Zmeyette's Book #6: The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan

The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

**Spoiler alert** (To be safe)

It's been a week since I finished this trilogy, so this post will be more blah than usual. I usually write these posts right after I finish a book, so usually it comes with the I-just-finished-the-book emotions and everything I felt about the book, whether it be giddy or annoyed. And there's the part right now where I might confuse the details of the three books in the trilogy because I read them one after the other, finishing it all off in two days.

Anyway, I guess that's one positive thing that should be attributed to this book: it made me want to read the rest of the books. I just originally planned to check it out since it seemed to be interesting based on the summary I found on Goodreads, but I really didn't think it would catch my attention like this.

The Magicians' Guild is the first in the Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. It is set in the city of Imardin, in the kingdom of Kyralia. Every year, an event occurs, which is called the Purge, in which the people are sent out from the city into the slums. The story begins on one such Purge. Sonea, sent out from their house within the city because of the Purge, gets caught up in the antics of her friends in the slums who are showing their defiance against those who are in charge of the Purge, including the magicians who were sent out by the King. In a moment of rage, Sonea joins in throwing a stone against the magicians, who are comfortably shielded by their magical barrier, as nothing but magic can penetrate it. However, Sonea's stone goes past the barrier and hits a magician, to the great surprise of the magicians, and of Sonea herself. This starts in the hunt for Sonea, as the Magicians' Guild becomes interested in her, since someone like her who's had no training and yet was able to use magic is powerful--and dangerous. Not just to others, but to herself as well.

There are various ways in which I distinguish the three books, but the main one would be: the leading man. In this book, it seems to be Cery, Sonea's childhood friend and thief-wannabe. He helps Sonea to hide from the magicians and actually helps her in any way he could. Well, that's because he likes Sonea, duh. Their relationship is very interesting, and I like Cery's character, because he's fun, daring, and reliable.

Another character that I like is Rothen. (Yes, they have kinda weird names. It's a different world, after all.) He takes Sonea under his wing upon catching her and tries to make her understand that magicians aren't evil by default. It takes a while before Sonea is captured so Rothen's character is introduced and is depicted even as they search for Sonea, which shows his kind nature, which in a way also makes him oblivious to the darker tendencies of his comrades. In this area, Dannyl, Rothen's former student and now his friend, is much more adept. Dannyl is another interesting character, for reasons which are unraveled in the next two books. In this one, Dannyl is interesting because of the methods he used in order to find Sonea. Rothen and Dannyl's banter is also very fun to read.

This is not my favorite book of the trilogy, but I liked it enough to read the next two books. What I like in this book as a part of the trilogy is how it sets up the characters, because this trilogy is amazing in the way it turns my perceptions of the characters upside down. Even in this book alone, at first I am made to hate the magicians, and at the end they're not so bad after all. I even thought Rothen was evil at first, but even that changed. And things change even more in the next two books.

Another way that I distinguish the three books is Sonea's state in relation to the Guild: in this first one she still has not joined the guild. It's interesting how her relationship with the guild transforms over the three books. That, along with the characters, especially Sonea, who I like as well as a heroine, really perked my interest in this trilogy. But maybe I'll say more about Sonea in the next two posts.

So, overall, this isn't my favorite book of the three, but it was a good start.



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