Review: Thief's Magic by Trudi Canavan

Thief's Magic [Millennium's Rule #1]

by Trudi Canavan

Format: Hardback / Paperback / E-book

Nr of Pages: 560

Publisher: Little Brown Book Group 

Synopsis: 

In a world where an industrial revolution is powered by magic, Tyen, a student of archaeology, unearths a sentient book called Vella. Once a young sorcerer-bookbinder, Vella was transformed into a useful tool by one of the greatest sorcerers of history. Since then she has been collecting information, including a vital clue to the disaster Tyen's world faces.
Elsewhere, in a land ruled by the priests, Rielle the dyer's daughter has been taught that to use magic is to steal from the Angels. Yet she knows she has a talent for it, and that there is a corrupter in the city willing to teach her how to use it - should she dare to risk the Angels' wrath.
But not everything is as Tyen and Rielle have been raised to believe. Not the nature of magic, nor the laws of their lands.
Not even the people they trust.

Rating: 4/5

Review:

Warning: This is going to be a LONG review so I am putting it under a read more. Please bear with me. I have a lot of feelings.

If you had asked me before I finished reading The Black Magician trilogy if I liked Trudi Canavan I would probably say yes. I would probably say that she was one of my new favourite authors. When I finished the trilogy however my feelings towards the author changed. The ending was awful, rushed, unexplained and fanfiction like (and not the good kind of fanfiction) and as a reader I felt betrayed. This was not what I had agreed on! Trudi couldn’t give me a fantastic world, a fantastic way to use magic, good characters and then a two page ending where the unbeatable villain is defeated by chance and then The End. (It was literally like that! They kill the bad guy there's like two more sentences and the book ends. There's a half a page epilogue that's even worse so that doesn't even count!)

I was so mad at the author that even after it was announced that she was writing a sequel trilogy I couldn’t make myself read it. My cousin who loves reading as much as I do bought me her other trilogy “Age of Five” to read and even that I couldn’t do. I was dreading her rushed final battles and how she was going to build another beautiful world to then ruin everything.

Since time heals all wounds I found myself looking at Trudi’s new trilogy a couple of weeks ago. The book Thief’s Magic was in every bookstore and in prominent display and although I didn’t want to read it I started to wonder if I should. Maybe I could give it a try. So I went to my local library and patiently waited in the queue for my turn to read it.

As soon as I started reading it I was pulled into a whole new world. I don’t know how Trudi does it but it’s always so easy to me to picture what she is describing besides I tend to listen to epic music while I read which in this case does help to set the mood.

In Thief’s Magic we follow two main characters, a student named Tyen and an artist named Rielle. When we first start reading the book we enter Tyen world and as we go on in his adventure.

Tyen is an archaeologist and a student, he plans to finishes his study and go into teaching at the Academy of Magic, however when he stumbles upon a magic books all his future plans seem to change.

Tyen is a very likable character; he is the typical innocent hero who trusts everyone and that makes you scream at him for trusting people. He is a hero like those of children books: brave, dedicated but somehow unaware of his true potential. I also found his world that it’s on the brick of industrial revolution but still relays mainly on magic quite fascinating.

Rielle was a bit more complex in my opinion, as people with religious believes tend to be in my opinion. She has magic powers but is afraid of them because her religion says that using magic is stealing from the Angels. So her powers are forbidden and since she is keen on making a good marriage Rielle has kept herself under warps.

However in a turn of events Rielle finds herself falling in love with a poor painter and jeopardizing her life as her powers grow. Rielle’s world was a world controlled by religion and fear and that reminded me more of a middle age scenario whoever and at the same time I got an Arabic vibe that I really enjoyed with the whole market scene reminding me of Disney’s Aladdin.

Even so both characters seemed a little typical to me and without anything that could distinguish them from most characters.

Although not in the same world it seems to me that everything is coming together for our heroes to meet latter on in the saga. And as they pass they trials and their worlds become more complex there are less and less people they can trust with their secrets and their lives. As usual Trudi Canavan as created an interesting world that I will follow although I am afraid of how she will end up the saga this time. I really don’t think I could take another heartbreak.