

On the downside, the plot occasionally crawls to a glacial pace, and the urge to give the characters a good kick and a poke to get a move on was there. Too, while she does try to make her various people a bit more rounded, it's hard to feel much for the villains of the piece, they're so bloodless that I had a hard time catching any sort of motivation, or even why I'm supposed to care. Eventually the story does build to a climax as a monstrous plot is uncovered, and I did find the ending to be a bit of a surprise in some cases.

The good stuff is Lackey's picture of a magical England, and this time, not just having Elemental Mages in it, but also others sorts of paranormal behavior, from the old, old spirits of a more pagan past, and those who can communicate directly with the dead. I also like how she handled the moral questions of magic itself, where abuse can happen, and how a magical society could deal with it. Most of the interest of the story lay with Isabelle and Nan, who get most of the action and plot development, along with the depth that a good novel needs to succeed. With the intensity, these should best be saved for teenagers, and those adults who don't mind an excursion to Faerie now and then.

I don't know if there is going to be any more books in this series of adaptations of fairy tales, but I do hope so. They can be read in any order, and while there is a slight crossover of characters from one story to the next, each book is self-contained and complete. Nice to have in this world where series tend to get overblown and lumbering along as volumes reach the double-digits.

Highly recommended.

In the anthology, Werehunter, in the late 1990s, I made the acquaintance of a wonderful pair of characters. They are good friends, although near polar opposites, they are deeply loyal to their friends, and they are significantly more than they seem. Their names are Grey and Norville, and they are birds.

Knowing that Mercedes Lackey is in love with birds, it would not have surprised me that Grey and Norville would make a return engagement. In Wizard of London, Lackey includes the material from her stories "Grey" and "Grey's Ghost" in a new novel that combines her stories about paranormals with the stories of the Elemental Masters. (You can read the original stories online at the Baen Free Library, where Misty has graciously permitted Werehunter to be posted.)
In this new story, we meet the young Lord Alderscroft, as he is just starting up the wizard's circle in his club that we've seen before. We also find out that ice is as important as Fire, even though it is not one of the cardinal elements.

While most people thought this might be the end of the Elemental Masters stories, it appears that this might instead be the beginning of a new chapter entirely.

Nice work, Misty!

Walt Boyes
The Bananaslug. at Baen's Bar

I've always had a soft spot for the "Elemental Masters" series, but this one was an enormous diappointment. The book could have been far better if it had been split into a young adult book about Nan and Sarah and a regular Elemental Masters book about Alderscroft and Cordelia.
Alderscroft really could have been fascinating if Lackey had devoted more time to his character, but as it is he seems rather two-dimensional. The deeper motivations of Cordelia and the thing in the cave could have been very interesting, but she comes off as a cheap villain.
Nan and Sarah were moderately more interesting, but they really seemed like Mary Sues (google it.) Somehow they're the focal point of all this destiny and power that no-one else can have at such a young age. That was all right once or twice, but it got annoying when they turned into angelic teacher's pets with magical bird friends. They never fight, always know better than their elders, and magically have access to wisdom from past lives without the interesting angle of dealing with another personality in their heads.
If you're going to read an Elemental Masters book, I'd recommend one of the earlier ones. If you're not worried about series continuity, read "The Fire Rose," which was better than any two of the "Elemental Masters" books combined.

Personally, I think Lackey would have done better for her characters and plotlines if she had split them in two. One book for the Harton School plot, and another, quite different plot for Lord Alderscroft. The latter is an often mentioned character in the previous Elemental Masters books, and he certainly deserved a better treatment than he received in the novel--even though the book is named after him, he is one of the most shallow characters there. I hope Mercedes Lackey is not being hounded by her publisher or us, her readers, to produce too much, too quickly.

Her missionary parents send their twelve year old daughter from the Congo to England to attend the Harton School for Boys and Girls. Sarah Jane Lyon-White doesn't command Elemental Magic like her parents so she must learn from Isabelle Harton how to use her Talent (psychic powers). The mistress of the school, hers husband and several students are talents that must have a teacher to guide them when their power manifest themselves.

Sarah shows signs of being a telepath but at a séance she exposes a fake medium while a spirit possesses her to communicate with another attendee. Sarah's untrained medium skills come to the attention of an Elemental Master who doesn't want the girl to discover the mage is using dead children as revenants. The killer sets a trap but Sarah and her allies defeat the haunt. Isabelle wants to know who is after her charge and she starts asking questions of the Elemental Masters. Her queries bring her to the attention of Elemental Master Lord David Alderscroft, who loved Isabelle before he came under the influence of Lady Cordelia. He then dumped Isabelle and anyone who couldn't be useful to him. His cold heart endangers England and if Isabelle and her friends can't show that he is heading down a dark cold path, it will lead to tragedy for the entire English Empire.

Book Four of the Elemental Masters is a magical, spellbinding adult fairy tale. The fabulous fantasy contains the wicked witch, a beautiful queen, her adoring court and a prince who needs to learn how to feel again instead of always manipulating people for his own goals. Mercedes Lackey never fails to write a book that will please her myriad of finds and her latest magical storyline and well developed characters will send readers into euphoria.

Harriet Klausner

I enjoyed the first part of the book, dealing with the experiences of Sarah and Nan as they came into their powers. The growing conflict was, in my opinion, well handled, with both the antagonist and the protagonists growing in power and experience, and coming to the point of confrontation. An epic battle is in the making with the fate of magic and creativity of London the balance. And... the book ends. Yes, there's a little more than that, but the end is far from satisfying. More or less, someone says, "Be nice," the entralled personage says, "Ok," the main villainess is instantly dispatched, and everyone lives happily ever after. One wonders if Mercedes Lackey had hit a deadline and figured no one would notice if she didn't end the story.

Quite frankly, I'm disappointed, and very glad that I borrowed the book from the library and didn't spend cash on it.

Isabelle Harton is happy enough running her school for children of British expatriots, especially talented children. She loves her husband and has a good life, but she still holds a grudge against the man who spoke of marriage but who then gave her the cold shoulder years before. That man, Lord David Alderscroft, is now a leader amongst the elemental mages of England, a rising star in the British Parliament, and totally intent on keeping his cool and distancing himself from emotion--something challenging to a master of fire. But then, Alderscroft has been working with ice--the opposite of fire, under the tutelage of his long-time mentor, Cordelia.

When someone reaches out in an attempt to kill two young talented students in Isabelle's school, Isabelle is forced to reforge connections she'd long abandoned, but still, Alderscroft brushes off her requests that he investigate seriously. Still, Isabelle is sure something is going on.

Author Mercedes Lackey continues her Elemental Masters series with another fairy tale--the Ice Queen who wants to cover the entire land in cold. Cordelia is evil all right--but partly for good reason. In Victorian England, women are denied power, listened to and sought after not for their wisdom, but for their beauty alone. Cordelia's magic has held her beauty for a long time, but she knows it is fading now. Unless she acts, she will become nothing at all.

Lackey plays the fairy tale straight, though, only hinting at ways that Cordelia might become a sympathetic, even heroic character. Alderscroft, in contrast, is a jerk--yet the story requires that he be redeemed, and the girls, their magic-endowed birds, and Isabelle, together with the godlike figure of Robin Goodfellow, set out to do exactly that.

Mercedes Lackey is a talented author and story-spinner. I think that the story here was ultimately too constrained and too sacarine for her. THE WIZARD OF LONDON is certainly readable, even has enjoyable moments. But being able to turn to a god for help whenever you need to takes a lot of the suspense out of the story. And, after all, who really cares what happens to David Alderscroft--based on this story alone, at any rate?