A Darker Shade of Magic
A Darker Shade of Magic is the first of three novels in a universe where there are four Londons – Grey London which is ours, Red London full of magic and life, White London where magic is dying and Black London where magic destroyed everything. Black London is closed off and barred to keep the other worlds safe. Such a fascinating premise, full of opportunity for good story telling!
Author V. E. Schwab tells the story through Red London’s prince Rhy and his foster brother Kell, and their dynamics with the kings in Red, White and Grey London. Kell is actually an Antari, a powerful magician able to use blood magic to pass from one London to another and chafes at being confined to London, to the forced fosterage with the the king and queen. Kell and Rhy are close as brothers, as best friends, and this love combines with a sense of duty to keep Kell in line.
Kell (and the other Antari, Holland from White London, possibly an enemy) are forbidden to bring people or items across from one London to another, and are forbidden to do more than pass letters from one monarch to another. Kell rebels and secretly takes small collectibles across for himself and sometimes others. Unfortunately the last item he takes, supposedly a letter, is actually a powerful artifact from Black London, sent to corrupt and destroy Red London.
Had Schwab stayed within this boundary she would have had a powerful, compelling story. What will Kell and Rhy do? How will Holland revitalize his world of White London? Can that world even be saved? How do they push the Black London artifact back where it belongs?
Kell, Rhy and Holland aren’t complete, 3-dimensional characters, but they are close, with a reasonable shot to develop into real people that we readers care about. Unfortunately Schwab introduces Lila Bard from Grey London, orphaned thief and wanna-be adventurer and the story and characters go downhill from here. I don’t like Lila. She’s the character that we are supposed to identify with and root for but she’s shallow, foolish, selfish, uncaring. She is tolerable in the first book, probably because she remains a stock character and plays a secondary role.
A Gathering of Shadows
I liked the story well enough to read most of the second novel in the series, A Gathering of Shadows, but finally gave up with about 50 pages to go in this second novel, skipped to the ending, then read only the ending of the third novel, A Conjuring of Light. Lila is the main character in A Gathering of Shadows and I couldn’t stand her, and the other characters do not carry the story.
The writing is OK, nothing great, with semi-decent dialogue and slow pacing. Schwab spends most of A Gathering of Shadows with Lila on a privateer ship before she, her ship’s captain and Kell, all compete in magic games with the other three empires in the Red London world. The real story is with Holland and his struggle in White London, which gets comparatively few pages.
There are plot holes of course. Normally if the story is good or the characters are real people we readers whiz right by the holes, notice but suspend disbelief. This series isn’t that good and the plot holes stand out. The most obvious is the difference between Grey and White London.
Grey London never had much magic and now has virtually none, yet manages to thrive (more or less). White London used to have magic which is fading and dwindling and the entire world is dying. Why the difference? Holland manages to bring some magic back to White London which regains some color and life, but the end of A Conjuring of Light suggests this too will fade, with only a whisper of hope for life.
The series has overall high ratings on Amazon although several negative reviewers shared my dislike for Lila and the overall wooden writing.
Overall I would rate Book 1, A Darker Shade of Magic, as 3+ stars.
Book 2, A Gathering of Shadows, is 2 Stars and I didn’t read enough of Book 3 to rate it.
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