Angel Mage

This was the first Garth Nix book I have read and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience! Garth Nix has crafted a world that seems both eerily familiar and utterly strange. The angel magic referenced in the title is a clever construct. The idea that calling upon angels lets you do wondrous things at a cost to ones lifespan produces a nicely calibrated magic system. The more powerful the angel, the more it takes from the summoner. I am a fan of well constructed magic systems and this is up there with some of the best.

The meat of any story is the characters. Angel Mage focuses on two sides of the same story, producing an interesting dichotomy. First we have Lilliath - a supremely powerful Angel Mage, able to do more things than anyone else. In many ways she is the enemy, but Garth Nix has built up some interesting shades of grey and you cant help but sympathising with her from time to time, despite her ruthlessness. The other side is represented by 4 fairly different characters, who are kind of brought together by Lilliath. The friendship and camaraderie that they develop provides a strong counterpoint to the ruthlessness of Lilliath.

There are some wonderful twists on classic tropes within this story. There are strong female protagonists in this story. All the key figures in power are women, which is a nice and welcome change from standard depictions in fantasy.

I hope to return to this world at some point. It was well built and although this story stands alone you can feel that there is plenty more stories to be told in this setting