The Rogue, by Trudi Canavan

The second book in a trilogy is often weak, but The Rogue is a fairly solid follow-up to The Ambassador's Mission. There are four loosely connected plots which don't intersect until the very end, and all four are fairly strong: a search for a rogue magician, two students caught up in a murder, an ambassadorial trip to a far-flung country, and a man coping in a hostile city unable to leave. The murder is resolved, but the other threads have the intensity ramped up for the final volume, The Traitor Queen. Looking forward to it!

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First Sentence:

According to a Sachakan tradition so old that nobody remembered where it had begun, summer had a male aspect and winter a female one.

The Ambassador's Mission, by Trudi Canavan

A return to the world of Canavan's Black Magician series! I loved the first trilogy, and the standalone The Magician's Apprentice added a lot of flavor to the universe. This new adventure is split into two storylines: one follows Sonea from the first books twenty years later and hunting rogue magicians and the other follows Sonea's son and his exploration of a neighboring land. The latter story is more interesting but less satisfying as there isn't a natural conclusion—it just stops, waiting to be picked up in the next book. As with many fantasy novels the plot isn't complicated, but Canavan explores some fairly deep topics such as sexism, homosexuality, and drug use. Being the first of three novels this is mostly setup, but I look forward to see how the themes develop.

First Sentence:

The most successful and quoted piece by the poet Rewin, greatest of the rabble to come out of the New City, was called Citysong.

The Magician’s Apprentice, by Trudi Canavan

I first found Trudi Canavan with the publication of The Black Magician Trilogy and was hooked. This book, The Magician’s Apprentice is a prequel set hundreds of years before the original three novels and just as enthralling. The plot revolves around Tessia, a healer’s assistant and budding magician, and her involvement in the war between the neighboring countries of Kyralia and Sachaka. It also tells the history of the wasteland that featured largely in the first books, as well as the foundation of the Magician’s Guild. About two-thirds of the way through we start to get the story of the Ancient magic as well, although I thought this felt a bit forced; I think this part of the novel would have worked better as a short story. Overall, though, an enjoyable story in an interesting world.

First Sentence:

There was no fast and painless way to perform an amputation, Tessia knew.