Starred review from August 17, 2015
Set in the excruciatingly class-conscious realm of an alternate 19th-century England, Cho’s delightful debut novel skillfully blends fantasy and intrigue with issues of race and gender politics. Zacharias Wythe, the child of enslaved Africans, has spent almost all of his 24 years apprenticing under his English adoptive father, Sir Stephen Wythe, Sorcerer Royal and member of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers. When Sir Stephen dies and Zacharias is reluctantly thrust into power, the Society is outraged at the thought of a black man governing its ilk and chooses to blame Britain’s dwindling magical resources—actually a longtime crisis—on the color of Zacharias’s skin. At Mrs. Daubeney’s School for Gentlewitches, where girls are trained to suppress their magical abilities because they supposedly lack the intelligence to be sorcerers, 19-year-old Prunella Gentlewoman stumbles across a long-forgotten legacy that could be the key to saving Zacharias’s life and restoring Britain’s magic. Cho’s tale knits together a dizzying array of taut story lines populated by complex characters with interesting backstories. Zacharias brings to mind another orphaned young wizard whose combination of grit and melancholy captured readers’ hearts, and ingenious, gutsy Prunella simply shines. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Associates.
August 1, 2015
Set in an alternate, magical England during the Napoleonic Wars, Cho's debut novel is at once a comedy of manners and a sharp metacomment concerning racism and misogyny in the fantasy genre. Most thaumaturges agree that Zacharias Wythe is a most unsuitable Sorcerer Royal. Born a slave of African parents, he was set free by his predecessor, Sir Stephen Wythe, who raised him and trained him in the magical arts as a kind of experiment. Zacharias' skin color bars him from social acceptance; moreover, he's commonly assumed to have wrested the late Sir Stephen's staff from him by nefarious means. Nevertheless, Zacharias strives to serve his fellow magicians by determining why the magic level in England has diminished recently. He's distracted in his quest by assassination attempts, the conflict between the sultan of Janda Baik and that nation's witches, and the presence of Prunella Gentleman, a young woman of uncertain but presumably half-Indian parentage, who is possessed of powerful magical gifts that ladies are firmly encouraged to suppress. Many voices in the sci-fi community have spoken of the need for diversity in authors, characters, and subject matter and have faced some unpleasant public blowback for that view. In this book, Cho is both providing that diversity and directly responding to those who prefer a more traditional (read: white male) approach to fantasy. She uses wit, charm, and romance to make her point; the result is a classic, gently barbed upper-crust comedy mixed with magical thrills, modern social consciousness, and a hint of political intrigue. A decidedly promising start.
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Starred review from September 15, 2015
Having taken over as Sorcerer Royal from his adoptive father, Zacharias Wythe will never be accepted by many of the snobbish members of London's magical elite. While the former slave's African heritage would always have been an obstacle in Regency England, the diminished alchemy in the kingdom under his term is all the justification his enemies need to call for his removal. On a visit to a local school for mystically inclined females, Zacharias meets Prudence, a talented young woman whose illegitimate parentage leaves her in an awkward position at the school--neither student nor servant. Zacharias liberates Prudence from the school and takes her with him to the border between England and Faerie, hoping that he will be able to negotiate with the fae to allow more magic into the country. VERDICT Fans of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell will flock to this historical fantasy debut for its shared setting and be rewarded with an exciting story and nuanced, diverse characters who make this novel soar on its own merits. The Malaysian-born Cho also writes sf/fantasy short stories (Spirits Abroad) and romance novellas (The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo).--MM
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