John
I am a sucker for magic-school-battle-royal type books with a very-special-child type protagonist. So why is this one still excellent if you've already read Ender's Game, Harry Potter, The Name of the Wind, Hunger Games, and Red Rising (among countless others)?
- The World Building is exceptional. I do love a well-thought-out magic system, and there is one here, but it isn't even allowed at the school. Instead the focus in this book is a well-thought-out society built on the side effects of this magic system and what it would look like. Imagine Jeff Bezos also got god-like superpowers as a direct consequence of being at the top of his billion dollar company. It's interesting.
- People act pretty logically in most situations. They aren't robots, but they also aren't obviously doing stuff that doesn't make sense if you stop and think about it. Most of the time they act like people.
- The main character is pretty sympathetic. He's very good at most things, but they give good reasons why this makes sense with his backstory. He also surprisingly rejects a good number of calls to adventure when they don't make sense to his lived experience. Imagine Luke told Obi Wan to keep his glowstick and magic tricks because he was going to personally hunt down his Aunt and Uncle's killers instead. It's a nice change of pace, gives the MC a lot more agency, and leads the story to unexpected places.
- There are tons of hints at a larger and more complex world-ending collection of secrets and there are lots of interesting questions left unanswered. But in a good way that makes you really want to read the next book.
Here's hoping he can pull off a satisfying continuation. On the plus side, at least he's finished a trilogy before, which people seemed to like a lot, so I'm hopeful!
I am a sucker for magic-school-battle-royal type books with a very-special-child type protagonist. So why is this one still excellent if you've already read Ender's Game, Harry Potter, The Name of the Wind, Hunger Games, and Red Rising (among countless others)?
- The World Building is exceptional. I do love a well-thought-out magic system, and there is one here, but it isn't even allowed at the school. Instead the focus in this book is a well-thought-out society built on the side effects of this magic system and what it would look like. Imagine Jeff Bezos also got god-like superpowers as a direct consequence of being at the top of his billion dollar company. It's interesting.
- People act pretty logically in most situations. They aren't robots, but they also aren't obviously doing stuff that doesn't make sense if you stop and think about it. Most of the time they act like people.
- The main character is pretty sympathetic. He's very good at most things, but they give good reasons why this makes sense with his backstory. He also surprisingly rejects a good number of calls to adventure when they don't make sense to his lived experience. Imagine Luke told Obi Wan to keep his glowstick and magic tricks because he was going to personally hunt down his Aunt and Uncle's killers instead. It's a nice change of pace, gives the MC a lot more agency, and leads the story to unexpected places.
- There are tons of hints at a larger and more complex world-ending collection of secrets and there are lots of interesting questions left unanswered. But in a good way that makes you really want to read the next book.
Here's hoping he can pull off a satisfying continuation. On the plus side, at least he's finished a trilogy before, which people seemed to like a lot, so I'm hopeful!
