I haven't read something considered 'high fantasy' in quite awhile, so perhaps my dissatisfactions are related to aspects of the genre and being unfamiliar again of them.



First off, the positive. I think there were several interesting ideas presented within the book, particularly in the construction of Wild Magic. The price-paying, though disconcerting, felt like the most interesting 'unknown'-- the aspect of the book where I never could quite guess what was coming next, and I appreciated that. T

I haven't read something considered 'high fantasy' in quite awhile, so perhaps my dissatisfactions are related to aspects of the genre and being unfamiliar again of them.



First off, the positive. I think there were several interesting ideas presented within the book, particularly in the construction of Wild Magic. The price-paying, though disconcerting, felt like the most interesting 'unknown'-- the aspect of the book where I never could quite guess what was coming next, and I appreciated that. There is a lot of good imagery throughout, and the settings feel very clear. I get the impression that a fair amount of research went into presenting an accurate description of things such as weaponry, fighting styles, and woodland living. The characters are 'likeable', and I did want to find out more of their interactions.



In terms of negatives, I found that unfortunately, beyond the Wild Magic, much of the rest of the book felt very stereotypically displayed, and thus easily predictable. For example, demons are obviously evil. Elves are obviously long-lived, artistic, perfectionist, and pointy-eared. I don't detect great flaws in most of the 'good' characters, and I don't detect much redeeming in the 'bad' characters. Something to perhaps wait on as there are two more books to go. Every new turn of the book seemed very easy to predict; only the price of the next Wild Magic spell was unknown. Moreover, characters, for all their 'likeability', don't feel fully three-dimensional, but that is in part because of how, in comparison to the word-count time spent describing things or reviewing worries in Kellen's head, character interaction and dialogue aren't as plentiful. Yes, the descriptions are in-depth and really establish the world, but they have a tendency go on in Dickens-like style, repeating themselves often. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, but I feel so much story-telling potential was lost in this imbalance. I mean, I can describe Kellen's Mage-family home, or the council chamber of Armethalieh, or the Elven city of Sentarshadeen better than I can describe the character growth Idalia, or Jermayan, or even Kellen himself goes through. As for Kellen's internal dialogue, I see why in other reviews he is characterized as 'whiny'. Though I'm not sure I would use that word, his internal fretting repeats itself to the point of utter readerly irritation. I don't necessarily think that the attempt to express him in terms of perfectly normal human worry, fear and self-doubt was a bad one; in fact, I can see the author's hard work at trying to make him relatable and the situations properly grave as he wrestles with them. What bothered me about Kellen's internal monologue was that I felt like it was falsely building up tension-- he worried and fretted over things that he had numerous opportunities to ask about, and he never did-- the connection between Wildmages and Demons, for example. His thoughts go on and on about what he doesn't know, and yet he doesn't ask... and when he does (and is promised answers if he would just ask later) he gives up his quest for knowledge and goes back to internally fretting. I would MUCH rather have read more dialogue between characters discussing the issues than read Kellen rehash them for the umpteenth time in his head. Again, I could see this indispellable worrying construed as fairly normal human behavior. But the effect is made worse by the character point-of-view jumping about, giving the audience in classic dramatic irony the answers but withholding them from Kellen. The information that is fed to the audience feels throttled back, deliberately controlled and then its slow trickle covered up in many a pretty-worded description (or Kellen anxiety-thought-deluge) so that the reader does not notice how very little overall understanding of the world they have. Again, like many other aspects, the throttling in itself is not bad; one cannot after all plop the whole of the world in front of the reader in an instant. But the book was over 700 pages long. For the amount of world-building, magic philosophy, and plot points that I got, I feel cheapened that it took that many pages. I mean, I can even keep myself from pointing a finger at the descriptions too much, because they ARE pretty and contribute to a concrete sense of world. But really, at least half of Kellen's internal monologue could have been cut, and the author would still have achieved every characterization goal concerning him they needed.



Ultimately, with all of this taken into account, I felt a bit claustrophobic, often trapped in Kellen's head and still feeling isolated even while he was interacting with the world. Also, in terms of Kellen characterization, though he is likeable and *extremely* prone to worry, I still walked away not quite feeling really in touch with him. He squirms under the constriction of the city, and then apparently has felt very inadequate over how he hasn't been really good at much until he becomes a Knight-Mage, but I didn't get much of a sense of that until his internal dialogue pointed it out after the fact. He comes off as a hard-working, helpful, and without depression... which is really strange, considering so very much of his thoughts are steeped in anxiety. In a really strange way, I felt I knew his thoughts very well, but not so much his emotions. I wanted to see more character interaction, more dialogue, and hear more about the way magic worked. This last thing especially-- I feel like what I know so far of High and Wild Magic is just enough to wonder whether it all logically makes sense. I feel somewhat like there is a sleight-of-hand being performed with the explanations of how the magical systems work, and if I look too carefully I'll find smoke-and-mirror flaws in the concepts. However, being only the first of three, it might be too early to say on that front. Still, I wish I knew more, and not in a hungry-for-the-next-book way; more like this book starved me a little. Here's hoping the next book is a feast of world-building/plot-pointing/character-interaction, instead of a famine.