TITLE: Servant Mage
AUTHOR: Kate Elliot
176 pages, TorDotCom Publishing, ISBN 9781250769053 (hardcover, also available in e-book)
DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): In Kate Elliott's Servant Mage, a lowly fire mage finds herself entangled in an empire-spanning conspiracy on her way to discovering her true power.
They choose their laws to secure their power.
Fellian is a Lamplighter, able to provide illumination through magic. A group of rebel Monarchists free her from indentured servitude and take her on a journey to rescue trapped compatriots from an underground complex of mines.
Along the way they get caught up in a conspiracy to kill the latest royal child and wipe out the Monarchist movement for good.
But Fellian has more than just her Lamplighting skills up her sleeve…
MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
MY THOUGHTS: With Servant Mage, Kate Elliot proves that it is possible to write epic fantasy without writing a doorstop of a novel and still leave the reader both satisfied and wanting more. It’s probably a bit early to start making claims about “favorite novella of the year,” but I will be surprised if Servant Mage isn’t in the Top Five for me at least. That’s how intrigued I am with this world and these characters.
In this world, Liberationists “freed” the world of the Monarchy long enough ago that older people remember the way life used to be but there’s a generation coming of age who have been raised to believe what the Liberation government tells this is true: that the Monarchy were possessed by multiple demons that made them powerful but debauched, and so anyone who is deemed to have magical talent is relegated to a strictly controlled and demeaned servant class. Mages may be talented in one of five areas (earth, air, fire, water, and aether) and are trained from discovery in exactly how their powers work.
Fellian is one of those servant mages, a lamplighter (“fire”). She’s been told that she’ll only ever have the ability to create illumination, and that even if she ever manages to work her way free from her indentured servitude (a system which is designed to perpetuate indenture, not relieve it), she won’t rise very far because she’s still demon-possessed and not one of the Virtuous. At the start of the novel, we see that even in servitude, Fellian pushes boundaries: she’s learned to detect heat signatures, an ability she theoretically can’t have, according to the Liberationists; she also takes time to secretly teach other servants how to read and write, something else the Liberationists have outlawed for servant mages and, it seems, for most of the population outside of the elite.
In just the opening chapter, we see how both feisty and insecure Fellian is, and that internal struggle continues throughout the book. Even when presented with new information about the way the world or magic works, information she can see is true, her training/education still holds sway – and in at least one crucial moment, that training threatens to unravel everything the group she’s with has accomplished. Fellian also remains unafraid to call people out when she thinks they’re hiding something from her, unafraid to ask awkward questions at inopportune moments. Her guesses about people’s motives aren’t always correct, but they always get a reaction.
Servant Mage is in third person but very tightly focused on Fellian’s point of view: the reader knows what she knows in terms of what she’s experienced and been raised to believe and learns what she learns of the other characters through her questions and their answers/reactions. The rest of the cast is as intriguing as Fellian: Shey the apparent nobleman of the group; Hallou the fellow servant mage who struggles just as much as Fellian with breaking free of training; Inre the mysterious; and the battle-hardened older Captain who leads them. I enjoyed learning about each characters’ past, reveals I will not spoil in a review, and suspect there’s even more to their histories than was revealed.
The world-building that underlies the action is equally as interesting as the characters that live in the world. We’re accustomed to fantasy stories where the Monarchy is evil (especially when they’re equated with Dragons, as the Monarchy herein is) and whoever fights against the Monarchy is good. In our real world, we’re all too acquainted with revolutions that end up installing regimes who are just as bad, if not worse, than the monarchs they depose. Elliott gives us a clear look at that here, with the Liberationist government being abusive and controlling, stripping away rights from anyone with even a hint of magical ability and hoarding wealth and power to a small non-magical “elite.”
Hopefully, Servant Mage is just the start of exploring this world. I look forward to more.
I received an electronic advance reading copy from the publisher via NetGalley in hopes of an honest review.