LitPick Review
Anrel Murau is the main character of the story, and is an ordinary enough man. He is the son of two powerful sorcerers who perished long ago in an unknown accident. Unfortunately for him, he did not inherit any powers of his own (hence the title, A Young Man Without Magic). Yet, he is happy. When he returns home after four years of education in the capital, he discovers that his best friend, Valin, has become obsessed with the politics of the capital and the welfare of human beings. He demonstrates this soon enough by bombarding his friend with questions of the capitol, what the emperor is doing, etc. When Valin finds out that the Landgrave (owner of the province) is planning on executing a boy for stealing herbs, he immediately goes to protest. Anrel goes along with Valin, but none of their protests affect the Landgrave in any way. A few days later, Valin finds out that the Landgrave executed the boy, and goes to him again. This time however, he is much angrier, calling the Landgrave a foul, heartless creature and letting loose at him. The Landgrave asks Valin if he is challenging his right to be the Landgrave, and Valin says yes, not knowing that he just challenged the Landgrave to a duel of leadership. When he is told this, he is aghast, but there is no way to undo the damage. When the duel comes, the Landgrave quickly disposes of Valin. Anrel, seeing his dead friend, feels he needs to let his friend's voice be heard. He makes a speech of all of Valin's beliefs in the town square, and then runs off to demand justice.
Opinion:
I, as a student, have read hundreds of novels of all genres. None of the books I have read, however, have as much confused and bamboozled me as A Young Man Without Magic, by Lawrence Watt-Evans. Set in the Middle Ages, this book is a completely different spin on sorcery, witches and wizards. Others who have read the book will agree that politics play a big part in this. No, not Barack Obama and the White House, but the citizen's debate on taxes and the gossip of a new order coming into play. Pretty confusing, huh? That's how I felt after reading it. Lawrence Watt-Evans tried to make it stand out in the realm of fantasy novels, but all he succeeded in doing was making it utterly confusing and boring. This wasn't the kind of book in which I wanted to turn the pages to see what would happen; it was the kind of book that I wanted to toss in the garbage. The author had a lot of good ideas, but he didn't execute them well. For example, the idea of sorcery. That was interesting, but he hardly made any instances of characters using spells in the book. The only main event in which sorcery was used was Valin's duel. Another example was the map in the beginning. One section of the map said The Mystery Lands. What do you think is there? Well, you don't find out in the book, because no characters go there. Why bother having something intriguing if you won't even mention it again in the book? Did you just put it there so that people will read the book to find out, and be disappointed? All of my questions remain unanswered. In conclusion, A Young Man Without Magic just doesn't compare to the other books of its genre.
