My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Spellwright is the introductory novel of Nicodemus, a young aspiring wizard who has been branded a cacographer because of his disability. Simply put, he has magical dyslexia – in a world where spells are visible as strings of floating, physical text, a mere touch by Nicodemus can cause a spell to be misspelled, gaining new meaning and often as not warping it from simple to potentially dangerous.
As with many fantasy novels, there is a prophesy, and depending on interpretation Nicodemus could be a savior – or the equivalent of the antichrist.
I have to confess, I’ve wanted to read this book since it came out a few years ago, and anticipation breeds its own expectations that reality can rarely match. As is oft said, I wish Goodreads would let us use 1/2 stars. Charlton’s book is right on the cusp between 3 and 4 stars, but ultimately I couldn’t round up.
The cons, for me, were twofold. First, mechanically, I found the text to be agonizing to follow in some places. It is almost worst that this is an inconsistant problem, because the rest of the time you can get a sense of Charlton’s emerging voice. Future books will not suffer this problem, and you can tell. Charlton can tell a story, but that fact is buried in this first novel, and only shining on occasion.
Secondly, and perhaps this is another writing advancement that will come in the future, there are far too many info dumps. In fact, this book is an amazing example of show, don’t tell. There are so many cases where if Blake had stepped back and given pause, he could have demonstrated his point, leaving the reader to “discover” the truth on their own (and therefore feel both a minor sense of accomplishment, as well as feel more involved in the story).
I read the book in five days, with a real life interrupting. In my world, that means the book was a quick read, so caveat lector.
Related articles
- Spellbound (fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com)
