The Magician King by Lev Grossman

The Magician King is a 416 page fantasy novel. It is the sequel to The Magicians, the middle book in The Magicians trilogy. I bought this quite a while ago, and decided to pick it up to continue the story of Quentin, Julia, Eliot, and Janet.

This story is mostly set in Fillory, the magical meta-world in the series that is featured in a series of novels that Quentin is obsessed with that pretty closely resemble the tales of Narnia. The other parts of the novel take place in Italy, Brooklyn, and an odd assortment of other towns that Quentin and Julia visit. The main plot is much shorter than the first book, which was a bit of a breath of fresh air. The story starts out with the four rulers of Fillory and their lackluster adventures. Quentin is dying for something a little more exciting, and he unwittingly gets it when he travels to Outer Island and finds a key that kicks him out of Fillory and back into real life. The rest of the story centers around
Quentin and Julia trying to get back to Fillory.

My favorite part of the book was another large plot line, which was a woven narrative from the perspective of Julia previous to meeting Eliot and Janet, after Quentin had left for magic college. Julia was supposed to forget that she attended the Brakebills College magical exam, but they couldn’t keep her memories away. She fell into depression and quit caring about school and family. She was desperate to find magic — she would go to safehouses and learn magic from some pretty seedy types. It was her refreshing active roll that balanced Quentin’s angsty inaction and kept the book moving. Julia went from being a character I cared very little about to one of my top three favorites. Quentin, however, remained in the bottom of my favorites. He is still exceedingly angsty and quite selfish, though not as much as in the first novel, thankfully.

While this novel holds less of the Harry Potter/Narnia feeling that The Magicians did, it had a lot better paced plot and kept me more engaged. The first third of the book was what seemed a continuation of The Magicians, but once it broke free of that, The Magician King’s story soared. I finished the rest of the novel in one day. In particular, Julia’s POV was incredibly dark and intriguing. Once she gets into a good group of magicians, they explore unknown and dangerous territory, which fascinates me.

If there was one thing I did not like, besides Quentin’s horrible post-teen angst, it was how Grossman drew attention to Julia’s oddness. Mentioning that Julia never spoke with contractions was jarring–mentioning when she broke character and started using them was just annoying. Although that part seemed unnecessary, Grossman clearly has fun with breaking the fourth wall in this novel. More than just bringing up pop cultural references, he refers to Fillory in a Harry Potter/Narnia sense in the novel. It made the story feel very modern and fun, which allowed for a little forgiveness in mentioning certain peoples’ character flaws.

Overall, The Magician King is a solid sequel to The Magicians. Though I would never have guessed it from how the story ended, the final page in the book had an advert for the next book in what is planned to be a trilogy. After doing a bit of researching, I found that the name of the next and final book in the trilogy is (quite probably) The Magician’s Land. After enjoying The Magician King, I know I will pick the third book up and read it when it comes out. If you haven’t ventured into the magic world that Grossman created, and you enjoyed the similar series (HP, Narnia), I would recommend starting out with The Magicians. It was a perfect disillusioned story after finishing the epic Harry Potter adventure of my youth.

The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett

The Daylight War is the third installment in the Demon Cycle, a planned five-novel series by Peter V. Brett. It is a 639 page fantasy novel. The story continues to follow the main characters of the previous novels and adds a new main POV — Inevera — the woman (should I say seductress?) on the cover on the novel.

The first two novels in this series were focused on two powerful men who learn the secrets of defeating corelings, Arlen Bales and Ahmann Jardir. This novel focuses heavily on the women behind the scenes of the men, Renna, Leesha and Inevera. The main plot centers around the tensions between all these people, and the fact that each community believes either Jardir or Arlen are the Deliverer-come-again to rally armies and save humanity from the corelings. In the meantime, the mind demons become aware of these two powerful minds and aim to destroy them before they can make a difference in the world. Unfortunately for the demons, Jardir is equipped with ancient weapons of immense magic and power that protect him, and Arlen — thanks to consuming demon meat and tattooing himself with wards — is learning the secrets of their power, and starts traveling through the core and virtually teleporting around the world.

Along with the demon battle going on, the namesake, The Daylight War, is finally getting a little more exciting. The Krasians have left the desert and are coming to the north to gather everyone into one great force to fight the demons. In order to rally forces, first they must “convince” the northerners to come to their side. This shows the culturally real side of the Krasians; they rape, pillage, set fire to food supplies and force their women-as-second-citizens culture onto the greenlanders. We get to see this in-depth when Leesha and some of her company travel to the Krasian fort. Seeing the culture push was a wake up for how brutal most Krasians can be. I loved these sections of the book, though–the Krasians are and have been my favorite to read about in the second and third novels. Brett is excellent at exploring and describing different cultures.

While this story follows Arlen and Renna, Rojer, Leesha, Jardir, the mind demons, and pretty much all the characters from the previous novels, my favorite character in The Daylight War was the new main POV, Inevera. Because she was so mysterious in the first two novels, I was always curious about her training as a Krasian dama’ting, a healer and fortune teller of sorts. While most dama’ting are born into the life, every once in a while the dice, mystical pieces of carved demon bone, foretell a Damaji’ting–the predicted wife of Kaji, the original leader of the Krasians (and therefore wife of the Sharum Ka, first spear and leader of their country). Because the other nie’dama’ting have known each other and have been training since birth, Inevera is not only behind in knowledge, but also an outsider and a pariah in her group of peers. Her struggles are endearing — I applaud Brett for being able to make me sympathize with someone I once detested.

On the lighter side of things, we also get a POV from Abban — the Krasian trader and friend of Arlen. Smaller perspectives like his–while not a huge source of plot movement–kept the story fresh, because by the end of the novel, I wasn’t sure if I could stand to read, “Love you Arlen Bales” another time. The romance is fun for a while, seeing Arlen being more of a normal human, but Renna’s character seemed like she was trying too hard to please him. She becomes sort of a wild woman, hunting all the time, eating demon flesh, a generally violent and feral woman-beast. It seemed Arlen was more a temperance for her than she for him.

The coreling battles, while less numerous, were outstanding in this novel. Corelings start coordinating, and the mind demons act as generals to the lesser demons. Their attacks on major human settlements were both disturbing and fascinating. This is where Jardir’s and Arlen’s powers truly shone; Brett did a fantastic job narrating the battles. At the end of the novel, when the demons have been at bay for the waning of the moon, there is a human battle of sorts (supporting the title!), and is all too brief for my tastes. It was thrilling, but the ending felt unfinished. Perhaps that’s because I am now anxious to read the next novel and don’t want to wait.

Overall, I would say this book is an improvement in point of view on The Desert Spear, and moves along much quicker, if only because you’re hurrying to get to Inevera’s next section. This installment of the Demon Cycle is a great addition, so if you’ve read The Warded Man and The Desert Spear, this is definitely a must-read. If you haven’t had a chance to get into the series, what are you waiting for? This series is incredibly creative and fun.

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

When I was desperately in need of some well done fantasy, I went looking for a new author. Peter V Brett led me to Brent Weeks, and I tried out The Black Prism on a whim. It is a 629 page sort of epic science fantasy novel, the first in a planned four book deal known as the Lightbringer series.

Before I detail the plot and characters, I want to give a little description of the magic system which centers around light and the ability to “draft” physical objects from it. Each drafter can draft different colors — each color has certain strengths and weaknesses; green can be incredibly durable, but will also weigh you down and can induce mania, superviolet may be invisible to most, but it can be used in secret messaging, and so on. When someone can draft, which not everyone can, they can be a monochrome (one color), bichrome (two colors), polychrome (3+ colors, usually in successions: red-orange-yellow), or if they can draft every color, they are known as the Prism.

Only one person can be the Prism at a time. They last for years in increments of 7 — they die out after 7, 14, or if they’re lucky, 21 years. Gavin Guile is the Prism at present. Unfortunately, due to unknown circumstances, his younger brother Dazen was also granted prismatic drafting abilities. This spawned the Prism’s War (or the False Prism’s War, if you were on Dazen’s side). Gavin won the war 16 years ago, and has been the religious figurehead, sort of emperor, and High Luxlord Prism of the Chromeria ever since. The Chromeria is a neat, sort of oppressive ruling body and elite school where anyone who can draft, and can afford it or earn a sponsor, goes to learn the magical craft.

The Black Prism follows Gavin and a few other key characters, like his bastard son, Kip, his prisoner and brother, Dazen, his ex-fiance Karris, a general who fought on Dazen’s side in the False Prism’s War, Corvan Danavis, and Corvan’s daughter, Liv. I honestly can’t talk too much about plot without giving away a huge spoiler that happens about 1/3 of the way into the book. Though I will say that watching Kip and Liv, both from the same town originally, learn and grow so differently based on how the Chomeria affects them when they go there was a great dynamic.

Spoilers aside, the plot focuses on Gavin’s great purposes that he sets out to accomplish before his final 7-year span finishes and how each of the other characters eventually help or hinder him. In the land, there are seven satrapies (sort of territories/countries) that are loyal to the Chromeria. Unfortunately, one of them–Tyrea, has had their head satrap (diplomatic leader) go rogue and insist he is the King of Tyrea. Gavin has to enlist the help of everyone to try to figure out why this occurred–aside from the fact that Tyrea suffered major losses 16 years ago in the (False) Prism’s War–and how they can put an end to the senseless massacres of innocent citizens.

I loved this book, and the magic system was incredibly fun to learn about. Of course, once you think you have a handle on it, Weeks throws in some curveballs that the characters don’t even understand, but that just adds to the whole mystery of chromaturgy (drafting powers). The only real complaint I have about the book is Kip’s POV. Even from the beginning of the novel, I wasn’t a huge fan of his sections. At first, I thought he was a boring weakling, but even after he started becoming more powerful, he was just awkward. It was obvious that it was part of his appeal, but I didn’t find it that appealing. The shifts from third person narration to first person in his sections was a little jarring at times, and sometimes just felt unnatural. Fortunately, it was a rare occurrence that the rest of the brilliant narrative easily makes up for. Balancing his incredibly awkward teen vibe, Gavin Guile absolutely shines in the book as a debonair, clever, handsome, and extremely powerful ruler who is actually wily and more humble than he likes to admit. His character was incredibly fun to read as a POV and I am excited to get more of him in the next book, The Blinding Knife.

With The Black Prism, Brent Weeks spins an incredible tale of secrecy, intrigue, loyalty, and questionable faith. If you enjoy high/epic fantasy with incredibly intricate and clever magic systems, I highly recommend The Black Prism. It’s through the magic and worldbuilding that the book really shines. With plenty of character growth in the second half of the novel, the Lightbringer series is a promising one.

The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett

The Desert Spear is a 583 page fantasy novel. It is the second book in The Demon Cycle. After reading The Warded Man (first of the series), I immediately picked up the Desert Spear and continued the journey of Arlen, Leesha, and Rojer. Along with the familiar characters, Peter V. Brett added in a few new perspectives, like that of Jardir (Ahmann asu Hoshkamin am’Jardir am’Kaji) from Krasia.

The first 200 pages detail Jardir’s life from childhood to the approximate present that The Warded Man brought us to. Jardir, being a male, was basically taken from his family at age 9 and put into intense training called Hannu Pash. Through this training, almost all the boys of Krasia are trained in order to fight alagai’sharak every night. During this, they use spears, nets, and teamwork to trap and kill corelings, the demons that rise from the core of the Earth every evening as the sun sets. It was fun to get a deep back story and understanding of Krasian culture and history as a precursor to the events in the rest of the novel. We also get a new view of Arlen here, as he manages to travel to Krasia and befriend Jardir.

Although I really enjoyed Jardir’s point of view, I think I would have liked it more if it was spread throughout the book rather than condensed into the first 200 pages. It felt as if his story was just playing catch-up to the other characters, and didn’t really fit into any major plot other than back story for a main character.

Along with Jardir, the second primary point of view comes from Renna Tanner, a young woman on a farm just outside of Tibbet’s Brook. When she was young, she and Arlen were promised (basically an arranged marriage agreement). Renna has it rough living with her family and rather disturbing and backwards father. Her viewpoint was an exciting way to get back into the hamlets without reliving the stories from the first novel. She eventually travels with Arlen, and it was nice to see him return to his human side after thinking absorbing Core magic was turning him into a demon.

Arlen, Leesha, and Rojer are returning POVs in The Desert Spear. In this book, I think Leesha’s view was my favorite. It was really fun to see her going on adventures. Other than that, I feel not too much changed from the first book that wasn’t natural progression. Aside from the regular human perspectives, this book actually brings in one of the more intelligent demon breeds — a mind demon — and gives a little hint into their thought process. In the face of this demon and the other corelings, humanity is desperate for the return of the Deliverer, a prophet foretold by both the Ejevah (Krasian holy text) and the Canon of the northern cities, to save them from the darkness. Krasia claims the deliverer is Jardir, and the northern cities and hamlets claim Arlen for role. It is this that sparks such tension between characters in this novel.

The book moved quickly, as it felt like something completely different from The Warded Man. The additional POVs really brought some spice to what could have been a simple continuation of The Warded Man. It was fascinating to see Krasia, a civilization that actively fights the corelings every night, rather than just hiding behind wards. Arlen’s explorations into various worldly places was one of the best things Brett could have done for the series to expand the world in a believable and understandable way. The exploration of previous POVs was interesting, and the new ones really brought a fresh feel to this book. If you liked The Warded Man, you should not miss The Desert Spear.

The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

The first book I finished this year was The Warded Man, the first of The Demon Cycle, and the debut novel of Peter V. Brett. It is a 453 page fantasy novel. I was recommended this by a trusted fantasy-reading friend and then happened to receive it and its sequel for Christmas and began reading them the next day.

The Warded Man follows three main characters: Arlen, a young boy from Tibbet’s Brook; Leesha, a young girl from Cutter’s Hollow, and Rojer, a young boy who is orphaned at the age of 3 and travels with an alcoholic Jongleur (sort of jester). They all show interesting talents (warding, gathering, fiddling) and deal with hard lives thanks to mostly human pettiness and demon injuries (to self or family).

The story follows their progression into adulthood and their travels and dealings with Corelings, which are demons that rise from the core of Earth when the sun sets. Humans have suffered greatly at the hands of Corelings — hiding behind wards (magic symbols that deter the demons from living quarters), so they constantly check their homes’ wards and are at a constant struggle with keeping the hamlets (small villages) alive and thriving.

Of the three characters, I think I would pick Arlen as my favorite; perhaps that is just because he was strong enough to get away from a bad situation at home and pursue his own interests, even at a young age. I’ll be honest and say any book that relates magic and science have me hooked from the beginning; the wards in The Warded Man are particularly fascinating, and Arlen’s grasp of warding is admirable.

Peter V Brett’s intertwined plot of the three characters in order to tell this story is extremely well crafted. Never once did a character become boring before switching to anothers’ point of view. I was captivated by each viewpoint in the end, regardless of how little I liked the people surrounding each character (Brett also creates great unlikable characters!). Something that surprised me was how much I enjoyed watching Arlen, Rojer, and Leesha mature; though I saw much that could have gone wrong with telling the story over 7+ years, it was so well done that I can’t imagine it happening another way.

Overall, The Warded Man has quickly become one of my favorite fantasy novels (that I regularly lend out to others). Although this was the first book I finished this year, I have a feeling it will still be in the top three I’ve read in 2013 by the end of it. I must say, for a first novel, this is impressive! After finishing The Warded Man, I am particularly looking forward to reading The Desert Spear and The Daylight War, the second and third books in the planned 5-book Demon Cycle series. If you enjoy fantasy, I would absolutely recommend checking out The Warded Man!