The Magic Thief

Like L.M. Boston's Green Knowe series, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Sarah Prineas' The Magic Thief represents a children's book that's bound to be devoured by thousands of adults.

The eponymous thief Conn meets his future magical mentor, wizard Nevery Flinglass, while trying to pick his pocket. Nevery's locus magicalicus, a sort of magical stone that gives a wizard his power, should have killed Conn on the spot -- but does not, much to Nevery's amazement. Thus begins a partnership and a trilogy that will attract as many adults as members of its intended middle-grades audience. Their city of Wellmet, like other cities in this alternative fantasy show more universe, literally runs on magic; recently, that magical force has been gradually disappearing -- almost as if it were being drained by some unseen and unsavory force. Hmmm. While Nevery is investigating the strange diminution, the teenaged Conn undertakes to find his very own locus magicalicus, a requirement if he is ever to become a full-fledged wizard -- or even a full-fledged wizard's apprentice.

Prineas navigates the plot through terrifying scrapes and close calls for Conn, his hard-earned advancement in the wizarding realm, a possible newfound love, and a search for the cause of -- and solution to -- what Nevery calls "the decay of magic" in Wellmet. Take some advice from me: Buy the other two books in the trilogy -- The Magic Thief: Lost and The Magic Thief: Found -- before you finish The Magic Thief. You will thoroughly enjoy the novel and the endearingly sassy and intrepid Conn. How much? So much that you will be eager to pick up Conn's adventures in the sequels just as soon as you finish The Magic Thief. show less

With a recommendation from Diana Wynne Jones ('I couldn't put it down. Wonderful, exciting stuff') The Magic Thief (the first in a series with the same name and consequently re-titled Stolen) challenges the reader to dare contradict such a distinguished fantasy writer. Bravely, I'm going to try.

Yes, I too couldn't put it down. Well, actually I did, but only to catch up on some sleep, but at nearly 400 pages that's to be expected. The action pulled you along, aided by the almost breathless short sentences of both narrative and speech, and the manageable lengths of chapters, around ten pages on average and broken up by illustrations and change of narrator. The vocabulary, despite the odd Latin-influenced term, is expertly aimed at an show more audience aged around 10 or 11 and that target readership is the best to judge its success.

But this older reader is not so sure it totally succeeds in terms of plot and motivation. Connwaer, the young thief of the title, comes across as variously both naive and knowing above his years, often at the same time. Conversely the adults, especially the wizard Nevery, often come across as stupid and blinkered despite their experience and learning. Now, while as humans we all preserve this dichotomy within ourselves, the characters in the story, for all that they are so distinctively described, often come across as pantomime or fairytale archetypes with little or no subtlety. It may be deliberately so on the part of the author but such a ploy may limit the novel's power to become a classic.

Enough cavilling. What about the world the characters find themselves in? Here Prineas is rather more successful even if not totally convincing. The town of Wellmet is delineated on a map which helps to locate the action, and there is a generalised Victorian or at least Dickensian feel to the buildings and situations. Prineas shows a great love of all the accidentals in her magical world, from her coded runes to tasty treats, from the nature of Wellmet's magic to the concept of the wizard's locus magicalicus, taking in misery eels along the way. While elements are familiar from the recent store of children's magical fantasy, the way they are put together is often original and compelling, and has clearly created the foundation for the sequels.

Is it wonderful, exciting stuff as Diana Wynne Jones declares? Well, I certainly was captivated; but whether I would be in a hurry to re-read it is a different matter. A classic it's not, but as a diverting read the best judges might be my grandchildren.

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This book is a small miracle, in a way. Despite the fact that almost every aspect of the plot, the settings, and most principal characters can be found in essentially unchanged form in other, earlier books, this novel manages to transcend what could seem like a pedestrian rehash to become a charming, worthy addition to the canon. And it's emphatically not a pleasant but mediocre generic fantasy novel--it's much, much better than that.

Most of the credit goes to the author's making the protagonist so very likable. I'm reminded of Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief who also managed to charm me completely. There's a passage where truth serum forces our hero to babble the truth, and it's a delight.

I imagine it must be more difficult to write a show more beautifully-crafted, engaging, surprising book from materials that are so well-trodden, so kudos given where kudos are due.

I see others have compared this to the Harry Potter series, or to The Lightning Thief, but the tone seems very dissimilar to me. I thought it more akin to the works of Diana Wynne Jones (not quite as good, nothing ever is--a little more straightforward than she would have written) or to the Flora Segunda.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). show less

I absolutely adored this middle grade fantasy by Prineas. I also loved Prineas's Winterling series which is why I originally picked this book up. This book was even better than the Winterling books, it was so magical and just so much fun to read.

I listened to The Magic Thief on Audiobook and it was very very well done. The narrator sounded exactly like I imagined Conn would sound. The narrator did all the other character voices really well too. I would highly recommend listening to this on audiobook if you enjoy audiobooks. I really think the absolutely wonderful narration was part of the reason I loved this book so much.

Conn is a master lockpick and thief whose main concerns are dodging the ruler of Twilight, Crow, and just trying to show more survive day to day. That is until he picks the wrong pocket, the pocket of an old wizard named Nevery. Conn accidentally stole Nevery’s magicalicus (a magic stone that should kill anyone who touches it outside of the wizard it belongs to). However the magicalicus didn’t kill Conn and Nevery decides to investigate this further and take Conn on as his apprentice. Nevery is in Wellmet to figure out why the amount of magic in the town is declining.

The story starts at a fast pace and never slows down. It's very entertaining, well written and well paced.

A big part of what makes this novel wonderful is the plucky protagonist Conn who is just such an optimist. Even when faced with hard situations he just picks himself up and soldiers through. I loved his candid way of thinking and talking and the way he just assumes that most people are good people (despite his background).

I also loved the magic throughout and the mystery behind why magic was leaving the city. There are also a lot of interesting steampunk devices throughout and there is a lot of magic combined with science kind of explanations that I enjoyed.

This was just a super fun read that just made me feel at happy while I was reading it. Nothing super horrible happens, but there's a good mystery, lots of fun, and lots of quirky characters (who at first seem gruff) but end up really caring about each other.

Overall I just loved this book to pieces and will definitely be reading the next in the series! I highly recommend this novel to fantasy readers of all ages. It is one I will definitely be reading with my seven year old son. The story isn’t super complicated but the magic system and mystery are interesting enough that I think that the story would hold the interest of adult readers as well. show less

Halfway through the book I went online and ordered the 2nd and 3rd book in the series AND the only other book by the same author that was available on my bookstore's website. I had such fun reading this! The narrator's strong voice, his go-getter attitude, his ideas about his apprenticeship contrasted with the wizard's grumpy, deadpan-snarky journal entries ("boy eats pantry bare") and the unique twists on what seem to be stock characters at first glance (they aren't, really! Loved them all) - seriously, I was grinning broadly during all of this, chuckling happily and laughing out loud.

The plot is gripping and exciting, if a little predictable: I had a broad idea of what was going on about a third into the book, but thanks to the show more absolutely entertaining narration and the overall loveableness of the characters and their interactions it didn't lessen the enjoyment one bit, and of course there were twists I didn't see coming, too. I also got a little worried about some of the characters by the end and was genuinely touched by some bits - ah, really, it was just a fantastic read. I gobbled the whole thing up in two sittings (could have been one, but I had to work. Boo boo!).

As I'm obviously already in love with the characters, their relationships, their world, and the book's idea of magic, I'm VERY much looking forward to the next two books, I can't imagine being disappointed. If you have any love for YA fantasy and Diana Wynne Jones, whose blurb made me read the book (I'm not that easily swayed! I just love DWJ's books), go and give this a try. I can't imagine anyone else being disappointed, either.

Edit to add: There was quite a bit of seemingly fancy-pants alliteration on the first couple of pages, and I thought "ugh." I got over that quickly, though. Maybe the author did, too, I'm not sure. Anyway, just read on, the style will grow on you. show less

{First of 4 : The Magic Thief series. Children's, fantasy}

I borrowed this from my children's school library and apparently I also borrowed it three years ago as an e-book from the local library (when I noted that the e-format diminishes the impact of the pencil drawings).

Conn is a gutterboy thief who lives in the Twilight district of the city of Wellmet. One day he gets caught by the mage, Nevery, when he picks his pocket and steals his locus magicalicus - a wizard's magic stone, specific to him, which focuses power. Intrigued by the fact that Conn is unharmed, Nevery takes him home to be his apprentice, despite the fact that he isn't interested in maintaining a household and doesn’t really want an apprentice. Then they realise that show more Conn has magic and needs to be taught - but he hasn’t yet found his own locus magicalicus.

Nevery has returned to Wellmet, from which he was exiled twenty years before, drawn by the fact that the magic of the city has been inexplicably dwindling. He keeps busy investigating the cause of the reduction in magic and doesn't really have time for the boy. Conn feels deep in his bones that he is destined to be a wizard and help Nevery save the magic but he feels Nevery is on the wrong track - so he does some investigating of his own.

The chapters are punctuated by Nevery's diary notes; I'm not sure how much they advance the story, though they do show Nevery's point of view too - but they do have notes in an unknown script that I didn't manage to decode.

Light, solidly written, engaging, good use of language. I like Prineas's clever hyphenated alliterative and assonant vocabulary : 'Nevery swept-stepped from the room' or 'he gave me his keen-gleam glance' or 'musty-dusty'.

I'd like to continue reading this series of brave, earnest Conn, his grumpy master Nevery and their friends.

4 stars show less

The Magic Thief is the story of Connwaer, a gutterboy and thief from the streets of the magical city Wellmet. One night Conn picks the pocket of a wizard — and finds himself caught up in the mystery of Wellmet's decreasing magic. Somehow the magic that keeps the city alive is steadily falling, and no one can find the reason why. Can Conn, with his dreams of becoming a wizard paired with his skills as a pickpocket, find out where all the magic is going?

The story is told in the first person, with Conn providing lively and humorous narration. The writing style is very good, with only a few awkward moments, mostly in the beginning, when the force-hyphenated adjectives like "keen-gleam glance" kept cropping up. I liked them in moderation, show more but they became annoying after awhile, a little too conscious of themselves. But as the story went on the writing became more sure of itself and was, in parts, really lovely. I savored the sentence describing the magic focusing itself on Conn: "It was like looking up at a night sky full of stars and having the stars suddenly look back." Mm! Other passages had a clever humor to them, like when Conn sees the wizard Nevery in his house: "He was on an upper floor, sitting in a dusty chair in a very dusty room reading an even dustier book." I saw the scene perfectly in my head.

There are some good characters in these pages. I especially like Benet, the muscleman who starts off as an almost brutish fighter but appears a few chapters later as quite the domesticated man, knitting sweaters and preparing meals. He also shows a distinct fondness for Conn, despite their rocky beginning.

The illustrations were quite nice. Though the pictures at the beginning of each chapter sometimes interfered with the text, I rather liked seeing the first several lines dropped headlong into the pencil-drawing illustrations. The pictures aided the story's whimsical feel.

I do object — strongly — to the jarring swear word that appears near the beginning of chapter 23 (on page 261 in my copy). Honestly, there is no good reason to throw that in there. I found it distracting, unnecessary, and completely unsuitable to the age group for which this book was written. I highly recommend that word be replaced for the final edition.

Another thing: the use of the word "minion" was rather awkward as well. One or two uses is fine, but "The minions came after me," and "The minion then dodged away," are just awkward. Perhaps it's just because I associate "minion" with "onion"! It would just be less distracting if "man/men" was used instead for several of those instances.

But, these quibbles aside, I found this a delightful read. I was absorbed in the story, and enjoyed the journal entries by Nevery at the end of each chapter. The story reminded me very much of Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief, only for a younger audience. Another fantasy world that this story reminded me of was the Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins. I really love Turner's and Collins' books and I'm glad that there are more books in this vein being published. I recommend this story to any young readers eager for a good fantasy story with a likeable hero and smooth storytelling — and I will be on the lookout for the rest of the Magic Thief trilogy as it is published.

Thank you to HarperCollins for the opportunity to review the Advance Reader edition of this book! show less