The Magicians' Guild: The Black Magician Trilogy

When David Eddings passed away, I was incredibly upset. For years now, he's pretty much the only author I read at all, time and otherwise considered. So, with some trepidation, I started looking for a new author to get hooked on and I am pleasantly surprised by Trudi Canavan! :)Review Summary: Sonea is one of the slum dwellers: poor, dirty and was part of the wave of people being driven to the outer walls. For too long, gap between the rich and the poor has set up a poor image of both parties to each other. As such, when Sonea first realised she could do magic, in front of the Guild of Magicians, she panicked. Surely, they would not want one such as her, a slum dwelling female, to be a part of them? Magicians can NOT be trusted, that is for sure. And so, the whole cat and mouse game is started until, being untrained, Sonea could no longer control the powers that were released and the people who hid her gave her up instead....Character Development: Really enjoyed the different personalities explored within the book. Sure, there's your "good" and "evil", but, other than the nemesis, there's no flawlessly good people or incredibly bad people. Most of all, I really loved the whole mystery built around Akkarin and the development of Sonea and her teacher-student relationshipsPlot/Storyline: I will agree with some of the negative reviews around here. There were many times through out the book itself that I wished Sonea would just get caught already and perhaps just get punished like she thought she would be just to roast her for spending so much of the book time running around.It took up virtually 80% of the book before Sonea was finally discovered and brought back to the University to be trained, and yet another few before she was convinced to join the University. Honestly, we all know she would end up joining them anyways, or else there would be no trilogy unless she spent it constantly running, hiding and learning on the sly from people who DIDN'T want to teach her how to control the powers - which, according to the lore behind the book, meant she might just die.Yes it was necessary to show the chase to explain how she might die from being unable to control the powers, not to mention kill others. no, I don't think it necessitates nearly the whole novelEnding: oh I HATE cliffhangers but I LOVE it any ways! I ended up buying the other 2 ebooks immediately.overall: It's not David Eddings, no one can replace him :) the writing is not perfect but there were enough baits to keep me going, not to mention good magical lore, character development, and just overall content. I will move on to the next trilogy when I can handle some my "grief" ~.~

If you loved Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series, then you will absolutely love the Black Magician Trilogy. The Black Magician Trilogy, written by Trudi Canavan, is an utterly fantastic book trilogy that I would recommend to anyone with even the slightest interest in fiction. Unlike a lot of other book series, such as my own, this series is short and succinct, wrapping up with only three books (to be fair there is a prequel novel and sequel series, but I would prefer to think that those books don’t exist).The series follows Sonea, a slum-living girl of Imardin, who violently discovers latent magic within her. While the first book focuses on her escaping the magicians who seek to control her and tame her now reckless magic shows a slightly innocent Sonea, she develops throughout the course of the series into a strong, resolute, able and compassionate woman. I love it when women in novels don’t turn into classic female archetypes. Sonea is definitely an original. If I ever had a daughter, I would want her to read this book (and also the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce) so she could see what a truly strong woman is.Canavan is also a master of threading multiple plots in a single novel. Each book in the trilogy has multiple storylines and each of the storylines are still interesting, a feat in and of itself. It shows that not only is Canavan limitlessly imaginative, but she is also crazy talented. I can only hope to make so many storylines flow together so smoothly and beautifully. Though the last book is dogged down by a love-plotline that came from way out in left field, I still appreciate the story in it’s entirety. The first book is a novel version of cat and mouse, the second is more of an adult version of Harry Potter, and the third is a book-long climax that wont let you go for a second.I totally recommend this book to anyone with a love of both magic and realism. Canavan is truly a hero among authors for her world building, and her books manage to rekindle the nostalgia in me for the days of Harry Potter and schools where you can go learn magic. I would trade my Anthropology of Religion class for Transfiguration any day.

Original magic system. Not very complex yet, but structure and some laws revealed.Good opening character development for the slum characters, though does have room to grow. I'd like to see more cleverness by these characters. The lead magician characters have much work needed, they seem fairly 2 dimensional and thus, predictable. Let the characters have fun, show that even the goody two shoes characters aren't perfect all the time... or even if they are, reveal their internal conflict and decisions via internal dialogue. Show that the evil characters have deeper motivations and/or think what their doing is right or justified, as most real people do. We all make decisions to do good or evil in every second, in every moment, with every decision. Good character development portrays these constant decisions made internally/externally, and it's not always a straight line, though can be a consistent trend.Humor was attempted but a failure with this book, good try though. Very few fantasy authors can pull this off, but I'll keep crying about it until they collectively get better. LoL.The plot was very good borderline great. The choice on perspectives for some of the plot reveals was a nice touch in order to prolong suspense for a harder hitting climax. Well played! Also the weaving in of the greater trilogy plot within this opening story without comprising either deserves some recognition. Finally, a few minor to moderate plot twists towards and at the end help to give the plotline some additional suspense and unpredictability.All in all, good book and I'm buying the next. Hopefully the author grows and these turn into 5 stars!

This is a bit slow in the beginning, it took me awhile to get through it, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It turned out to be a good read.

SPOILER FREEIt isn’t until the second third of The Magician’s Guild that things get really good. Trudi Canavan has a fantastic, accessible writing style in this fantasy book that thrives on mystery.As soon as Sonea begins to become more wrapped up in what’s going on and stumble across strange, unexpected happenings, the pace picks up and I couldn’t put The Magician’s Guild down.There is a whole cast of characters who all have distinct voices, motivations, and opinionsSonea is frightened and desires only the freedom from that fear – for herself and the ones she is closest to.- Lords Dannyl and Rothen are fantastic and I hope to see a lot more of them. Dannyl is sweet and gentle, and Rothen has an air of fatherliness to him.- Cery is a cheeky git and I love him for it.- Finally, Fergun is a very creepy character and well portrayed as such.The plot itself isn’t too complexThere are clues and hints, however, to the overarching plot of the trilogy that are introduced well in this book. The Magician’s Guild is one of the best “wizard-school” settings I have read and will be a joy to read for anyone who loves that sort of thing.Overall, this is a great introduction to this world and its characters. It may not be the best fantasy book ever, but it’s great fun and is heading towards a bigger, grander story.

I read this trilogy some years ago. Shortly before my sister passed away, too young, at the age of 30, she recommended these books to me; knowing of my love for all things magical.I never really had the chance to thank her for the introduction, and it has taken me many years to return to them, but here I am, repeating the journey I took then and reliving the wonder and thrill of these stories, the characters, world-building and imagery.Now approaching 50, I do not feel too old to enjoy myself reading this trilogy. On the contrary, they bring me such joy that I can be young again, even though for a little while.Wonderful, mesmerising and captivating, Trudi Canavan is spellbindingly marvelous.

Plenty of other reviews touch on the storyline of the book/series. All I will add is that the storyline across the whole series is superb.This first book in the series is good, though I can see why some reviewers have dropped a star or two. But...stick with it because the subsequent books build on Magician's Guild. The few issues I had with the first book were:1. There is little if any character development. You're literally thrown into a frenetically-paced book and there is little in the way of character builds and development. If the author had spent more time on this the series would be pretty much perfect (appreciating it would have been more than three books).2. The plot is too predictable and the plot can be a little pedestrian at times. It's very easy to second guess what is going to happen.3. Everything conveniently falls into place for the main protagonist. More plot twists and turns would have created a deeper sense of mystery and story.That said, it's still a good read and you should persevere because the next two books are awesome.

I picked this up on the daily deals for 99p and I'm glad I didn't spend more than that on it. It was simply okay, I've seen a lot of people say how this is their favourite fantasy series but I just don't get the big deal. I don't feel like anything happend in this book. It just felt mediocre, I think because I'd seen how much everyone else liked it I had high expectations. I would probably by the next book if it went to the daily deals but I definitely wouldn't pay full price.

A friend has been trying to get me to read this series for a while and it was offer so I thought why not.I'm glad I did.It was amazing.A heavy fantasy novel with a female lead character- especially a teenage girl- is hard to find. One fantastically written that is not some twlight knock off is great to see and nearly impossible to find.The character has a spine, she makes decisions based off her emotions and logic of what she knows. She's written as a human being. The side characters are great, in fact all the characters are great to read about. Their motives and personalities are there.The theme of class and politics in a heavy fantasy base is nothing new, but I like how she has used it in terms of magic and what the world's perception of magic is. The world is given enough time to be described allowing us to see it, it's great seeing the different sides and the way we see each part through different eyes depending on what character we are focusing on.Overall I just loved it.I don't want to give anything away as you need to read it.