I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda Published by Daw Books on August 6 2019
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: I adored the magic system in this story, but I wasn’t as excited about the plot.
I have such mixed feelings about this book, which makes me a little sad. From the moment I saw the magical cover, I knew I wanted to read The Gossamer Mage, but I have to admit I struggled to get into it, and I’ll explain why in this review. This is my first Julie E. Czerneda book, so I can’t speak for her other works of fiction, but I have heard other reviewers say that this story is much darker than some of her other books.
One of the things I struggled with was the plot, but I’ll try to give you a short recap. The story is told from two main points of view. Maleonarial is a mage scribe who interprets the sacred words of the Deathless Goddess into intentions, written spells that produce various magical creatures and objects. For every spell written, however, there is a steep cost: the Goddess takes away a mage’s life bit by bit, and the mage ages at an impossible rate, until he finally dies. Unfortunately for the mage, he doesn’t have a choice. He must write down the words of the Goddess. Maleonarial, though, has had enough. He wants his youth back, and so he sets out to destroy her.
At the same time, a hold daughter named Kaitealyon has just found out that her son Leksand has heard the voice of the Goddess and is destined to become a mage scribe himself. Devastated and knowing the horrible life in store for him, Kait is asked to accompany him on his journey to the mage school, where he will train.
But on their way, they discover something evil is trying to destroy the magic of the Goddess. Kait and Maleonarial join forces to try to stop it, even as Maleonarial is still determined to kill the Goddess.
By far, my favorite part of this story was the idea of gossamers, the “mistakes” created by mages when they write the incorrect words of a spell. Mages do not want to make gossamers, so they almost become objects of shame. But a gossamer is a wild and unpredictable construct, a creature set free from the constraints of a spell to fly away and live its own life. It’s a delightful idea, but it wasn’t as developed as I wanted it to be. Czerneda gives us examples of gossamers throughout the story, but they aren’t the main focus until the very end. Then several events come together in the last few pages and a lot of the story finally fell into place for me.
I also loved the descriptions of how the mages create spells. Czerneda has a wonderful talent for vivid description, and she’s clearly spent a lot of time designing her magic system, from the pens the mages use to write with, to the ink pots full of incredible inks that make up the spells, to the parchments. The results of spells are called “made” objects: made-horses, made-cats, etc. If a traveling party needs fresh horses for their carriage, for example, a mage scribe could write a spell for them. When made things have served their purpose, they disappear in a burst of ash.
But despite my love of the magic system, I had issues with the plot and the writing style. Czerneda’s sentence structure in this book is oddly formal but choppy, and I often came across sentences that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. This caused me to go back and reread the sentence to see what I had missed, but that ultimately pulled me out of the story. Some of the characters speak in hard to read dialects, and if you’ve ever tried to read Scottish brogue, for example, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
As for the plot, I struggled in the beginning, wading through all the many characters and trying to see how they fit together. There is a fair amount of information that needs to be conveyed, but Czerneda mostly spends time giving us the details of her magic system, while the drive and focus of the characters was pushed to the side until later in the story. The main thrust of the plot is the journey to the magic school, but the author takes her time getting there, and for me, this journey seemed to drag on and on. I also kept getting the characters mixed up, especially since the mages had such similar, hard to pronounce names.
At the end of the day, I just wanted to fall into a good story, and plot wise, The Gossamer Mage just didn’t deliver in that respect. I think if I’d enjoyed the writing style more, this would have been much more enjoyable to read. However, despite my grumblings, I am very curious to read more from this author. Julie E. Czerneda has a wonderfully vivid imagination, and I do look forward to seeing what other worlds she can create.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.
This is probably not for me (I dislike when I need to go back and re-read sentences because they don’t make any immediate sense) but the magic system does sound cool!
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The magic system was really cool. I’d love to read more about the gossamers, I love that idea so much!
Sorry this one didn’t work out better for you but at least it doesn’t sound like it was a total loss either. I think I’ll be passing on it though.
Definitely not a total loss. I always love discovering unique world building ideas:-)
It’s too bad this one didn’t work better for you, Tammy, but you did a great job highlighting its strengths. Lovely review.
Thanks Jennifer, the world building was exquisite!
Having read only one (SF) book by this author I have no idea if this novel veers away from her usual style – what I read seemed fluid enough – so maybe it’s a matter of genre and her familiarity with fantasy as opposed as SF which I believe is her preferred “hunting ground”…
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…TV Review: CHERNOBYL (HBO miniseries – 2019)
Yes, I would definitely try her science fiction, since I think that’s what she’s known for.
oh I would have read this one too just because of the cover and title! too bad about the writing style and plot issues! UGH I can’t so choppy either! And I’m such a plot reader I would have been disappointed too!
Daniela Ark recently posted…Genre bending, rags to riches generational saga, dysfunctional families, forbidden love. Heaven! Must Read Page to Screen!
Yeah, if you love plot, I’m not sure this would work for you. The plot’s there, but it’s hard to untangle from everything else.
I really love the idea of the magic system–the premise of it all sounds really neat. It’s a bummer to hear the plot doesn’t quite live up to the rest, though, that’s always a frustrating issue. I’m definitely still interested in this one, but I think I’ll tamper down my expectations a bit to be on the safe side. 🙂
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It could also be a matter of Czerneda’s style just doesn’t work for me. I’d have to try another of her books to see if that’s the case. But she’s very popular!
Wow, that’s so disappointing about the writing style. I don’t think I would have enjoyed that either based on your description.
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It definitely has mixed reviews on Goodreads, but really that’s the case with so many books. Lots of readers loved this, but it just wasn’t my favorite.
I like hearing that it’s darker, but I’m a bit nervous about how I’ll feel about the story/plot now, and the writing. I’m very sensitive to writing style as well, and if it doesn’t work it can be a struggle for me too!
I hope you read it, I don’t want to be alone with my opinions, and I have a feeling you might feel the same way.
Aww man that sucks it didn’t work out for you. I’m glad for your review though. It’s made me a little wary of this one, but I still plan to try it. I just won’t go in with as high expectations as I had.
I’d sure love to read some other blogger reviews of this book, so I’ll be keeping an eye on your posts!
I’ve been wanting to read something by Czerneda for a while now. Though parts of this sound interesting perhaps I’ll pick a different of her books to start with. Which one, though, that will be the hard part.
I wish I had read more of her work and could advise where to start, but I will say I don’t think this is the best place…
Aw no — the cover and the blurb really did suck me in — but I think the pacing and the plot would be an issue for me too.
The cover is so beautiful, but sometimes that just isn’t enough…
I was thinking bout this one. Yours may be the first review I’ve seen for it. Based on what you’ve said I think I’ll put it on my want list still. I think it still sounds interesting.
It was interesting, just hard to get into. I honestly wanted to DNF it a couple of times.
I have my eye on this one and so was looking forward to reading reviews. I’ve not read the author before so I have this on my wishlist. but, I do feel a little bit more hesitant to buy this now -although I might check out if it’s available in audio.
Lynn 😀
Sorry this one didn’t totally work for you. I’m still interested in getting to it at some point but it’s not a priority at the moment (my TBR pile is so big!). Thanks for the review!
Great review! Your thoughts summed up so much of how I felt about this book, except I wasn’t as strong as you and ended up DNFing it fairly early on because the writing was making me so angry, haha. I also kept having to go back and reread sentences because I felt like some of them were borderline pure nonsense.
Destiny @ Howling Libraries recently posted…Saturday Smalls — August 24th, 2019
I’ve been wanting to read this one. I always enjoy your honesty, great review
Wild gossamers do sound like a neat concept! Maybe they can be used in other stories as well!
Great review! This doesn’t sound like something I would like.
The concept sounds really great but the book sounds like a struggle to read. Thanks for the heads up!