Fantasy Novella Review: Minor Mage by T Kingfisher

Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher

Minor Mage is the latest novella by "T Kingfisher", the pen name for SF/F author Ursula Vernon's non-children's work.  Which is an interesting point in and of itself, because the author herself has raised questions online about whether or not Minor Mage is or is not a children's work.  I lean towards it being acceptable for middle-grade and beyond audiences personally, with the story featuring a child protagonist, a talking armadillo.....and also a whole bunch of talk of murder and eating of people.  So yeah, it could go either way I guess.

Regardless, like much of Vernon/Kingfisher's work, it's really really fun and witty, with the characters being easy to root for, and the situations they get into fun to see play out and resolved.  The story is on the long side for a novella (I'd be unsurprised if it has too many words to qualify for a novella per Hugo/Nebula guidelines), but moves at a really easy pace and I finished it in a single day.  It's not anything essential to read, like some novellas this year - and it's been a hell of a year for novellas - but fun short works are great to have, and Minor Mage is pretty damn fun.


Plot Summary:  Twelve Year Old Oliver is a Wizard.  He's just not a very good one, knowing only three spells, one of which is simply meant to control his allergy to armadillo dander, with a small armadillo as his familiar.  But he's all his village has, and the village's drought has made it desperate, so in a panic they organize and run Oliver out of town to the Rainblade Mountains, where he can find a way to bring forth some rain.  And so begins Oliver's journey, through the dry plains, and then into a magic and animal filled forest, with only his armadillo to keep him company.  A minor mage in these circumstances can't be expected to get the job done, let alone survive.  But a minor mage like Oliver will have to do so.

Thoughts:  Vernon/Kingfisher has always been adept, in both her short fiction and her longer stories, at taking concepts that are silly on their faces, and exploring them earnestly, in a way that is often full of humor, but isn't an utter joke at heart.  Minor Mage is another great example of that - the idea of sending a 12 year old, who isn't some special chosen one mage, but merely a minor mage with grand hopes of one day - a far off day most likely - becoming more, is a concept that could easily come off as cheesy or as satire of other works in other hands.  But it's not here, just the foundation of a plot for Vernon to explore, as Oliver encounters various dangers and has to use what he has, and a lot of luck, not to mention the great help of his much wiser familiar, to get through it all.  Which is not to say that the book doesn't have something to say about an issue - in this case, the tendency of desperate people to talk themselves and others into a mob mentality for the worse, and to ignore facts in front of them that are inconvenient - but the book  isn't solely about that, and instead forms a fun adventure romp throughout, despite the pretty dire stakes for our hero that he gets himself into.

Of course, again I should highlight the humor of it all, and how Vernon manages to pile ridiculous concept after ridiculous concept after another into this world without blinking or it all seeming silly.  Without spoiling too much, we have magical murderer identifying harps made from bones, sheep made of rain (kind of), and a group of very pragmatic bandits.  The dialogue is terrific, and the story is pretty clever in how it gets everything resolved, surprising me quite a bit and being just long enough to be satisfying while just short enough to not outlive its welcome.  It's a pretty damn fun and solid novella, and I'd definitely recommend it.