Book Review: The Gossamer Mage
Here is yet another book that I intended to purchase when it came out, but then couldn’t find in stores. Now that COVID-19 has me ordering online, I was actually able to get a copy and…well, unlike Witchmark, I’m not sure this one was worth the wait.
Tananen is the only land that still has magic, driven by the Deathless Goddess and Her Words. Only women (known as Daughters) can understand these words to communicate with and serve the goddess, and only men can write these words to produce magic — at the cost of their lives. When an ancient evil threatens the goddess, a mage given a second chance and a daughter from a rural backwater must work together to save magic.
There were several things that frustrated me about The Gossamer Mage, but we’ll start with the plot and pacing. Ye gods, is this novel slow. Two thirds of this book is just people traveling and talking and nothing happening. There aren’t any threats, not really. There’s a rogue “mage” at the beginning, but he’s handled quickly and barely functions as a threat. The real threat, the Fell, doesn’t really get mentioned until the book’s second part, and then just…sits in the background, being ominous. But there’s no actual confrontation, not until the very end.
That last third is honestly pretty good, and a substantial improvement over the beginning and the middle. But it takes so long to get there that it’s hard to justify
There are other structural problems with the book as well. Czerneda vacillates between a didactic tone and just being annoyingly vague about things. There are no proper chapter breaks, just a lot of section breaks, and the length of the section text isn’t enough to let you sink into any character’s head long enough to build empathy. It bounces around and around and around, instead of letting us stick with one character and build a relationship.
Which is not to say the characters are wholly bad. Conceptually, they’re quite interesting. Maleonarial is at the end of his life, expecting his next spell to end him, and the Deathless Goddess gives him a bunch of magic back, returning his youth so he can spend it again. He has an older man’s perspective in a young body, and he seems to be the only mage thinking beyond power and paycheck.
Kait, the Daughter, is caught up in events bigger than her. After traveling to her hold on the Hold Daughter’s orders and being named the heir, she is tasked with figuring out how to stop the strange voices the Daughters hear. Kait is determined and strong, willing to take on a task that seems impossible, and all the more admirable for it. There’s a big twist regarding her at the end which will make you rethink everything about her, and I can’t decide if I like it or not.
The other characters? Eh, take ‘em or leave ‘em. There’s two more POVs but well, not to spoil everything, but one dies early on and the other feels kind of pointless in general. I’m not sure either of them adds much; you could swap them out for an entirely different character, and the story would still be more or less the same.
There’s some good worldbuilding here, though it is limited in scope. I love magic systems that have a price, and some of your life is a classic choice. It’s fascinating to learn how mages feel compelled to use magic, even when they know it will mean their death eventually. And the gossamers — by products of a spell gone wrong — are the very definition of magical. They serve seemingly no purpose except to bring joy and wonder into the world.
And hoo, do I have history questions. Tananen and its goddess are the only place with magic — why? Where do the Fell come from? How have they stayed alive? Does this mean there are more powerful beings out there in the wider world? There’s a lot of fascinating places this could have gone, but the worldbuilding is so narrowly focused on Tananen that the wider world barely gets a mention. (Not to mention the fact that outside of the well-defined magic system and its corollary worldbuilding, there isn’t much to go on for even Tananen.)
In fact, I think “conceptually interesting but flawed execution” is probably the best summary I can give of this book. It wants to be more than it is, but it’s too uneven for me to really recommend in good conscience.
Grade: 2.5/5 stars
Memorable Quote:
“What wasn’t sound at all yet shouted inside her head until she felt dizzy.
Worse—much worse—a shadow went with it, sucking away the light, or was it a dark fume drifting sideways, as if the stones exhaled what was foul and dire...
The fume moved on, sank, split into black smoke-like streams that billowed among those courtiers nearest the lattice and wall, passing through the filigree and bars of their artifices. Made-beasts became ash in their cages, gems dropped to the floor like rain. The robe of a made-servant collapsed, spilling delicacies from a back no longer there, and commotion sped through the hall, courtiers shouting in surprise and outrage.”
