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There have been a plethora of fantasyromancesintheRegency of late, not surprising considering there's a good chance that a lot of these authors grew up reading Georgette Heyer, and possibly Jane Austen.
Except for Susanna Clarke, I don't find Austen's sharp characterization, wit, or style of satire in any of them, however there's a strong feel of Heyer's mix of modernity and her idiosyncratic version of Regency era language in most, and I think that the homage to Heyer is part of the strong appeal as they are entertaining and accessible to readers not steeped in period literature.
In Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, there is a great deal of Heyer's idiom, but without her tendency toward unexamined prejudice and the underlying assumption that Birth Will Always Tell.
What Cho gives us instead is a black Sorcerer Royal, who, despite his intelligence and scrupulous honesty, is constantly dealing with insults, assassination attempts, and other forms of bigotry by supposedly wellborn Englishmen.
Meanwhile, he is also a man of his own time in believing that females are too frail to handle magic, . . until he meets beautiful, duskyskinned Prunella Gentleman, Then the sparks begin to fly!
Meanwhile, there are potentates and witches from foreign lands to deal with, and also awareness of French sorcerers ready to pounce Cho does the most interesting job, I find, in explaining why magic isn't used in the Napoleonic wars, and oh yes, Britain's magic is seriously ebbing.
The book is a great deal of fun, with some laughoutloud moments, Some of the motivations might not bear close scrutiny, as is often the way with comedic books, but the many threads, and especially the thoroughly imaginative magic, race along at a spanking pacewhile taking some good hard looks at colonialism and the groundless assumptions of the prerogatives of "good birth" when manners, morals, and brains are missing.
Come to think of it, however little the language resembles Jane Austen's, in many ways I think the Sorcerer to the Crown's intent might have tickled her fancy, considering her trenchant representation of nobly born and pretentiously superior characters in her novels.
Her satire of social frauds hiding behind their pedigrees and Cho's sapient eye on same share a great deal of a similar spirit, based on an advance copy obtained from the publisher
Magic, manners and dragons in Recency Englandthis alone would be awesome, but Zen Cho adds a veneer of comment on English colonial politics: the two main characters are POCs struggling to find a place in a highly hierarchical English society, and not always succeeding.
Oh, and romance, and aunties, and Malaysian vampires and plenty of hilarious sharp oneliners as sorcerer to the crown Zacharias and impoverished gentlewoman Prudence lock horns to discover who's the must stubborn between them.
Like a mix of Jane Austen, PG Wodehouse, and Jonathan Strange and Mister Norell, and all its own thing, Glorious.
I want more like this, Fortunately there are two more books forthcoming
Rating,stars, more ranting than review
It started promising, with little Zacharias Wythe showing the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, that he is a worthy apprentice to Sir Stephen Wythe, despite the color of his skin.
Years have passed and following the death of Sir Stephen, Zacharias takes his place of Sorcerer Royal, something that because of his origins doesn't sit well with the majority of the thaumaturges magicians/sorcerers.
Zacharias was born a slave, Sir Stephen saw something special in the little boy, He had liberated him separating his fate from that of his birth parents, given him his name and the position in society that goes with it no matter the society liked it or not and honed him to become a powerful sorcerer.
Prunella Gentleman on the other hand was raised by Mrs, Daubeney, and hes spent her youth helping her manage the School for Gentlewitches, She never new her mother, who due to Prunella's complexion must have been of darker skin, and her father, Mr, Hilary Gentleman had left her alone in the world when she was but a little child presumably drowning himself, Mrs Daubney, Gentleman's lodger didn't know what to do with the little girl that had even then begun to show troubling signs of being magical.
Because Ladies cannot be magical, They are too fragile and emptyheaded to handle magical powers, It is not something befitting a young lady, It is alright for some village woman to be a witch and sell some potions and herbs, But real magic is for men, more precisely, gentlemen and with the right colour of skin, Learning how to handle a girl afflicted by magic, Mrs, Daubney changes her fortunes opening a school for young ladies suffering the same magical problems as Prunella's,
“Being a school for gentlewitches, it did not, of course, instruct its students in practical thaumaturgy, Mrs. Daubeney knew just what parents desired her to inculcate in their inconveniently magical daughters: pretty manners, a moderate measure of education and, above all, a habit of restraint.
"
This book had all the elements it needed to make me fall in love with the story, . . and then unfortunately it didn't. It had the interesting racial element that was underplayed, It had the possibility to shake the ground with the politics or war, The story unfolds on Britain during the Napoleonic wars, It had all the makes of great conflicts, Britain with France. The thaumaturges versus the British government, The thaumaturges versus the Fairy Court even that was almost unused, And there was a botched attempt of romance, don't look at me like that, . . I don't count that as romance, . . zero chemistry.
By some blurbs and reviews this was described as a mix of sitelinkGeorgette Heyer's regency novels and sitelinkSusanna Clarke's sitelinkJonathan Strange amp Mr Norrell.
I didn't read any of Heyer's books, though I think I know what regency books are like, Maybe there's something in that claim, For the comparisons with Jonathan Strange amp Mr Norrell, . phleeese, no way, I mean I get the similarities, but for someone to say if I love Heyer and Strange, I would love this book,
I did like parts of this book, but I loved all thosepages of Strange footnotes and all, there's no way comparing these two.
In the end I think my problem was that Prunella has turned out to be after a few promising chapters too hungry for power and position for my taste.
"Prunella had no more interest in magical lore than a fish has in the philosophical properties of water, "
Ok, she doesn't have any interest in magic even if she is gifted with more power than many men, . . I can get that. But she wishes to be powerful through a high profile marriage! She wants to wed someone wealthy not just moderate wealthy, excessively in love with her.
. . and who would let me do whatever she wished, Greedy much!
I get girlpower, I love a kickass heroine that knows what she wants in life, but Prunella was too much for me, She reminded me of Alison Goodman's Eona, she was pretty hard to digest in book two sitelinkEona: The Last Dragoneye, but somehow I could get why she acted so powerhungry.
but with Prunella, not so much, So I ended grumbling to myself till the end of the book, And the ending . . was that supposed to make me swoon!
Maybe it's me again, Usually if something rubs me hard the wrong way, I can't enjoy the rest of the book And oh, don't make me start on that poor familiar.
what was that! Surely they could have found another solution to Leofric,
In the end Prunella annoyed me, Zacharias bored me, and maybe I ended enjoying more smaller players like Damerell, Hsiang Han and Mak Genggang,
Not bad, not great, . . an OK book. This book was an absolute delight from start to finish, The comparison to Heyer and Susanna Clarke is super apt, I really felt like I was reading a Heyer but without all the annoying stuff, and also there was magic and magic swashbuckling and husband hunting and forceful older ladies who IN SOME CASES are also dragons.
It was that feeling of light bantery goodness with plenty of justhintedat angst, I loved every character, everything was perfect, READ IT, Zachary is my darling and Prunella is the classic "hoyden heroine with zero fear of consequences" in the very best way, and their romance is SO CHARMING.
There was one thing that bothered me, but it's a pretty big spoiler, the short version is possible TW for transphobia not sure that's quite the right word but: I wish I'd written this book, ed by: sitelinkRabid Reads
I tried to read SORCERER TO THE CROWN by Zen Cho THREE separate times, and had pretty much given it up for lost when I decided to give it one.
. . more chance.
Many, many thanks to friend and fellow Ace Roc Star sitelinkAnne at The Book Nympho, whose review influenced this decision.
tips hat
The beginning is slow, no getting around it, Even if I hadn't been reading mostly highoctane, actionpacked urban fantasy in the weeks prior to my first attempts, I think I still would have found it slow.
I was initially reminded of a Jane Austen novel,
You: But you LOVE Jane Austen!
Me: Yes, I know,
You:
Me: I love Jane Austen, despite the florid prose, not because of it.
BUT. Given time, this book grew on me for the same reasons EMMA and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE did: clever hilarity and exasperating yet wonderful characters whom I grew to absolutely adore.
And BONUS, there is the kind of whimsicality that can only be present in a FANTASY novel,
Zacharias Wythe is not a white, landowning man in something liketh century England, He was adopted and emancipated by Sir Stephen Wythe, Sorcerer to the Crown, and his presence in society is met with both acceptance and ridicule by the peerage, and:
Though he had never doubted his guardians attachment, being Sir Stephens protégé had at times felt like being a touring attractiona dancing bear on its lead.
And how easy it is to blame one whose existence you already disdain for problems almost certainly not of his doing.
Like the steady decline of magic in England Who better to hold accountable than the new Sorcerer to the Crown Especially when it so neatly provides a solution to the problem that is the new Sorcerer to the Crown
But regardless of continuous and varied mistreatment at the hands of other thaumaturges, Zacharias is determined to discover the source of Englands lack of magic as his station demands, and during this search he also discovers the plight of gentlewitches.
Wellbred ladies do not practice magic, you see, If a young lady is discovered to have any magical ability at all, she is shipped to a boarding school where her use of magic will be stamped out.
It is in one such school that Zacharias stops as a favor to a friend, only to find that the method of suppressment is an altered version of a KILLING CURSE, modified to be cast by a lady on HERSELF, draining her magic temporarily, along with her energy and essential spark.
Zacharias is predictably horrified b/c not a stuffy, pompous wanker like his sorcerer brethren,
And it was at Mrs, Daubeney's School for Gentlewitches that things started to pick up,
I began to see hints, not carbon copies, mind you, but hints of wellloved characters from various girlhood favorites, most notably in Mrs.
Daubeney, who when vexed behaves in a rather Mrs, Bennettlike fashion:
"You ought to have considered me, but no one ever does, and it puts me in an impossible position!”
Then there's the scene of utter pandemonium that somehow manages to combine early ANNE OF GREEN GABLES Anne:
Henrietta stamped her foot, her grey eyes drowned in green light.
“I will teach you a lesson for that!” she cried, “How dare you call him my precious Mr, Wythe! How dare you say I am in llove!”
With those wretched Pringles she doesn't encounter until several books later:
When Prunella entered the classroom, Clarissa Midsomer was trying to bang Emily Villierss head against a desk.
Emily was resisting this, screeching in a manner fit to bring the ceiling down,
I couldn't find a good picture of the Pringles or of the classroom in chaos after the fireworks were set off, but this one works just as well, I think.
Fairyland resembled a combination of sitelinkBedknobs and Broomsticks' underwater and king of the jungle segments,
Flanked by fishfaced guardsmen, the Fairy King lounged upon his throne, . .
YES, That is fantastic,
Resemblances, purposeful or accidental, aside, were not the only amusements, and I found myself shaking with laughter on more than one occasion, be it the result of a formidable aunt named Georgiana Without Ruth ltget it Ruthless snickers, or his fairy Highness explaining why England's magic is being shunted elsewhere but don't worry, not to France.
They don't like France any better than England does:
“It would be an end to all peace if they returned,” he said, with a sigh.
“We should give them our firstborn child if that would persuade them to stay away, Indeed, we made the offer, but they would not look at poor Cuthbert, "
Poor Cuthbert,
BUT. As much as SORCERER TO THE CROWN made me laugh, there is so much more to it than humor, Peppered throughout the story are painful truths:
To her surprise Prunella found that she was still attached to Mrs, Daubeney. She would never trust her againno! But one could nonetheless be very fond of someone in whom one had no confidence whatsoever,
When Prunella at last listened to the full message contained in the singing orb, I found myself in tears, and there is an Elizabeth and Darcy scene so spectacular as to give its namesake a run for its money.
Maybe you didn't hear me: there is an Elizabeth and Darcy scene so spectacular as to give its namesake a run for its money.
Indeed.
SORCERER TO THE CROWN by Zen Cho was fantabulous, Plain and simple. I'm so glad I didn't let a slow start derail my consumption of one of the best books I've read this year, and I hope you'll read it for yourself, b/c it's just that good.
Highly recommended.
.