| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: Medium (but it's mostly just implied, and almost entirely in the parts about the demons) Violence level: High Back Cover: “Kellen Tavadon, son of the Arch-Mage Lycaelon, thought he knew the way the world worked. His father, leading the wise and benevolent Council of Mages, protected and guided the citizens of the Golden City of the Bells. Young Mages in training—all men, for women were unfit to practice magic—memorized the intricate details of High Magick and aspired to seats on the council. Then he found the forbidden Books of Wild Magic—or did they find him? The three slim volumes woke Kellen to the wide world outside the City's isolating walls. This Magic was not dead, strangled by rules and regulations. It felt like a living thing, guided by the hearts and minds of those who practiced it and benefited from it. Questioning everything he has known, Kellen discovers too many of the City's dark secrets. Banished, with the Outlaw Hunt on his heels, Kellen invokes Wild Magic—and finds himself running for his life with a unicorn at his side. Kellen's life changes almost faster than he can understand or accept. Rescued by a unicorn, healed by a female Wild Mage who knows more about Kellen than anyone outside the City should, meeting Elven royalty and Elven warriors, and plunged into a world where the magical beings he has learned about as abstract concepts are flesh-and-blood creatures...Kellen both revels in and fears his new freedom. Especially once he learns about Demons. He'd always thought they were another abstract concept—a stand-in for ultimate evil. But if centaurs and dryads are real, then Demons surely are as well. And the one thing all the Mages of the City agreed on was that practicing Wild Magic corrupted a Mage. Turned him into a Demon. Would that be Kellen's fate? Deep in Obsidian Mountain, the Demons are waiting. Since their defeat in the last great war, they've been biding their time, sowing the seeds of distrust and discontent between their human and Elven enemies. Very soon now, when the Demons rise to make war, there will be no alliance between High and Wild Magic to stand against them. And all the World will belong to the Endarkened." |
I gave this book to a friend of mine because I enjoyed it so much, and he started complaining about the over-description of just about everything—especially rooms and furnishings. He's right, of course. You don't really need to know the exact pattern of black and white tiles on the floor of the Tavadon living room (except perhaps as an example of the combination of sterility and opulence that Lycaelon enjoys). But until he pointed it out, I didn't even notice, because I was properly lost in the story itself.
The setup takes a long while, because they take the time to fully explore the world Kellen grew up with, and to follow along as he begins to see the flaws. It's possible that exploration isn't entirely necessary, but you do need to at least have some idea of it in order to understand his character and reactions to everything that happens after he's banished. He both hates the City, and loves it, and he feels just about the same way toward his father.
There are three things I enjoyed most about this book. One is when Kellen figures out what he truly is and how to properly use his magic. That's probably because I like the idea of characters who are just naturally good at what they do, especially if they don't quite realize it at first. It's sort of like that quote from Einstein, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it'll spend it's whole life believing it is stupid.” The second thing I enjoyed is Kellen's determination at the end (or you could call it stubbornness), that the only person who gets to define him or his destiny is himself. And third, I just love the elves. They're such perfectionists about the most trivial things, and I find it both amusing and somehow inspiring.
Incidentally, these days I just go ahead and skip the parts about the demons. I don't even know if they're precisely necessary to the plot. I think you pretty much get the idea from what's going on with Kellen and the elves, but I'd love to hear someone's opinion reading it for the first time, if you could skip those bits and still follow the story. Because honestly, most of the high “bedroom” and violence levels are from the demons.