The Paper Magician
Charlie N. Holmberg
ISBN: 9781477823835
Read January 16, 2015
Vaguely Victorian, vaguely steampunk, world with vague characters & vague setting that all leech the interest value of a really nifty magical system.
I really wanted to like this so much more than I did. It promised Victorian manners and magical origami, and "forbidden" necromantic magics! Sadly, it didn't really deliver.
First off, it was a quick, easy, read. It wasn't written poorly in a grammatical or technical sense, no typos or fragments or strange jump-cuts. It all flowed quite well.
All of which wouldn't normally be considered an accomplishment, except that the actual story and plotting seem very much in need of an editor, or perhaps a more experienced author.
We start out great: Ceony Twill has just graduated from magic school, and is about to get her magical material assignment - the one man-made material she'll be able to magically influence for the rest of her life. She desperately wants to be a metalworker, but she is forced into bonding with paper due to a serious deficit in the number of active practicioners.
All of this sounds so great! Sadly, that's about all the backstory and interest and personal character motivation we get, as everything is instantly sidetracked into a somewhat sketchy mentor-student love-affair/rescue attempt that comprises a slightly maddening flashback-ridden waltz through the secondary character's heart (thus meaning we learn more about him than we do the main character herself) while she learns about him and what kind of man he is, and how much she's growing to love him - all inside of one short day.
Other minor missteps include a waste of a psuedo-Victorian/Edwardian English setting (please do research, even though we all speak English, we speak and behave in very different ways given different locations and time-periods!) and a villainess with absolutely no character to her at all.
Urgh. What a sad waste of a really great concept.
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