Mageborn

October 2, 2017
Set in the aftermath of the devastating magic war that shaped events in Aryan’s Age of Darkness trilogy, this tangled first Age of Dread novel brings insight and understanding to ways that a primarily non-mage society responds to the dangers and possibilities of a magically gifted subpopulation. The author divides his narrative into three plots featuring the novel’s principal characters: Wren, Tianne, and Danoph, young students learning how to control and refine their magic powers from teachers at the Red Tower; Munroe and Tammy, guardians searching for someone who went missing in the course of recruiting students; and Habreel and Akosh, two scheming rabble-rousers who hope to stir up trouble that will result in the banishment of mages from Zecorria and the surrounding kingdoms. Working on an intimate and personal scale, Aryan devotes considerable attention to developing his characters, showing how they’re affected by the events that have made the mages’ families and countrymen so afraid of them. He also enlivens his tale with abundant politics, intrigues, double-crossings, and plot twists to keep the pacing brisk and whet readers’ appetites for future installments.

October 1, 2017
A conspiracy to eliminate magic threatens all the lands of the west in Part 1 of a sequel series to The Age of Darkness trilogy (Chaosmage, 2016, etc.).Ten years after the Sorcerer Balfruss defeated the evil mage known as the Warlock and ended a devastating war, most people still fear magic's destructive power. When a golden-masked Seeker discovers magical ability in a child, many would rather see that child dead rather than whisked off to the mysterious Red Tower to hone their powers. Overt resistance to magic and Seekers is growing, secretly encouraged by anti-magic fanatic Torran Habreel and his network of operatives. Unbeknownst to Habreel, one of those operatives includes a power-hungry goddess exploiting Habreel's campaign for her own purposes. Meanwhile, a small group of mages and their allies struggle to stem the tide of rising prejudice and hate before it's too late. The characters--especially a young student mage seeking to understand her place in the world and an ambitious investigator with a dark past--are relatable, and the story moves along at a decent, action-punctuated clip. However, readers who look to fantasy for escapism probably won't find it here: our news feeds are already full of zealous, furious mobs who hate those they perceive as different, their bigotry stoked by the powermongers who seek to profit from it. Those who enjoy exploring current social ills through a fantastic lens might find this book of interest if they accept the not-so-subtextual association of magical gifts with homosexuality--magical kids are "born that way," but Habreel suggests that Seekers are actually making kids magical instead of simply sensing the magic within them, similar to the way homophobes believe adult gay people indoctrinate children into their "lifestyle." At one point, the author even uses the phrase "don't ask, don't tell," albeit in a different context. But this association isn't particularly fresh, either, having been amply explored by the X-Men comics for decades.Solid, if unexceptional.

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September 3, 2018
The admirable second novel in Aryan’s Age of Dread fantasy saga extends the story lines advanced in 2017’s Mageborn. Following the destruction of the Red Tower, the magic-wielding seekers whom it was schooling and the mages who instructed them furtively disperse. In the wilds outside of Zeccoria, Wren and Tianne attempt to forge a community in which seekers are schooled to harness and channel the innate magical powers that nonmages deem dangerous. Their efforts to remain unobtrusive and altruistically beneficial to their kingdom are threatened by former confederates who have gone rogue: Akosh, who is subtly trying to establish a theocracy with herself as the goddesshead, and the power-drunk Garvey, who, with his cronies, cuts a swath of murderous destruction across the countryside. Though displays of magic occasionally manifest, Aryan’s tale is steeped more solidly in the intrigues of character clashes, petty politics, and power struggles in a culture whose marginalization of outsiders has significant contemporary resonance. His novel will whet fans’ appetites for the next installment in this gripping high fantasy series.