More tragic than magic... (Black Magician Trilogy: The Magicians' Guild - Trudi Canavan)

Member Name: sparkymarky1973

Product:	Black Magician Trilogy: The Magicians' Guild - Trudi Canavan
Date:	12/08/09 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Starts well but falters a few chapters in...

Disadvantages: Cannot carry the story on enough to hold your interest

I picked this up off my to~be~read pile recently because I had heard good things about the series and this author in general. Unfortunately, I was less than impressed and only managed to find the first few pages in any way engaging.

Sonea and her aunt and uncle have just been made homeless and have been cast out on the street. Which is paticulary bad timing because in the city of Imardin it is that time of year again when The Magician's Guild begin their purge through the streets; forcing the beggars, ne'er~do~wells and homeless out of the c ity and into the slums in an attempt to cleanse the streets of filth. Hanging out with some of her young friends who intend to cause hassle for the Magicians this year, Sonea throws a stone at one of the magic-users and is shocked when it passes through his magical shield and hits him in the head! Unbeknownst to her, she has natrural magic ability which is just about to come into frutition and before long, she is being hunted by The Guild who are afraid that an untrained magic-user is running amok. With the aid of some common allies, Sonea goes into hiding but how long can she escape the grasp of her destiny? And what do the Magicians intend to do with her?

The initial few chapters that set the scene actually show a lot of promise, but once the basic premise has been established the book begins to go downhill! Sonea is not a very engaging character and comes across as very two-dimensional and none of the wizards are a paticulary warming bunch either! There is also the fact that the whole novel basically encompasses a game of hide and seek conducted between Sonea and the wizards and this makes it feel pretty much like just a prelude before the story begins proper. There is obviously much more going on here than at first appears on the surface but all we are treated to are hints and suggestion at which direction this series intends to follow...as a first novel, too much attention is spent setting up the plot for the later books but the problem for me was that I ended up getting sooo bored that I won't be sticking around for the next novel in the trilogy as I really don't think I can be bothered. There is nothing new or amazing about the style of writing here and nothing whatsoever that might tempt me to return...

It is a shame as, like I said, I had heard good things from this author but she is no Robin Hobb and, though it might seem wrong to compare, unfortunately I find the quality of her fantasy writing so superb that Hobb sets the bar high for others to follow. And that inevitably means that anything below par is doomed to failure!

If I was younger, I might have enjoyed this more as I get the impression that it is possibly intended for a slightly younger audience but this does nothing for me now!!

You can pick this up rather cheaply on Amazon- my advice though would be probably not to bother....

Summary: A young girl comes into natural magical ability!