I found the first two volumes in the library catalog, and because my library is currently under construction, and I was standing in the gymnasium of a former elementary school which currently serves as the temporary home for my library, I needed the librarian’s help to collect the book from the closed stacks. That was just a few days ago.
I sailed through this book.
It was an easy,
well-paced and exciting read. I returned the book just a few days later, and immediately tried
to secure the second volume, only to find that the one copy the library
has is currently out, and another patron had a hold on it, when it returns.
So I added my name to the hold list, and then picked up a few more books from the book sale in the meantime.* I’m
currently enjoying once of those, while I wait for my turn at book two of
the Scholomance Trilogy, called The Last Graduate.
Book one is called A Deadly Education. Naomi Novik has written a few other books, including a whole bunch of books in her Temeraire Series, which seems to be about alternate history, dragons, and whatnot, but I don't recall ever reading any of her stuff. Novik also has a number of fantasy short stories that are often included in fantasy anthologies, so maybe I've run across one or two of those.
The Scholomance is the name of the school these young magical folks attend. This ain't Hogwarts or Brakebills. I was gratified to read Novik's take on a magical school, and how different it is from so many other's. It seems that when a particular literary archetype has been written about enough, the traits become so standardized that if a vampire doesn't cringe at garlic, we're all thinking, "That can't be true!" Its refreshing to read a story that breaks that mold, and Naomi Novik has built a world where magic, what powers it, and how it is taught is different from the other books I've read. There will be some hard-core magic readers out there who've read everything is this genre magical realism? fabulism? swords & sorcery, sans swords? who beg to differ, and please do, I just haven't read anything quite like this before.
Book one is fast paced, well plotted, and exciting, with spots of action, trauma, classism, and a kind of teen rage-angst that could blacken stars and end worlds.
Maybe that will be in part two... [rubs hands together like an evil spirit watching politics.]
* When I went back to return book one and reserve book two, the third book was still on the book sale shelf, so I bought it, along with a few others. cue more hand rubbing
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