NOTORIOUS SORCERER

An untrained magician assumes the mantle of unlikely hero.

Siyon makes his living delving into magical planes to harvest rare materials for the alchemists of Bezim, the only city in the world where interplanar travel is possible. After he trades away a phoenix feather to a well-connected young man who promptly disappears, Siyon must find a way to recover the missing boy or face banishment or execution. Meddling with the planes in this way carries the risk of shifting them dangerously out of alignment, which might have set Evans' novel up for an intense climax were it not for a dearth of information about the story's most vital aspects, including magic, local laws, international politics, race, and class. Centuries of esoteric laws and theorems govern alchemy and sorcery, but the novel does not explain how these magical systems function or the ways in which they differ, both in law and in practice. Bezim's biased legal system favors the azatani and oppresses both foreigners and the bravi, but we never learn whether azatani and bravi refer to races or social classes. In fact, azatani seems to mean both a race and a social class, although we're left in the dark regarding how the oft-referenced "tiers" of azatani—with their names all ending in -ani—organize themselves. Furthermore, it is possible to be both azatani and bravi without being mixed-race. That Evans leaves these concepts obfuscated via glaring omissions precludes readers' basic understanding of how Siyon's world works. The novel's most interesting subplots are two romances—one hinted at, one consummated, and both queer—but neither reaches a satisfying conclusion.

Half-explained political dynamics and magical laws mar an otherwise passable fantasy outing.