Angel Mage (utgåvan 2019)

The audiobook was well read and I really liked the four protagonists: the musketeer, the scholar, the clerk and the student doctor. Dorotea (the scholar) was my favourite; I love the way she baffles people when she doesn’t react the way they expect her to.

I didn’t enjoy hearing about the antics of the antagonist, although the final analysis of her motives was unexpectedly satisfying, and I didn’t start to get interested in the system of angel magic until the story was nearly over.

(Maybe I should read The Three Musketeers before I read any more fantasy inspired by it?) ( )

garth nix off his shits ( )

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't focus on it. I am just not that interested in a fantasy book about angels. I guess I prefer darker stories. ( )

Firstly, I've never read The Three Musketeers, which Angel Mage is based on, so I'm not sure if some of my criticisms would be lessened if I'd read Dumas. (It feels a little bit like reading an AU fanfic when you haven't read/watched the source material.)

Dot-point form because I'm lazy tonight:

- The world building is excellent and fascinating, to the point that it's disappointing that it's a standalone.
- This is a physically hefty book but it felt very shallow? Lots of characters but hardly any of them given any depth.
- I dislike insta-friendship almost as much as insta-love (even with the excuse of having angels inside them).
- Speaking of instalove.... There's some of that too, with Dorothea/Rochefort.
- Lots of confusing names starting with D.
- We see Lilianth's viewpoint throughout the novel so we always know her scheming, we know how the Four are being manipulated, and so there's no mystery to engage the reader.
- Also, while we know what Lilianth is doing, we don't know why. We're told the Four have to stop her (it's literally in the blurb) but we don't know why. So that's a mystery and it's good, right? Well, no. There's no moral grey area, just the author straight up telling you who to support and who to hate. Coupled with shallow characters, it compounds the lack of engagement.

So those are all the negatives, but the writing was competent and there were a lot of really intriguing things touched upon.

I want to know more about angelic icon making and its origins!

I want to know more about the hints dropped that humans have determined the scope of angels!

I want to know about the challenges associated with repopulating Ystara and society adapting to the loss of the Refusers as a servant underclass doing scut work!

I want to know more about the Four - about Simeon's medical work, Dorothea's angelic studies (and relationship with Rochefort), Agnez's musketeer bravado, Henri's new career blowing things up!

And all those things I want to know more about probably add up to another negative- it feels like Nix has missed the interesting parts of his world and story and instead given us a plodding
"adventure" which takes too long to get going, is resolved too easily, and involves characters with no agency.

(I will definitely read Sabriel before making a definitive decision about Nix as an author, since most Goodreads reviewers seem to agree that it's much better) ( )

This was just too confusing for me to follow. The magic and angels were cool, but I just couldn't wrap my head around the fantasy world created. ( )