Angel of Storms
Successor’s Promise
review by Aimee
Trudi Canavan is well known for her epic fantasies with magical wars and intense battle strategies. My first experience was the Black Magician’s series, where Sonea discovers she has incredible strength and leads the academy in wars/fights. (The details are a little hazy. It’s been quite a number of years since I last read them). I remember it being one of the first large fantasy sagas I ever read, and it’s concept of magic being created within yourself as a light really spoke to me.
The Millennium’s Rule series is very similar in some respects with its war planning, and weaker sorcerers discovering their true strengths, but is also very different. It is more complicated, with many more battles, and a type of magic that is specific to the world it is in, that when taken, strips the light and leaves a dark stain.
It is split between two characters; Rielle, a woman exiled from her home world for stealing the ‘Angels’ magic, and Tyen, a teacher at a school of magic and the creator of mechanical magic insectoids.
Already being three books long, the series follows the lives of the two characters, and their struggle to adapt to the Raen’s return. The Raen, or Valhan, is a powerful sorcerer, thousands of years old, returned from the dead to rule over the worlds once again.
I don’t want to spoil the plot too much, and the books have enough twists and turns that to outline them would fill a short novel. What I do find admirable about these books is the character’s senses of morality. Canavan constantly forces her characters into difficult situations where the easiest option would be to kill, or blackmail etc, but her characters have a sneaky habit of finding a way around these awful situations.
I really love a long series I can get stuck in to, and it makes me so happy to know that even through book three came to some kind of a conclusion, there will be a book four! Hallelujah!
Title: Thief’s Magic
Publisher: Orbit:
Date Published: 15 May 2014
RRP: £20.00
ISBN: 978-0356501109
Synopsis:
SOMETIMES MAGIC LIES WITHIN . . .
When the young student Tyen unearths an ancient book, it opens the door to a realm of mystery and danger. For it contains a clue to a disaster threatening the world.
Elsewhere, in a land ruled by priests, Rielle has been taught that to use magic is to steal from the Angels. Yet she has a talent for it, and desperate times may force her to risk the Angels’ wrath.
But not everything is as Tyen and Rielle have been raised to believe. Not the nature of magic – and not even the people they trust.
Title: Angel of Storms
Publisher: Orbit
Date Published: 12 November 2015
RRP: £20.00
ISBN: 978-0356501130
Synopsis:
Tyen trains students in the ways of magic, but his teaching may soon be outlawed. Rumour has it that the formidable ruler of all worlds, long believed to be dead, is back and is harshly enforcing his old laws – including the one forbidding schools of magic. As teachers and pupils flee, Tyen is left with no home and no purpose …except to fulfil the promise he made to Vella, the sorcerer imprisoned in a book. Tyen must decide what he is willing to do to free her. Elsewhere, Rielle’s peaceful new life as a tapestry weaver has been shattered by a local war. As defeat looms, the powerful Angel of Storms appears and invites Rielle to join the artists of his heavenly realm. But what will he require in return for this extraordinary offer?
Title: Successor’s Promise
Publisher: Orbit
Date Published: 21 September 2017
RRP: £20.00
ISBN: 978-0356501161
Synopsis:
Five years have passed since the Rebels confronted the Raen. Five years, in which Qall – the boy Rielle rescued – has grown up among the Travellers, with no memory of the life that was stolen from him.
Five years of chaos, barely contained by Baluka and the Restorers. Worlds are at war, some overrun by deadly machines, some drained of magic by power-hungry sorcerers.
As Qall comes of age, and Rielle and Tyen’s hard-won peace is threatened, their loyalties are tested – and Qall’s very existence is at stake.
Because Dahli is still determined to restore Valhan to power, and he will stop at nothing to succeed.
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