The Magician’s Apprentice was…well it was a good novel. It was entertaining and was filled with action, intrigue, romance, and magic. There was plenty of story to take me through all 770 pages, but there was still something missing. (I will get to that later)
The Magician’s Apprentice is primarily about the aggression between the countries of Sachaka and Kyralia. This aggression is shown from the point of view from a newly discovered magician’s apprentice, Tessia, who’s only dream is to become a healer liker her father. Lord Dakon, Tessia’s master and lord of lands along the border between Sachaka and Kyralia. Jayan, Dakon’s more senior and jealous apprentice. Hanara, the slave of a traveling Sachakan nobleman. The last character is Stara, a woman forced into marriage as she travels to meet her Sachakan father.
So, as you can see this story has a wide cast of characters and has a fairly large scope. But don’t worry this story keep on moving from start to finish and has no problem keeping anyone’s attention. Trudi Canavan’s writing style is very quick and her chapters always have something going on. While I did like the quick plot progression and constant action there were some parts of The Magician’s Apprentice that were lacking, for me.
First was the introduction of Stara. Don’t get me wrong I really enjoyed Stara, in fact for most of the book she was my favorite character. However, the problem lies with her story. It really did not need to be there. Now, I could be wrong since I have not read The Black Magician Trilogy. The way her story ended did not allude to any of the build up there was through the entire book and ultimately the climax was boring, which was jarring considering the rest of her story was so interesting. My final problem with Stara’s character was the fact that she was introduced almost 300 pages into the story and had no purpose. It just frustrated me.
The second thing that bugged me was the magic. If I was just starting to read the fantasy genre I would have loved this book a lot more. In fact, for those of you not well seasoned with epic fantasy should read this. Now, the problem with the magic for me was again how it broke the pace. All the action in these stories leads up to magical battles which are anticlimactic because it is a bunch of people standing in a line shooting at each other. It reminded me eerily of the final battle of Breaking Dawn (which still haunts me four years later), no disrespect to Mrs. Canavan.
My final problem was the ending. The climax, or should I say the first one, was amazing. The second one though seemed a bit contrived and stretched the book out much longer than it needed to be. The epilogue too dragged. Pieces of it were interesting, but it was odd how it jumped from one year after events, to even ten years later. It was odd and so overall; the ending was not as strong as it could have been if it was shorter.
Now, do not get me wrong, this was a good, solid book with all the right fantastical elements. This story was just very basic, which is fine if you are just getting into the genre, but is less appealing to more seasoned readers. This book was still a quick and fun read though, so I think I will try a second Trudi Canavan series to see how more of her writing is.
Check out Trudi Canavan’s website here.
Content:
-Language: Not very much that I can remember.
-Violence: Yes, there is violence, but most of it is not gruesome.
-Sexuality: It is mentioned frequently, sometimes in detail, but never really shown.
-I recommend this book for ages 14 and up.
My rating:
8/10
-Dylan