A Deadly Education
May. 12th, 2021 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethNaomi Novik, new Scholomance series.
I stayed up until three in the morning reading this one. Skillfully written, logical, you always want to know what happens next.
But I'm not sure if I liked it.
It seems unkind. But the point of view character changes her opinions as she goes along, and a lot of characters are kind of oblivious/distracted for good reasons, so I'm not sure what we/they see is what is true yet. But baseline, it's set in a school the students aren't exactly expected to survive, and the one student who goes around saving people is blamed for making things more dangerous. Plus it explains that there are no adults in there, but it doesnt explain why, and it explains that the school is broken compared to the plan, but doesnt explain why they keep using it. Either there is more going on than the students understand, there's deliberate evil to be overcome later, or there's truck sized plot holes. I'm reckoning on To Be Continued, but.
There's also a section on how belief shapes magic so even credulous mundanes dont believe magic is real so you cant do magic in front of them and if you try too often you lose your magic because too many people dont believe in you. Also magical creatures cant attack mundanes because to them they dont exist. And mundanes arent good eating.
Which all blocks the secret magic world away nicely but it goes very Mage the Ascension without going full Mage. Yet, anyway.
Means either magic can't change the world or magic can *seriously* change the world. Dont know which yet.
By the end of book one I feel like it's nice the characters survived but the core issues are just getting set up.
So I dont quite know what I think of it or if I like it or not.
But I certainly read it with great attention.
I stayed up until three in the morning reading this one. Skillfully written, logical, you always want to know what happens next.
But I'm not sure if I liked it.
It seems unkind. But the point of view character changes her opinions as she goes along, and a lot of characters are kind of oblivious/distracted for good reasons, so I'm not sure what we/they see is what is true yet. But baseline, it's set in a school the students aren't exactly expected to survive, and the one student who goes around saving people is blamed for making things more dangerous. Plus it explains that there are no adults in there, but it doesnt explain why, and it explains that the school is broken compared to the plan, but doesnt explain why they keep using it. Either there is more going on than the students understand, there's deliberate evil to be overcome later, or there's truck sized plot holes. I'm reckoning on To Be Continued, but.
There's also a section on how belief shapes magic so even credulous mundanes dont believe magic is real so you cant do magic in front of them and if you try too often you lose your magic because too many people dont believe in you. Also magical creatures cant attack mundanes because to them they dont exist. And mundanes arent good eating.
Which all blocks the secret magic world away nicely but it goes very Mage the Ascension without going full Mage. Yet, anyway.
Means either magic can't change the world or magic can *seriously* change the world. Dont know which yet.
By the end of book one I feel like it's nice the characters survived but the core issues are just getting set up.
So I dont quite know what I think of it or if I like it or not.
But I certainly read it with great attention.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-12 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-12 04:20 pm (UTC)Not to mention the het. WHY?!?