Monday, September 2, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey




Magic for Liars is a story that got a lot of praise from sources I trust when it came out.  Its author, Sarah Gailey, has been nominated for four Hugo Awards over the past three years (including my pick for this year's award for Best Short Story).  Still, the only longer form work of Gailey's that I've read was their "River for Teeth," which was an exaggerated kind of nuts story (Hippos being used for a heist on the Mississippi!) that I didn't quite love, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Magic for Liars, which is clearly a very different kind of book.

And yeah, it is very different, and it is uses its mix of genres - a noir detective/magic-school mashup - to extremely interesting effect.  You'll note I use the word interesting rather than "good," because I'm not really sure how much I liked Magic for Liars, to be honest.  The characters are all strong and the plot and setting is well done, let's be clear - this is a well crafted book.  But it's an incredibly cynical book from start to finish, ending with a major oof, and I'm not really sure it's something I'd want to read again.


---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Magic is real.  Ivy Gamble is one of the few who knows that, although Ivy has no magic whatsoever.  Instead, it was Ivy's twin sister Tabitha who wound up with magical talent, went to magic school, and became part of the magic community, leaving Ivy to be miserably jealous and....normal.  Years after it became clear that Ivy was never going to have magical talent, after Ivy's mother died from cancer, Ivy maintains a life as a Private Investigator, investigating things like adulterous spouses and the like.  More serious crimes, and things involving magic, are not in her purview.

But when the Headmaster of the Osthorne Academy for Young Mages - the school Ivy's sister Tabitha teaches at - comes into Ivy's office to ask Ivy to investigate a murder, Ivy can't say no.  And so Ivy enters a world that was never hers, filled with adults and kids with powers she can barely understand, to solve a case that is far beyond anything she's ever done before.  And as she wanders the school she always dreamed of going to, she can't help but try to pretend to belong.....but can she really find the truth without her lies coming down all around her, ruining everything once again?
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Magic for Liars is pretty up front about what it is, with the book's first chapter (after the prologue) making it clear that this not going to be a totally happy story for our narrating protagonist.  Which might not seem like much of a surprise for this mix of genres - like I said above the jump, this book is a mix of a noir detective story and the magic school subversion story, and dark cynical version of the magic school story are hardly rare these days.  But many versions of those stories try to play things for laughs or dark humor, and that is basically never the case with Magic for Liars.

Which is not to say the story ever drags or gets too depressing to read at any given point - even without humor or fun, Magic for Liars is written really well, with excellent characters and a very solid mystery.  Ivy is an excellent lead as the disillusioned PI whose case takes her right into the center of what she always used to, and still clearly does, desire.  While I wouldn't ever characterize the book as making me want to root for her, it still made me hope that Ivy could both solve the mystery and achieve some closure, and I did care about what happened to her.  The other characters in the book, whether that be the students at the heart of the investigation - Alexandra the control freak gifted student who terrorizes her friends and other teachers and Dylan, the boy who is convinced he's a chosen one for instance - or the teachers are also well built, and you can really get a good feel for who they are in this strange setting.

But again, all these characters combine into a plot that from beginning to end is quite a bit cynical, in a way that I'm not sure I like.  If I had to really analyze Magic for Liars in depth, I'd say this is a book about "Want," and more particular, "Want for things that are or border on being impossible."  Ivy wants to be magical, and the mystery gives her a chance to pretend to be.  Alexandra wants to be in control and through her great power she wants everyone to conform to the roles and ideas she's comfortable with.  Dylan wants to be acknowledged as the prophesied chosen one.   The headmaster wants to find proof that her friend was murdered.  Gnovgun jnagf gb hfr ure cbjref gb fnir ure ybire sebz gur fnzr qvfrnfr gung xvyyrq ure zbgure.*

*Spoiler for the ending in ROT13, DO NOT READ if you intend to read this book yourself as it gives it all away.

And what Magic for Nothing argues through these characters and their wants is that such wants lead to nothing but despair and misery/tragedy.  Which I guess is an okay moral, except the way Magic for Nothing pulls this off is not by some realization that changes characters for the better, but for these wants to play all the way out to truly tragic ends.  And so, even with the warning given by the first chapter that this our main character is going to make some choices that lead to unhappiness, the ending here packs a major wallop.  Like it's funny, I have no problems with dark books or depressing endings (Baru for example.), but they usually say something profound with those aspects (or have moments of lightness or amusement in between to lighten things up) and I don't really think Magic for Liars gets there?

Like I said, interesting.
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