The Magician's Guild and the Novice - Books

[ScottG]

I recently finished both of these books - gotta-say fairly impressive material B+ (and I'm a tough critic).

They are written by a female (Trudi Canavan) and I usually notice the "flavor" of female writers, but not here. (even the female protagonist is excellent - something both male and female writers tend to do poorly.) No, she isn't in the league of Janny Wurts, but then not many writers are (female or male).

The story-line of the books revolve around a relm with only upper-class wizards; the poor people are thought to be to weak to even consider checking for magical talent. Of course that changes when a poor urchin girl causes quite a "stir" and a scandal by displaying talent in a defiant manner. This causes all sorts of problems: political, social, magical, etc.

Though the central theme is fairly predictable (as represented in the titles), all the characters EXCEPT the antogonists are sophisticated, (with real depth of character that is unique). Unfortunetly the antagonists in both books are predictable and a bit tiresome (particularly because the one in the first book is very similar to the one in the next book), BUT an underlying antagonist (that only shows itself at the end of the first book and only slightly in the second book), is VERY interesting and something of a new look for a possible bad-guy.

So if your looking for a new fantasy series to pick-up, consider this one - I don't think you'll be dissapointed if you do.