Witchmark by C.L. Polk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Witchmark is entertaining and interesting. Magic takes the place of electricity, which is a cool take on steampunk / weird Victorian lit. Not original, but who cares? The elf-like race is well-drawn and convincing.
I very much like the weather wizards who make the land habitable by redirecting storms. So often in fantasy worlds, national threats are either so abstract as to be invisible or simplistically concrete. Think a dying warlock’s curse versus an army of orcs. (Usually the choice hinges on whether the protagonist is going to be facing the problem alone or not!) A secret society of mages controlling the weather is a nice mix of concrete and abstract.
I’d like to note that the evil national problem in Witchmark is the same as in Tad Williams’ The War of the Flowers. I’ll bet there are others, too. Come to think of it, The Matrix had a similar thing. But I don’t think it detracts from the book at all.
There’s one place where the plot doesn’t quite make sense. Two of the problems contradict. First, the protagonist is hiding his magical power for fear of prosecution as a witch. Second, he’s trying to keep himself away from his famous family. Eventually he fails at this second goal and becomes his sisters’ magic slave. He publicly returns to life as a wizard.
But then he’s still hiding his magic power from his boss. Like, dude. Get the Queen to write you a letter saying, This guy is immune from witchcraft prosecution. Done. Problem solved.
You have to check to make sure your protagonist’s problems don’t cancel each other out. That should happen during the outlining phase.
But other than that small hiccup, the plot moves along convincingly. There’s even a pretty cool twist / revelation at the end.