Summary:
Magic? It’s for the rich, the powerful…the Archmage and his elite wizards and cloud-masters.
Livak is not among them. She haunts the back taverns of the realm, careful to appear neither rich nor poor, neither tall nor short… neither man nor woman. Obscurity is her protection, thievery her livelihood, and gambling her weakness.
Alas, some bets are hard to resist. Particularly when they offer a chance to board a ship for Hadrumal, the fabled city of the Archmage. So Livak follows a minor wizard, Shiv, in an attempt to turn a rune or two, never dreaming that the stolen tankard she wants to sell contains the secrets of an ancient magic far more powerful, and infinitely darker, than any mortal mage’s spells
Review:
I tried folks, I really did. This is an oldie – 1999 to be precise – and side from a female protagonist and a primary male character who casually admits to having a boyfriend (progressive for the year, to be sure) there just isn’t much here here. I have trouble keeping characters apart. The book has a tendency to jump POV in a single chapter (with each chapter being rather long and divisions of time, rather than narrator) made the more confusing when Livak’s story is told in first person, and everyone else is told in the third person. There’s no good reason for that division either, at least not from a narrative point of view. I have to wonder if it was a short-cut way to try and draw the reader in? Dunno.
For epic fantasy, the quest is pretty tame and the magic is woefully underdeveloped for a story about wizards and practically not used beyond some parlor tricks – it almost seems more theoretical than real.
Ultimately, this book is worse than bad: it’s boring and doesn’t have enough story to justify the almost 500 pages that it fills, making it impossible to recommend. There are too many other, better, traditional fantasies out there to recommend in its place.
Fantasy Findings 