THE SINGER OF ALL SONGS

This first series installment has intriguing magics and geographies but is sewn from thin cloth. On Tremaris, a planet with three moons, Calwyn lives in the land of Antaris and trains as a priestess. Her craft is ice-call, a “chantment” (magic through singing) that commands “everything that is cold: ice and snow and freezing.” When a haughty stranger crosses Antaris’s ice-border and needs help, Calwyn flees with him into faraway lands she’s never seen. They travel and collect friends, some of whom know other chantments, while attempting to defeat sorcerer Samis, who wants to learn all nine Powers of chantment and thus conquer the world. Calwyn is a fairly passive protagonist, and several things (the actual workings of chantment; definitions of the Powers; various characters’ emotions) are well-sketched, but without depth. A map is sorely missed. Not meaty, but creative. (Fantasy. YA)