Fists of Justice (Schooled in Magic, #12) by Christopher Nuttall
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Very good!
The war is over. But the scars remain.
Emily’s New Learning has been good for Beneficence. A true golden age appears to be on hand. But all is not well. The city’s largest businessman may be on the verge of collapse and there are rumors that one of the Great Gods has returned. The streets are on edge.
And, as Emily returns to Beneficence, she finds herself dealing with the darker consequences of her innovations …
… And a deadly plot from the dark past that may lead the Nameless World to utter ruin.
This is a very good book indeed. However, although it follows nicely in the timeline of Emily’s adventures, it did feel a bit like a interlude, a little adventure story before Emily continues her education and moves on with the main story arc.
Nothing wrong with that but, personally, I do prefer the books where Emily is back at Whitehall getting on with her development. Also, a god chunk of this book is devoted to Ponzi schemes and the badness of these. As usual the angle is that Emily is, indirectly, responsible by introducing modern technology and ideas into the Nameless World.
Mr Nuttall does manage to evolve the story to one where magic plays the main role but I am afraid that, with a good chunk of the book a bit outside of my cup of tea, I’m not going to give a full set of stars on this one. There is nothing wrong with the book or the writing, which is excellent as usual, but it is just a personal preference of mine.
As I wrote the book starts of with Emily coming to Benefice and starting to learn that one of the largest businessmen in town is busy with a Ponzi scheme that, of course, is about to come crashing down. Some reviewers have claimed that the book is a bit preachy. I would not agree to that. It depicts a Ponzi scheme and its consequences fair and simple.
Around halfway into the book there is an interesting turn of events that moves it more into my own personal comfort zone. This is where magic and Emily’s real skills starts to become useful. From there on the book is as good as any of the books in this series which means it is pretty damned good.
After various adventures, betrayals and so on and so forth we, not surprisingly, arrive at the obligatory show down between Emily, her friends and the bad guy(s). Unfortunately things are complicated by the actions of her boyfriend. I have to say that I think he was a big arse both during and after the action. I am not really unhappy about how things turned out in the end.
So, the verdict is that this is a very good book. I would have rated it as great if not for some personal preferences of mine. As usual with this book series I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
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