The Glass Magician

After reading the first book in this series, I felt that there were some promising aspects to the story and some, well, not-so-promising aspects. Unfortunately, I felt that this got worse, not better.

In 'The Paper Magician' one issue I noted was that the villain was completely without depth - she had neither motivation, background, or a clear agenda. I thought that in the second book, we might find out more about her. No. Instead, we continue with two of her henchmen as villains - who are ALSO completely depthless and motivation-less. In addition, the head evil psychopath is a Scary Foreigner! He's Indian! He says a word in Hindi! Now, it is entirely possible to have an excellent villain who is 'foreign.' But when said character has NO show more character traits other than being 'dark' in appearance and a sadistic psychopath, AND when there are no other 'foreign' characters in the whole book AND when the character's first appearance is immediately predicated by a very weird and awkward moment where Our Hero Ceony sees him lurking across the street right after a bombing and says to herself, 'well, I shouldn't be suspicious of that man just because he looks foreign' but then of course it turns out she SHOULD have suspected him - as she clearly DID - well, it gets problematic. Back in 1870, Jules Verne, in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, did a far better job giving his Indian character believable resentments and motivations...

In addition to new villains, this story also gives Ceony a friend, Delilah. She is introduced with startling rapidity, and seemingly just for the purpose of illustrating some new types of magic. (Delilah is one of the Glass Magicians of the title). However, it turns out that Delilah is the redshirt here, so don't get too attached - not that you were likely to.

Another of my major problems with the first book was the romance aspect. At the outset of this book, I was relieved to see that Mg. Emery Thane had not yet reciprocated Ceony's crush on him, and was actually conducting himself in a professional manner. For a minute there, I thought we might actually get a very sensible plot progression about how sometimes crushes are inappropriate and unrequited! Alas, such was not to be. Instead, most of the way through the book, we get an abrupt, jarring scene from Mg. Thane's POV (the rest of the book is all-Ceony, all-the-time)about how he's been - with effort - trying to restrain himself from getting involved until Ceony graduates from her apprenticeship. Sigh. I suspect that the author listened to critics of the first book who said it seemed odd (and makes the romance even more inappropriate) that Ceony's apparently never dated anyone before, because here, one throwaway line is inserted that she did have a high school boyfriend. No, that doesn't 'fix' things.

Even so - the romance could be salvaged if I was really convinced by the author that these were two kindred souls. But what do we find out in this one POV scene where the master is talking about his student (who, incidentally, is shaping up to be a brilliantly talented, brave magician who shows remarkable insight and initiative in apprehending dangerous criminals?) Well, he likes the facts that she's cheerful, dedicated, beautiful, and most importantly, a good cook. I roll my eyes.

If that was the only scene where cooking comes up, I could let it slide. After all, it's already been established that Ceony loves cooking and had considered culinary school if the magic thing didn't work out. That's all good. Except for the scene where she's at another bachelor's home, and his lack of gourmet cuisine elicits this: "Ceony determined the man needed to get married right away," and she considers setting him up with her friend. The friend that's also a magician. Because, although women can clearly be magicians, it's also their job to cook for men. Ugh.

That's nothing, though, compared to the casual, throwaway sexism involving clothing. OK, in the first book, we learn that Ceony was groped by a school administrator. (She dumps wine on him, causing her [she later discovers] to lose a scholarship, but never actually makes a complaint about it.) In this book, we learn that because of this incident, Ceony prefers to wear long skirts, as they're harder to get a groping hand up. Seriously? The answer to sexual harassment is to wear long skirts?!?!?!? Yeah, someone in a position of power over you will totally be put off by the skirt. At other points in this book, we learn that Ceony believes that a knee-length skirt is shockingly short, and that the shortest acceptable skirt is mid-calf. This is also specifically tied in to whether one is a 'liberal' or 'conservative' woman.

At this point, I felt like the setting in general began to be an issue. I know that some reviewers had an issue with it in the first book, pointing out how it didn't feel 'period' or 'English.' For the first book, I gave all that a pass, just telling myself that it was in an alternate-world fantasy setting. However, this book makes it more specific - I could no longer ignore that this is explicitly supposed to be England at the end of the 19th century. The referenced skirt lengths simply do not match British fashion of this time period, OR cultural attitudes of the time.
It's not just the skirts... it's the guns. (and oh so much more).
It's already been established that Ceony owns a gun. Here, she makes a comment that when she's stressed out, she likes to go shooting. OK, at this supposed place and time period, an upper-class woman might have hunted with a gun. But it's already been established that Ceony's family is supposed to be poor. (Although, when we meet them, they seem like an American middle-class family in every way). And the gun attitude is just... yes, American, Conservative, Middle-Class. It jars the reader right out of the story. The amount of research the author did into the social issues and political divisions of England at the time: ZERO.

Oh, and then there's a brief scene where we get magically transported to French-speaking Belgium - where everyone talks like they're in a first-year French textbook. And... well, I am driven to provide a quote here:
..."she found another sign, this one reading "Zuydcoote un kilometre au sud-est." She imagined "kilometre" meant kilometer, but she couldn't piece together the rest."
Bear in mind, Ceony is NOT supposed to be a mentally disabled character. Also, if you are one kilometer north-west of Zuydcoote, you are actually in the water off the coast of France, not in Belgium. Just saying.

However - all of these issues are mere quibbles compared to my main problem with the book. Which is the ending, and what it all hinges on. The author has created a world and a whole magical system based on the concept that every magician must choose one focus - one man-made substance to irreversibly 'bond' to. In this book, Ceony defeats the bad guys - who've been looking for a way to get around this limitation for decades, apparently - by accidentally figuring it all out. But what she figures out is painfully easy and obvious. I mean, it is literally the first thing someone would try. I found it totally unbelievable on a logical level. In addition, after establishing certain rules for your narrative, it makes no sense to just suddenly throw them all out the window. It's a step worse than deus-ex-machina - it's more like: "Everything I told you earlier and asked you to suspend disbelief for? Forget it! It's just not true!"

Well, this turned out to be quite an essay. I'm pretty sure I'm done with this author.

Book provided by NetGalley and 47North. Many thanks, and, clearly, my opinions are solely my own. show less

I was eager to read a new adventure of Emery and Ceony but, although the novel is once again enjoyable, it lacks the sparks of the first one. Furthermore, the problem that I had found in the first book returns in this second (the author simplifies situations -or in this case make Ceony take bad decisions- to make easier for her carry on the story). I will surely read the third book because I've grown fond of Ceony, Emery and our lovely paper dog but the author needs to learn to not take the easier path to bring her characters where she wants.

I still really enjoyed this book, but some of its aspects grate, so much so that I can't let them go. Between stupid plot devices, overused character tropes, and an uncertain time period, I got bogged down and lost sight of the things that I love about this book: Emery and Ceony's relationship, the magic and world-building, and of course, Fennel. I truly hope that the last book in the trilogy is an improvement over this installment, but I doubt it can match the magical feeling I got while reading the first book.

This sequel was more complex, better thought through, more surprising, and altogether demonstrated more deftness on the author's part than [b:The Paper Magician|20727654|The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)|Charlie N. Holmberg|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405618531s/20727654.jpg|40051132]. Which is great -- it's fantastic to see authors hone their craft.
Ceony is still a Folder, still helplessly in love with her mentor, and most importantly, still faces a threat to her existence. This time it's a dual threat, and she doesn't quite know what she's doing, but jumps in headlong anyway.
My only quibble this time around is that she talks an awful lot about the length of skirts: her skirt, her friend's skirt, the skirt she show more borrows when hers gets dirty... it's an odd, almost-Victorian preoccupation that seems out of place only because it's the only "period" detail that gets emphasized. Does she wear high-button shoes? No idea. She doesn't seem to carry a parasol. Going about unaccompanied seems to be no big deal. So why is hem length emphasized so often?
Yes, you're right, it's a very minor quibble, and I'll happily drop it in exchange for a copy of the third book (the future existence of which I assume, though I have no evidence to support my assumption). show less

Even better than the first one. I read the first one in German, and I guess with translation the book loses its charm.
For once I could relate to the stupid decision the MC made, I liked the suspense, the story, and even the romance.
Definitely will read the third book of the series.

This wasn't as good as the first book, I don't think, but it was certainly worth reading. In the first book, I was relieved that the heroine didn't go on some foolish quest for which she was wildly overconfident and underprepared, and from which she needed to be rescued. The newbie-who-thinks-they're-all-that-but-has-no-business-taking-on-the-bad-guy trope is so overdone and tiresome, that I was relieved when the first book didn't have that. But this one did. Oh, Ceony, you brave fool, just like all the other modern heroines. Aside from that part of the book, though, I did really like it and look forward to continuing Ceony's journey in the third.

I liked the beginning of the book as it brought back elements of the last book that I love, however about 75% in I almost wanted to just stop completely. Ceony seemed to turn into this pathetic, whinny, love sick know-it-all girl. It was disgusting. I hate to see a strong heroine in a book just be reduced to something like this.

Ceony does something dangerous and makes a mistake that puts people in danger and yet she gets all sulky when people get upset. I almost left it on the DNR list, but I powered through.

There is a third and final installment however with how Ceony turned in this one I wonder how she would be in the third book The Master Magician. She need to just understand she is still an apprentice, she doesn't even know all the show more spells of her craft. I honestly didn't mind the unfurling romance between Ceony and Emery in the beginning. I thought it was cute (even if she is technically his student), but it seemed that it made Ceony not be able to trust that Emery can take care of himself and caused her to make rash and wrong decisions. This book was not horrible by any means however you could say I may be over reacting.

I am going to have to think about reading the third book, I almost feel like I have to. show less