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Jun. 9th, 2020 08:24 pmI loved pretty much every minute of reading C.M. Waggoner's Unnatural Magic. Is the pacing kind of all over the place? Absolutely! Does the central mystery make sense? Not really! Do I care? Only like an extraordinarily minimal amount, I enjoyed hanging out with the characters so much!
Unnatural Magic is composed of two extremely different storylines that only intersect about 80% of the way through the book. In the first, Onna, a respectable young lady who is also a magical/mathematical prodigy, attempts to pursue a magical education despite hurdles of classism and sexism; this journey eventually leads her abroad to the Isle of Hexos, where she starts working with Loga, a flamboyant wizard with a very dramatic backstory, to investigate a series of troll murders. This half the plotline has very much a Regencyish fantasy-of-manners vibe, along the lines of Stevermer's College of Magics, and is fun in much the same way. I kind of wish Onna had gotten to Hexos significantly earlier in the book, because none of the other relevant characters in her plotline or indeed the actual mystery plot get introduced until the back half and I wanted a lot more time with them to get invested in them properly, but everyone is very charming and if this were the whole book it would be very readable if not exceptional.
Meanwhile, in the other half of the plotline, Tsira, a gruff half-troll with a chip on her soldier, rescues Jeckran, a depressed, queer, overeducated soldier in distress, and carries him back to her cave to convalesce. ('Her' being an imperfectly translated pronoun, as troll gender in the book has different connotations from human gender, a thing I also appreciate; also, Jeckran won me over completely in the extremely relatable moment early on when he panicked over the realization that he hadn't asked Tsira's pronouns until past the point when it would be weird not to know and was now trapped using second person indefinitely.) Some truly incredible mutual pining, eventually with benefits, ensues!
The vibe of this part of the book is definitely not Regency fantasy of manners, but something simultaneously much earthier and much more tender as Tsira and Jeckran attempt to forge a life for themselves as soldiers of fortune in a world where neither of them quite fit. She's the muscle ... and the brains ... and the boss .... and he's got good looks and a fancy accent, which occasionally also come in useful! I care about them both extraordinarily and would read about their adventures forever!
Eventually the troll murders catch up with Tsira's family, and she and Jeckran end up on a Revenge Quest that sends them straight into Onna's half of the plot. Tsira and Jeckran and Onna and Loga are a lot of fun together and again I wish this could have happened earlier than 80% of the book in (especially since Onna's efforts to help the trolls ring a lot better to me when she's actually interacting regularly with a major troll character) but, on the other hand, I would be incredibly loath to lose a single scene of Tsira And Jeckran Adventures so I really can't complain about this too much. Anyway, overall extremely enjoyable, I will absolutely read whatever Waggoner writes next.
Unnatural Magic is composed of two extremely different storylines that only intersect about 80% of the way through the book. In the first, Onna, a respectable young lady who is also a magical/mathematical prodigy, attempts to pursue a magical education despite hurdles of classism and sexism; this journey eventually leads her abroad to the Isle of Hexos, where she starts working with Loga, a flamboyant wizard with a very dramatic backstory, to investigate a series of troll murders. This half the plotline has very much a Regencyish fantasy-of-manners vibe, along the lines of Stevermer's College of Magics, and is fun in much the same way. I kind of wish Onna had gotten to Hexos significantly earlier in the book, because none of the other relevant characters in her plotline or indeed the actual mystery plot get introduced until the back half and I wanted a lot more time with them to get invested in them properly, but everyone is very charming and if this were the whole book it would be very readable if not exceptional.
Meanwhile, in the other half of the plotline, Tsira, a gruff half-troll with a chip on her soldier, rescues Jeckran, a depressed, queer, overeducated soldier in distress, and carries him back to her cave to convalesce. ('Her' being an imperfectly translated pronoun, as troll gender in the book has different connotations from human gender, a thing I also appreciate; also, Jeckran won me over completely in the extremely relatable moment early on when he panicked over the realization that he hadn't asked Tsira's pronouns until past the point when it would be weird not to know and was now trapped using second person indefinitely.) Some truly incredible mutual pining, eventually with benefits, ensues!
The vibe of this part of the book is definitely not Regency fantasy of manners, but something simultaneously much earthier and much more tender as Tsira and Jeckran attempt to forge a life for themselves as soldiers of fortune in a world where neither of them quite fit. She's the muscle ... and the brains ... and the boss .... and he's got good looks and a fancy accent, which occasionally also come in useful! I care about them both extraordinarily and would read about their adventures forever!
Eventually the troll murders catch up with Tsira's family, and she and Jeckran end up on a Revenge Quest that sends them straight into Onna's half of the plot. Tsira and Jeckran and Onna and Loga are a lot of fun together and again I wish this could have happened earlier than 80% of the book in (especially since Onna's efforts to help the trolls ring a lot better to me when she's actually interacting regularly with a major troll character) but, on the other hand, I would be incredibly loath to lose a single scene of Tsira And Jeckran Adventures so I really can't complain about this too much. Anyway, overall extremely enjoyable, I will absolutely read whatever Waggoner writes next.
