Title: The Legend of the Terrecet
Author: R.A. Lindo
Date: 2020
Publisher: Perium
Quote: "Her choice has led to another Terrecet fragment in the hands of Erent Koll."
The Terrecet is one magical artefact that the Society for the Preservation of Magical Artefacts agreed needed to be destroyed, but were able only to shatter into fragments.
The S.P.M.A. are generally able to offer everyone in their magical world a better life than person was likely to have had "above-ground" in the non-magical world, yet, our characters note, they still have "marginalised" people--other even than the Melackin, who have been punished for their bad magical choices with a permanent lack of magic and now hang around miserably at the edge of the Society's territory, trading for the magical artefacts they miss most. Ironically, though, even when the quality being defined is clearly defined by a moral judgment, the S.P.M.A. can't bring themselves to refer to wicked magic, or evil magic, or forbidden magic--though Erent Koll's magic clearly is all three. They keep blathering about dark magic. It's commendable that this series of adventures of what are clearly British-type wizards has a central family who are clearly Afro-Caribbean, with a sidekick family whose daughter has an Indian name (have people who were not Indian ever named a child "Guppy"?)...but they keep on insulting the kind of Brits who are no longer called "Black" in England, as they used to be in Ireland, but are merely "dark."
I know, I know. Spare me. "It's not about the people, it's that 'dark magic' is unenlightened..." Well, then, say unenlightened--that would cover things like "a spell to help me win" as distinct from "protective magic to keep the contest fair.". Or, when the effect of a character's magic is clearly to harm innocent people, wicked. Or, in a different kind of story (Suzette Haden Elgin's Ozark Fantasy Trilogy, e.g.) where the stability of the whole system depends on each person's using a strictly limited amount and kind of magic power, forbidden. "Dark" and "Light" describe magic in an older, "higher" kind of fantasy based on ancient myths where magic is based on morally neutral forces of nature, where Dark Magic brings shorter days and colder weather but is not to be confused with evil. It's too late for R.A. Lindo to go back and change this, but I'd like to see future fantasy writers keep the distinction in mind.
Anyway, this is the installment of the adventures of Kaira and Guppy in which their blond friend Conrad, who spent most of the previous volume being sick, recovers his strength and courage and becomes something close to what another popular fantasy series called a dragonrider. One of the many attractions of the magical dimension of this world is that colorful songbirds morph at will into gigantic, though still colorful and feathery, animals that can carry a man and spit magical icicles.
Meanwhile Kaira and Guppy, Guppy's brother Jacob, their mother, her caretaker, Kaira's father, aunt, and grandfather, and their other friends (and enemies), all have their own adventures and, since the laws of a fantasy fiction series for young readers dictate that the nice characters will all enjoy some success, I'll leave those adventures for readers to discover. Let's just say that the slow, introductory pace of book one is in no way an indicator of any inability to plot. The pace of action picks up as the series goes along.
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