The Far West

Excellent. I was just wishing for a YA in which the female protagonist is not primarily interested in who she's going to marry...it is a matter of interest, but definitely secondary or tertiary. The Far West is far more interesting - to Eff, and to me. The first half of the book follows directly on the end of Across the Great Barrier, as the expedition comes back with a dead medusa lizard. Politics and family matters tangle around Eff as she tries to figure out who and what she's going to be. A spell testing the dead lizard indicates that there are more of them heading east, and a new expedition is planned to explore further west than anyone's gotten - or at least, farther than anyone's gotten and come back from. Nearly every named show more character is invited along, and family and personal politics play an important part in who agrees and who declines. Eff goes, of course. The second half of the book, almost exactly, is the expedition itself - who goes and how they go, what's learned along the way both about the new creatures and territory and about the people in the expedition. There are plenty of expedition members we don't even learn the names of - most of the soldiers, especially - but there's still a lot of characters to keep track of. They're all pretty distinctive, though. Eff learns more about her amulet; she, Lan, and William learn a lot about magic the way she's been dealing with it, which turns out not to match any of the accepted theories of magic (they even have a Cathayan along, whose magic is yet a third...or fourth...or fifth way of looking at things, and still not like Eff's). She ends up with a breakthrough that saves the group from a disastrous wildlife attack - and that allows them to discover a much bigger catastrophe in the making. They deal with it, temporarily, in a very Eff-style combination effort, and the expedition comes home. The story could end here - I hope it doesn't, there's a major unfinished job but more importantly I want to see more of Eff. Great story. show less

The third and final novel in the Frontier Magic trilogy is the story of a journey both literally and figuratively. When the story begins, Eff Rothmer is twenty and working as an assistant to Professor Torgeson at the university in Mill City. Mill City is at Columbia's Western edge of civilization right up against the Great Barrier Spell, a magic spell concocted by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to keep magical creatures out of the East. But 83 years have passed and settlements have extended 100 miles west of the Great Barrier even though it is much more dangerous out there.

A journey is being planned to explore further west - perhaps, all the way to the Rocky Mountains. Eff is excited about it but doesn't think she has any hope show more of going along. Her brother Lan who is a powerful magician and a double seven (seventh son of a seventh son) has been invited as has her brother-in-law Brant who was a hero of the previous successful McNeil Expedition. Also going is Roger Boden who is Eff's suitor, even though she turned down his proposal, and her best friend William Graham who is a student of magic. This expedition is being partially financed by the Cathayan government and their representative is Adept Alikaket. When she is asked to go along as an assistant to Professor Torgeson, she is excited, scared and eager but she also recognizes the danger. After all, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was lost when they tried to explore.

This story has excitement, adventure and even romance. Magic is woven into this story in many ways. Most people have the ability to do magic. It is taught in their schools. Eff does have problems with the most common form of magic - the Avrupan. Her spells have a tendency to go wrong. She has been studying the Aphrikan system of magic since she was young and using it to tweak her Avrupan spells. She is also eager to study the Cathayan system of magic while on this expedition. The expedition encounters many new creatures on their journey including many magical creatures like the Medusa lizards which can turn living creatures to stone, steam dragons and rock dragons, and large fox-like animals that can use magic to hide themselves from view.

One of the strengths of this story is the world building. Wrede has built a complex and consistent world where magic is well-integrated into a landscape the will be familiar to many people who live in the Midwest of the United States. This is not high fantasy but rather frontier fantasy. There are many parallels to the time of the Westward Expansion of the United States but tweaked, as Eff tweaks her magic, to allow for the smooth integration of magic.

Another strength of this story are the many, well-rounded characters who inhabit this world. From the bossy older sisters to the single-minded professors, the characters have depth and are all interesting. Eff is strong-minded, curious, adventurous and determined but also self-effacing and modest about her magical gifts. Her brother Lan is bright and magically talented but also impulsive and a little arrogant.

During this journey, Eff grows up, comes to terms with her own unique magical abilities, finds her life partner and her life's work. It is a great conclusion to a fascinating fantasy series. I strongly recommend reading the whole series - Thirteenth Child, Across the Great Barrier, and The Far West - to explore a very creative world and meet many fascinating people. show less

The third and final novel in the Frontier Magic trilogy is the story of a journey both literally and figuratively. When the story begins, Eff Rothmer is twenty and working as an assistant to Professor Torgeson at the university in Mill City. Mill City is at Columbia's Western edge of civilization right up against the Great Barrier Spell, a magic spell concocted by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to keep magical creatures out of the East. But 83 years have passed and settlements have extended 100 miles west of the Great Barrier even though it is much more dangerous out there.

A journey is being planned to explore further west - perhaps, all the way to the Rocky Mountains. Eff is excited about it but doesn't think she has any hope show more of going along. Her brother Lan who is a powerful magician and a double seven (seventh son of a seventh son) has been invited as has her brother-in-law Brant who was a hero of the previous successful McNeil Expedition. Also going is Roger Boden who is Eff's suitor, even though she turned down his proposal, and her best friend William Graham who is a student of magic. This expedition is being partially financed by the Cathayan government and their representative is Adept Alikaket. When she is asked to go along as an assistant to Professor Torgeson, she is excited, scared and eager but she also recognizes the danger. After all, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was lost when they tried to explore.

This story has excitement, adventure and even romance. Magic is woven into this story in many ways. Most people have the ability to do magic. It is taught in their schools. Eff does have problems with the most common form of magic - the Avrupan. Her spells have a tendency to go wrong. She has been studying the Aphrikan system of magic since she was young and using it to tweak her Avrupan spells. She is also eager to study the Cathayan system of magic while on this expedition. The expedition encounters many new creatures on their journey including many magical creatures like the Medusa lizards which can turn living creatures to stone, steam dragons and rock dragons, and large fox-like animals that can use magic to hide themselves from view.

One of the strengths of this story is the world building. Wrede has built a complex and consistent world where magic is well-integrated into a landscape the will be familiar to many people who live in the Midwest of the United States. This is not high fantasy but rather frontier fantasy. There are many parallels to the time of the Westward Expansion of the United States but tweaked, as Eff tweaks her magic, to allow for the smooth integration of magic.

Another strength of this story are the many, well-rounded characters who inhabit this world. From the bossy older sisters to the single-minded professors, the characters have depth and are all interesting. Eff is strong-minded, curious, adventurous and determined but also self-effacing and modest about her magical gifts. Her brother Lan is bright and magically talented but also impulsive and a little arrogant.

During this journey, Eff grows up, comes to terms with her own unique magical abilities, finds her life partner and her life's work. It is a great conclusion to a fascinating fantasy series. I strongly recommend reading the whole series - Thirteenth Child, Across the Great Barrier, and The Far West - to explore a very creative world and meet many fascinating people. show less

The Frontier Magic Trilogy by Patricia Wrede: Thirteenth Child, Across the Great Barrier and The Far West

This trilogy is an historical fantasy set in an alternate universe. Like the Sorcery and Cecelia and the A Matter of Magic series, these are set in a version of our world where magic works, and magical creatures abound. Unlike the other series, history is different. They are set in what is colonial America (‘Columbia’) and deal with the exploration west of the Mississippi River (‘Mammoth River’). The feel of society and technology is very late nineteenth century but the exploration and settlement of America feels more late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. The world is divided roughly between the great powers of Europe show more (‘Avrupa’), Africa (‘Aphrika’) and Asia (‘Ashia’) and each have different styles of magic. North America is mostly empty - the local magical megafauna has seen to that. There was some settlement off the East Coast (Vinland), but the mainland was only settled in the Age of Exploration.

The trilogy is effectively a bildungsroman - we follow Francine (‘Eff’) Rothman from about 5 years old to her early twenties. She is unfortunately the thirteenth child of her parents and is believed to be damned - her wider family don’t want her around although her immediate family don’t hold with that belief. As a result, her father accepts a professorship at the new college in Mill City - a new town on a crossing point of the Mammoth River. Settlement is slowly happening to the West - the Great Barrier keeping the more dangerous megafauna out of the Eastern States runs along the Mammoth and the St Lawrence Seaway via the Great Lakes. Professor and Mrs Rothman move move to Mill City along with the younger members of their family - Eff and her twin brother, Lan, along with several of their older brothers and sisters. The eldest children remain in the East.

Thirteenth Child introduces us to Eff and Lan. Lan is a ‘double seven’ - the seventh son of a seventh son and his magical power is great. Double sevens are held to extremely lucky for all - in contrast to Eff’s situation as a thirteen. We follow Eff and Lan through their younger years, getting their schooling at the local day school and their interactions with their class mates. We are introduced to the 3 main schools of magic - Avrupan, Aphrikan and Hijero-Cathayan. Eff starts learning something of Aphrikan magic alongside the more usual Avrupan magic.

Across the Great Barrier follows Eff after she leaves school. She starts helping out in the wildlife centre at the college, and is selected to go on an expedition to the settlements to the West.

The Far West deals with a major exploratory expedition. The earlier expeditions that Eff has participated in have discovered some extremely dangerous wildlife, and worse, it appears to be moving east. As a result, the government have agreed to sponsor a major exploratory expedition, especially as the Cathayans have agreed to co-sponsor it.

I do like these novels. Although they are YA, they don’t read that way. In many ways, the world-building is superior to the other series, and isn’t just our world with kewl pwrs. Interestingly, there are no Native Americans; it seems the megafauna are responsible, although I wonder why this did not happen elsewhere in the world. Perhaps the groups that tried to migrate into the Americas didn’t have magic but the groups elsewhere did - which gave them the edge - or the American megafauna was more dangerous.

Recommended. show less

I think that as an installment in a longer series, I probably would've rated this at 4 stars. Since it seems to be the last in a trilogy, however, I finished the epilogue thinking, "And...?" There are several story details and aspects to the world and the characters that Wrede appeared to be building into the narrative in order to make later use of---the pendant, the nature of Eff's abilities, her dreams, etc.---but the series closes without any real elaboration on or connection to them. So even though the epilogue reaches its happily-ever-after, the book feels incomplete.

An alternate version of American where the West remains unexplored and no one has ever made it as far as the Rocky Mountains and lived to tell about it. Where steam dragons and medusa lizards can kill the unwary and magic is as widespread as technology.

Eff (short for Francine) is all grown up now and getting itchy feet. After two explorations out past the Great Barrier Spell, she is bored just staying at home and working at the college. Lucky for her that things are about to change.

I loved the way we got a look at these different magical systems and how they work together. I got a little tired of all the dreams that Eff has, but I liked the expedition and the love story. I would have liked a little more romance though! You call that a show more proposal? show less

As a fan of the other novels in this series, I was predisposed to like this, the latest and presumably last entry in the series. I can definitively say that I was not disappointed.

Our heroine has grown up now, dealing with the men in her life in a way that she has not needed to in the past. The romantic story takes a back seat to the action of the story (thankfully) as Eff finally penetrates into the Far West, an area hinted at since the first book, but never seen.

This series is an excellent example of the notion that fantasy fiction does not need a "big bad" villain to make it interesting. Sometimes, it is enough to watch the protagonist make her way in life, struggling against nature and generally coming of age.

Recommended