Saturday, April 7, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso




  The Tethered Mage is the first in a new fantasy trilogy from Melissa Caruso, and it appears to be her debut novel as well.  The premise is interesting if not unique - in this fantasy world, those born with great enough magical power (whether it be as an alchemist, artificer, or most dangerously, as a warlock who can control elemental magic) have visible marks - mage marks - on their skin.  The powerful Serene Empire does not allow such mage-marked individuals to do what they will, drafting them (usually as a very young child) into service for the Empire.  The Empire calls these individuals "Falcons" and they are controlled by a magic wristband (a "jess") which ties these falcons to another person - a "Falconer" - who has the power to release or imprison the mage-marked's powers with a special command word.

  Such a setting could very easily be used to tell a story about the issues and morality of the use of power and control over other individuals for the supposed greater good, but while The Tethered Mage plays lip service to said idea, it's far more interested in being a normal fantasy thriller.  It's possible that this idea will be of greater concern in the sequel (coming out this month), but the end result is a fantasy novel that is merely solid rather than truly standing out.  The characters and worldbuilding are solid enough that I will check out the sequel to see if it improves, but for now, The Tethered Mage is simply a competent unspectacular start to a fantasy trilogy.

More after the Jump:

---------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------
Amalia Cornaro is the daughter and heir to one of the most powerful people in the Serene Empire, the greatest political power within the land.  Her mother is on the Empire's ruling body, the Council of Nine, and is one of its most powerful members.  But she's never considered herself to be proper heir material, and worries about trying to deal with the dangers of politics....and would much rather be studying the magic of artifice with some of her friends from school.

But when she sneaks away from her mother to obtain a rare book, she runs into a dangerous situation - a girl, bearing a mage mark, using the rare power of bale fire, an uncontrollable flame, in the middle of the City.  In an accident, Amalia winds up "Jessing" the girl, a wild young woman named Zaira, and thus becoming the falconer and the keeper of Zaira's deadly flame.  And that flame is arguably the Empire's most powerful weapon, which makes Amalia and Zaira even more valuable to the Empire....except Zaira is absolutely against being used for anyone's purposes but her own and refuses to cooperate like the usual falcons (who are taken as children).  Amalia wishes to befriend Zaira, to try to find a way to make up for her actions, but Zaira only wishes to be free.

But Amalia may not have time to try to find a way to bond with Zaira - as political strife in the Empire has come, with a formerly independent province threatening secession and a mage lord from a foreign power acting suspiciously.  And there are hints at traitors within the Empire helping to fan these flames.  Amalia and Zaira will need to come together to survive these machinations and to possibly save the Empire from a disastrous war....but can they really do that when Zaira hates the Empire which has seemingly enslaved her?
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Putting aside the issue of the book basically ignoring the biggest intrigue of its premise (more on that in a bit), the book's best elements come from its plot actually managing to surprise me in how it develops (to some extent) its characters and the overall world dynamics.  The book is essentially a fantasy thriller, with the main question being who really is responsible for fanning the flames of war (give you a hint, the obvious evil foreign guy isn't the main enemy) and the book does an excellent job setting the stage for that plot and having its reveals be somewhat unpredictable (at least to me) while making a lot of sense in the end.

The book is told from the First Person View of Amalia, which alternates between frustrating and satisfying.  Amalia is both sheltered (from the lives of others in the Empire, particularly those with mage marks) and not sheltered (with regards to the political games played by her mother and the political allies of the Empires) and the end result is a character who alternates between seeming a pretty smart guile hero and one who I kept wanting to yell at for making stupid decisions/comments.  Still, for the most part I liked Amalia as a heroine, as she develops from a person scared of the future of conflict to a person who knows she and only she can take charge of the situation (something I hope doesn't revert in the sequel).

The other two main characters are a bit of a mixed bag.  Marcello, the love interest and Amalia's essential teacher of her role as a falconer, is essentially the genderflipped version of the classic generic love interest - the only attribute he has that isn't about his relation with Amalia is his relation to his falcon, his little sister who is an artificer capable of making dangerous weapons (to his dismay), but really doesn't get much to do on his own.  So there's that.

And then there's Zaira, the Mage of the title.  Zaira does get a lot of development, and for the most part I liked her a lot.  She's sarcastic and witty, independent and quick thinking, while at the same time well meaning despite a tragic backstory.  Where she takes stupid actions, unlike Amalia, it's due to her background and rash attitude, and is a lot more believable and less frustrating.  But the book ends with her making an about face rather abruptly on her feelings toward her forced role as one of the Empire's falcons, something which she is absolutely and understandably against from the beginning of the story.

Speaking of that ending, again it's fine at resolving the plot threads of this book while leaving sequel hooks for this year's sequel - the series' clear main antagonist gets away scot-free - but the about face Zaira has about being enlisted as a Falcon just feels weird.  Again, another book would've made a big issue over the idea of forcibly conscripting people into the military just for being born with powers, and the book has some characters make overtures in that direction, only to abandon that idea and to have all the characters seemingly accept it as a normal course of business.  It's weird and felt like a miss.

The result is a book with solid characters, and a solid thriller fantasy plot, but not one that particularly stands out.  I'm hoping Book 2 (out this month) will improve on that, but we'll have to see.



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