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Review - The Black Magician trilogy
Apr. 10th, 2008 11:55 pmI just finished reading the Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan (consisting of, obviously, three books: The Magicians' Guild, The Novice, The High Lord).
It wasn't that complicated a plot, or that original a premise -- to be honest, much of the setting reminded me of Raymond E. Feist's Krondor mixed with his magicians on Kelewan. Regardless, I enjoyed reading the books and read them very quickly: one a day, just about. They're light, easy reads, in my opinion. If you're looking for something long and epic, look somewhere else, but if you want something to take up a boring weekend or something, I think these books would do it nicely.
The action itself definitely had me on edge. About one hundred and fifty pages from the end, I was literally on the edge of my seat bouncing up and down! The parts about the slums, wherever they came in, were perhaps a little too long. In the last part, that drew out the tension almost more than I could stand.
I liked the characters a lot. They were quite simply drawn, when I think about it -- Akkarin, for example, despite being a major character, got barely any characterisation at all until partway through the last book of the trilogy. Rothen was, purely and simply, a good father figure. Simple doesn't mean bad, though -- they were easy to like (or dislike, in Regin's case), and I got very fond of Sonea, Cery, Dannyl and Rothen in particular.
The relationships were... okay. Characters seemed to form relationships in the blink of an eye, and loathing turned to love very, very fast. The only relationship that I felt was really built up carefully was the one between Dannyl (a male magician) and Tayend (a male scholar). I enjoyed that aspect of the books quite a lot, actually, and while the relationship doesn't serve any particular plot purpose, I think it justifies its own existence as much as a het couple would. I read bits of Trudi Canavan's site and she said that she knew from the start that Dannyl was gay. When it came time for him to go on a quest and discover things, she wanted to spice up his subplot, and that came with a romance. And Tayend. I thought that relationship was really sweet, and it didn't fill me with rage as homosexuality as portrayed in fantasy has in the past -- I remember a series of books I read years ago where you could tell who the bad guys were because they were all gay sadists who tended to rape guys who fell into their hands!
Like I said: I think the trilogy's really quite an easy read. It doesn't have that much depth -- but as a casual read, I loved it.
It wasn't that complicated a plot, or that original a premise -- to be honest, much of the setting reminded me of Raymond E. Feist's Krondor mixed with his magicians on Kelewan. Regardless, I enjoyed reading the books and read them very quickly: one a day, just about. They're light, easy reads, in my opinion. If you're looking for something long and epic, look somewhere else, but if you want something to take up a boring weekend or something, I think these books would do it nicely.
The action itself definitely had me on edge. About one hundred and fifty pages from the end, I was literally on the edge of my seat bouncing up and down! The parts about the slums, wherever they came in, were perhaps a little too long. In the last part, that drew out the tension almost more than I could stand.
I liked the characters a lot. They were quite simply drawn, when I think about it -- Akkarin, for example, despite being a major character, got barely any characterisation at all until partway through the last book of the trilogy. Rothen was, purely and simply, a good father figure. Simple doesn't mean bad, though -- they were easy to like (or dislike, in Regin's case), and I got very fond of Sonea, Cery, Dannyl and Rothen in particular.
The relationships were... okay. Characters seemed to form relationships in the blink of an eye, and loathing turned to love very, very fast. The only relationship that I felt was really built up carefully was the one between Dannyl (a male magician) and Tayend (a male scholar). I enjoyed that aspect of the books quite a lot, actually, and while the relationship doesn't serve any particular plot purpose, I think it justifies its own existence as much as a het couple would. I read bits of Trudi Canavan's site and she said that she knew from the start that Dannyl was gay. When it came time for him to go on a quest and discover things, she wanted to spice up his subplot, and that came with a romance. And Tayend. I thought that relationship was really sweet, and it didn't fill me with rage as homosexuality as portrayed in fantasy has in the past -- I remember a series of books I read years ago where you could tell who the bad guys were because they were all gay sadists who tended to rape guys who fell into their hands!
Like I said: I think the trilogy's really quite an easy read. It doesn't have that much depth -- but as a casual read, I loved it.
