The Magician's Guild

The Black Magician Trilogy: Book One

By: Trudi Canavan

Narrated by: Richard Aspel

Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Sonea is caught up in a confrontation between the hated Guild magicians and the angry youth of the slums. To her dismay, she discovers that she possesses the same powers as the reviled magicians. To avoid capture, she must seek protection from the city's feared underworld, The Thieves. In return, she must use her powers for them, but her magic never seems to do quite what she intends it to.

©2004 Trudi Canavan (P)2004 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd.

Critic reviews

"The first part of the Black Magician Trilogy, this captivating tale has already been hailed by critics as a 'must for lovers of good fantasy'." ( Marie Claire)

Excellent!!!

What did you love best about The Magician's Guild?

This book started out kind of slow but when it picked up, it took me on a whirl wind and hooked me. As soon as I realized the book was nearly over, I had immediately purchased the next two so I could continue the series without delay.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Sonea, because she was the proverbial underdog. She went from rags to riches and learned that she has an important role to play to protect the ones she cared for.

What does Richard Aspel bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

An accent that brought the feeling of old-time and even other-landly feel.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

This I would be unable to answer without enough time to think. It would have to be something thorough and befitting such an experience.

Any additional comments?

This was beautifully written and narrated. I have already recommended this book to a close friend of mine. He doesn't read science fiction but is interested from my suggestion since I mainly stick to science and educational material.

Could have been better...

The ideas behind the story are good, however the writing just fell short. There is essentially very little plot development that happens in the book. I feel like many authors could have fit this entire novel into 4 chapters and then continued onto a more robust story. There is so much, relatively tedious and repetitive dialogue that many things are left out as well. Character descriptions are limited. I found myself unable to picture many important characters clearly by the end of the novel. For how little happened in the plot of the story I would have expected much more fleshed out descriptions. Overall I enjoyed to story but found the pace frustrating. I am a relatively patient reader/listener I often ignore reviews that complain about pace because I don't mind an author taking their time in order to set the stage but I definitely found this book frustrating. I will probably still listen to the other books in the series because I am curious about the characters and hope that the pace might pick up some in the following books. But I wont be going into them expecting anything extraordinary.

Ouch

OK book, but the worst narration ever (for me). He's making me not care or get to know any of the characters. Avoid like the plague. Read the book instead. Such a bummer...

a refreshing delight

I have read and heard many different renditions of wizards and magicians and this one is a refreshing new look at how the powers and abilities manifest. More like a personal physical characteristic than a trade that can be learned by memorizing a few funny words.

Bought all three books

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Bought all three books one at a time. I enjoyed parts of the story. However, I got tired of bumbling supporting characters. The same problem infects the main characters on occasion. For example in the last volume, Sonea, the lead character, is meeting with many people. She wears a mask so the bad guys won't know she is back in town. When she meets her aunt she whips off mask and has a gab fest with her. Not story crushing but tiresome. On the other hand what I call bumbling and tiresome others might call it realistic.

Not great but still good.

Like the rest of the series this book is entertaining with out being extraordinary. This particular book takes more time setting up the world and the characters as you would expect at the start of any trilogy. If you cant handle that “slowing down” the book then I recommend starting at book 2 of every series from now on. Canavan manages to show the struggle of the lower class with out being too heavy handed (she does make that mistake and preaches later in the series on a different subject but you don't have to worry about that in this book). I really enjoyed how bright and upbeat the dwells were in the face of such horrible conditions. It is not often that an author can convince the reader of how horrible a character's life is and yet not have the character be depressing to read. After reading all three books I grew rather fond of the dwells although most of the other names that Canavan created for this book did not sit so well with me. I enjoy a well built world but if all you change is the name of animal then all it does is confuse us. There are some interesting new words in the books when Canavan takes the time to give them new connotations but there are ten times as many new words that don't and anything to the book at all.
That is not to say it is a bad book just that it has a few rough edges. The characters are like able and overall it is a good page turner. Not every author gets lucky and writes Harry Potter. So, if you are fine with a flaw or two and you don't want to reread the only three books in the world that meet all your standards again until next week, then this is a good book to fill the gap.

A Compelling Read

Great narration, strong characters, a little light on plot but one I couldn't stop listening to and ended up purchasing the other books in the trilogy before I even finished it.

Narrator lost me

The frequent long pauses drove me crazy and I ended up not finishing. Got the books at the library and just read them and they are pretty good if slow to start.

An easy and enjoyable read

Overall I very much enjoyed this story. It was well written and performed.

My only major critique is that the story doesn’t seem to establish any high stakes or major motivation for action until 3/4 of the way through. As for the “high stakes” portion of the book, the action level falls a bit below expectations for this genre.

Despite these notes though, I very much enjoyed this book, and am looking forward to seeing where the story goes in book two. I would recommend this story if you are looking for something that is easy to digest but till packed full of the keystones of a good fantasy book.

Narrator ruins story

This is the first time I've written a review and I own many audiobooks,

I have repeatedly tried to "get into" this book but monotone drone with not enough change and richness keeps losing me.

The story line sounds interesting but I can't evaluate due to reading. This is a sad waste.

A different narrator might make something of story.