The Innocent Mage (Kingmaker, Kingbreaker, Book 1) (original 2005; edition 2007)

Orbit,fall07

"The Innocent Mage started off a little slow, I thought, but it picked up the pace soon enough, and kind of snowballed until it ended in something of a cliffhanger (ha). I had never heard of Miller and had heard nothing about this book, so I wasn't sure what to expect going in - most of the fantasy I've read (not including urban fantasy) have been things like the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, and some D&D Forgotten Realms novels. This one sounded good, though, and I was not disappointed...

The last few chapters or so, I kind of breezed through, simply because I just couldn't bring myself to put it down after a certain point. Miller introduces some twists that in a way I was expecting, but the manner in which they unfold was definitely not what I thought was coming. At all. Part of me is extremely anxious to go ahead and pick up the sequel straight away, but I have a system, so I'm making myself wait before I start reading that one. The wait will not be without difficulty, however, because The Innocent Mage ends sort of abruptly, absolutely leaving you wanting, maybe needing, more..."

For full review, please visit me at Here Be Bookwyrms on Blogger:

http://herebebookwyrms.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-innocent-mage.html ( )

I didn't find it bad, I definitely wasn't awed either.

I find it odd that the native folk would have forgotten so well that they were invaded in the first place, that they used to have their own magic, that it's tapped to save everyone's butts and should make them as a whole as valuable to society as the newcomers and their weatherworking. To the point of not even knowing anymore that they can be mages in their own right (see the lines about someone nailed for trying to learn invaders' magic).

The lack of any thought, suspicion or curiosity regarding what lies outside behind the barrier in the general population is odd too.
If they knew and feared the enemy and devastation that lies beyond, it would be a somewhat believable incentive to contribute to maintaining the current social order and regulations regarding magic, but no one seems to think about that. Not once does a character seem to express the dread that he might be living in an isolated, fragile bubble surrounded by a dead world.
When it happens, snitching against (apparently mostly wannabe or falsely accused) native mages seems to be an exercise in pure spite or gratuitous submissiveness. And the invaders themselves seem to frame it mentally as an encroachment upon their privileges and superior talents, rather than an endangerment of collective safety.
And if they don't really know (and apparently they don't, as even the high mage toward the end of this first book needs to take a peek himself), shouldn't more people be curious, or dubious about the enduring necessity of the status quo ? ( )

marked down for ending on a complete and utter cliffhanger. Otherwise, enjoyable, if a bit slow at the beginning. ( )

Every now and then I embark on either an sf or a fantasy series that's a bit below par but good enough that I'm sucked in, curious how the author is going to work out his or her ideas to stick with it - sometimes I'm agreeably surprised when the series as a whole gathers momentum and starts to work pretty well, all the pieces coming together. I'm hoping for that from this set of Karen Miller's novels of which this, The Innocent Mage is the first. The story focusses around one Asher, from a fishing village, who heads for the big city and away from his beloved Da and unbeloved six older brothers who tend to beat on him as the one who killed off Ma. He arrives in the capital city and within two hours he has saved the local princeling and has a job in the stables although he knows zilch about horses and within a day or two (or is it a month?) gets a job as his special protector and assistant. There's a book dealer who is such good friends with the royal family that she pops in and out of the castle at will. She is also a special prophet for the supposed non-magical people, the Olken, who the magical Doranians rule over - benevolently but firmly - as they have worked out a deal. Outside the magically maintained borders of Lur, the world is dangerous and the enemies of the Doranians lurk waiting to destroy etcetera. One twist is that the Prince has no magic, and thus is a 'cripple', another is that Asher, as a character, is fairly engaging as he is very outspoken, but with a kind of authoritative honesty that even the king can't resist. Just when I would start to think, Oh no, something reasonably interesting and even unexpected would happen. There are two more, apparently, but about the next generation, which I won't feel at all obliged to read if the second one doesn't take me somewhere. ***1/4 ( )