ANGEL MAGE / AUTHOR: GARTH NIX / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
17th-century France is a fertile ground for fantasy stories, or to put it another way, there’s just something about The Three Musketeers that makes you think that it could only be improved by adding some magic and monsters to the mix. Garth Nix’s latest standalone novel, Angel Mage, takes this approach to great effect.
One of Nix’s strengths has been his approach to world building, using easily recognisable things and steadily tweaking them until you suddenly realise you’re in a fantastic and strange world. He draws the reader in with the mundane and before you know it, magic is all over the place. Angel Mage takes us the land of Sarance, a religious place that feels like it’s France in the 1600s, right down to the Queen’s Musketeers and scheming holy men.
The big shift here is magic, which comes from angelic beings and is summoned through holy icons. Angels are terrifying beings from a place beyond mortal understanding. Summoning one binds it to your will (for a time), but the greater the power the more danger the mage is in. It’s an easy to understand system and Nix throws in plenty of twists and turns in, making the whole affair rather gripping. They define the world and each angel we meet is unique and interesting. They feel real, and it’s at this point you realise you’re hooked.
Our plot is one of four friends banding together to overcome a threat to all mankind. Our main antagonist is Lilliath, an ancient magus who wishes not only to bind a powerful angel to her heart but to also gain absolute power. A source of powerful icons and a cunning if psychotic foe, her destiny is tied to a doctor, a clerk, a musketeer, and an artist.
One of the things that’s fun about the main band of heroes is that they are all relatable in some way; there’s a mix of personalities and people here that’s rather refreshing. Rather than three interchangeable musketeers we have brave, bold, wise and sarcastic traits in abundance. They’re fun and likeable.
Angel Mage is a page turner and relatively easy read, one that’s guaranteed to make the cold winter nights go fast. Get it for the swashbuckling and stay for the magic.
