A Darker Shade of Magic

A Darker Shade of Magic, Book 1

By: V. E. Schwab

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Kell is one of the last Travelers - magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes. As such, he can choose where he lands. There's Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there's Red London, where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. There's White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. And once upon a time, there was Black London...but no one speaks of that now.

Officially Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see - a dangerous hobby and one that has set him up for accidental treason.

Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cutpurse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a dangerous enemy and then forces him to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

©2015 Victoria Schwab (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"There is much more to explore in this amazing world from the acclaimed author of Vicious." (Library Journal)

Genre is outside my comfort zone but I loved it!

This genre of book is way outside of my comfort zone. I have only listened to one other fantasy and only gave it three stars. But V.E. Schwab did an amazing job on this book.

The setting is London, but it is London in four parallel worlds; Gray London, Red London, White London and Black London exist in four different planes of reality. Only those magicians known as Antari can move between them, and there are only two known Antari; one in Red London, Kell, and one in White London, Holland.

Kell meets Lila, a thief and pickpocket, while in Gray London when she picks his pocket and steals a black stone known only as Vitari. Lila has no idea what it is or what it can do, but when Kell comes looking for it she only reluctantly gives it back to him under duress. When Holland comes to Gray London looking for the stone Lila and Kell's paths become intertwined. It seems they are destined to work together to get the stone back to the only place it will be safe; Black London.

Kell is on a mission to dispose of the Vitari while Lila is simply looking for an adventure, but soon it becomes clear that there is much more going on between the two.

Schwab does an awesome of job of character and world building in A Darker Shade of Magic, and Steven Crossley is the perfect narrator for this book with believable voices for each character.

I cannot wait for the sequel which comes out in February 2016. I want to find out more about Lila and Kell and see where their relationship takes them next.

please don't whine

this was a great story, however the narrator was incredibly whiny. which made the characters sound like little kids. I only stuck with it because I liked the story a lot but the narrator annoyed me very much

Why the F Word?

Minus a few instances of the F-word, this would be a great book for tweens and older. I felt was completely unnecessary and could easily be replaced or omitted. Shame on the author, really. Simply unnecessary use of an increasingly over-utilized vulgarity.

I enjoyed the story of magic and the character development of Kell and Lila. Lila was definitely my favorite.

Good concept, but not the payoff I was hoping for.

It was a fairly strong start, but I felt it started going a bit downhill about a quarter of the way through. in the end I didn't care strongly about any of the characters, and I felt like they kept doing obviously dumb things. On the upside I thought the world was quite compelling.

Unique World, Generic Plot

This was a decently entertaining fantasy. The best thing about it was the unique world. The “Four Londons” concept was refreshingly different from anything I’ve read. The writing and prose were well done. I generally enjoyed the characters, particularly Rhy. The plot, though, was rather generic. It’s a straightforward McGuffin-driven plot that gets resolved too easily in an underwhelming climax. Hopefully the next books improve on this.

Narrator: Steven Crossley did a relatively poor job. He was fine when he described scenes, but his character voices were awful. He gave them over-the-top accents. Kell’s voice was too deep and gravely, and Lila’s was unbearably whiny. Thankfully, the rest of the books in this series are narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, who are always fantastic.

Highly Enjoyable!

Ingrossing writing paired with Steven Crosssley's delightful preformace made for a fun listen! The plot was a bit predicable at times, and the character and their motivations felt a little lack luster, but it is a foundational book. So I hope that we get more development. Something i found fun was the way Crossley voiced the diffrent characters. To me, Lila sounded like a Monty Python character and I loved it.

A let down.

This book was a pain to get through. The base concept is a solid one but everything beyond that was clumsy or lacking.

The most painful of faults is the characters within the book. I would argue that there is not a single person of nuance within the story. Every person is laid bare at first glance and none are deeper than a few simple traits. There is a single character who does not follow a black and white moral system and her position within the story is made clear very quickly. None of the other side characters are memorable in any way.

The absolute worst if the lead Kell. He is one of the most prototypical Mary-Sue characters I have ever come across. A near one of a kind special wizard who is rich, powerful, handsome, has an exotic eye to add to the mystique, and smart (but not really, more on that later), and had a heart of gold that would never allow him to do something selfish or wrong (outside of a habit, but that will also come later) but tortured by not knowing who his real family is, despite having known his present family since he was five years old. The book tried to give a reason of feeling like a possession rather than a family member, however does a terrible job of illustrating this and makes the character come off as a brat.

His intelligence: the book makes an attempt to make Kell appear clever, flatly stating it several times and others regarding him as such. However, in no way does he act or respond to things in anyway that could be thought of as impressive or clever. Several times, in fact, I found myself frustrated at his choices, such as his habit of smuggling.

This habit deserves special mention as it is so poorly explained it justified it is clear throughout the entire story that it was simply appended in as a means to move the story. Kell had no motive or much reward in smuggling, seeming to only break the law for the sake of doing so. This in itself could have been reason, however the book never attempts to make that connection. This type of convenience based plot device comes up a few times but this is one of the first and is called back to several times so stuck out the most.

I had various other annoyances with the book, but on risk it carrying on too long I will change pace and say what I thought was good in the book.

The prose was competent and, with occasional exception, was able to describe everything well. The general concept was good, if not mishandled. The narration was rather good as well, the narrator's voice fitting the setting and tone well.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book. While not offensive, it fails in too many ways to water time on it when do many other, better works exist.

splendid

Great showmanship with the narration, adding perfectly to an entertaining book. Story was fun and flowed easily.

Journey into the Four Londons

What a finely crafted tale by Victoria Schwab. Grey, Red, White, and Black London. So cool to journey into these very different Londons and I'm sure we'll be seeing even more of these as the journey continues. I really enjoyed the use of magic in this book. It makes itself present often but there are consequences each time it is used. Kell, Lila, and Rhy are great characters and I'm looking forward to seeing more of their story in A Gathering of Shadows.

It was alright

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I could not get into this audiobook. For awhile. When Kell and Lila finally met, I felt like now the story has begun. I was more interested at that point than the first few hours of the book. Some parts were still confusing but I did get into it as it progressed. I think I'll read the second book instead of listening to the audiobook. May be a better experience in this case.