Angus Wells (1943–2006)

I needed a book to read while on the treadmill at the gym. My requirements: good story, easy to put down for several days then pick up again, characters that keep me interested. Forbidden Magic met all my requirements and more. On the face of things, it's a rather average fantasy - naive prince meets mercenary, they get roped into a quest for a magic book to save the world - and yet, it's better than that. The characters develop, the world is decently conceived, and the story keeps the show more reader's attention. So, all in all, a good choice for gym read! show less

The God Wars trilogy (of which this is the middle volume) is a fairly standard fantasy quest story. But the writing's reasonably well done, the story moves along, and the characters are interesting. Wells' world-building isn't as thorough or as good as some, but that doesn't seem to drag the book down for me. All-in-all, this made a nice gym book for me - it kept me entertained while spending time on a treadmill.

Wrap-up to Angus Wells' The God Wars trilogy, Wild Magic is decent conclusion to a decent fantasy story. This one's old-school fantasy - somewhat predictable, but comfortable nonetheless. It was exactly what I needed for a gym read: easy to follow, easy to put down and pick up, entertaining enough to make me lose track of time on the treadmill.

I'm not sure Wells did much else and this was published during the period where it seemed like everyone could write an epic fantasy trilogy. Even so, I enjoyed these books. They were just different enough to make them interesting.