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    The Magicians' Guild: The Black Magician Trilogy
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    The Magicians' Guild: The Black Magician Trilogy
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    The Magicians' Guild: The Black Magician Trilogy
    Ebook592 pages7 hours

    The Magicians' Guild: The Black Magician Trilogy

    By Trudi Canavan

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "We should expect this young woman to be more powerful than our average novice, possibly even more powerful than the average magician."

    This year, like every other, the magicians of Imardin gather to purge the city of undesirables. Cloaked in the protection of their sorcery, they move with no fear of the vagrants and miscreants who despise them and their work—until one enraged girl, barely more than a child, hurls a stone at the hated invaders . . . and effortlessly penetrates their magical shield.

    What the Magicians' Guild has long dreaded has finally come to pass. There is someone outside their ranks who possesses a raw power beyond imagining, an untrained mage who must be found and schooled before she destroys herself and her city with a force she cannot yet control.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061797675
    Unavailable
    The Magicians' Guild: The Black Magician Trilogy
    Author

    Trudi Canavan

    Trudi Canavan is the author of the bestselling Black Magician trilogy—The Magician's Guild, The Novice, and The High Lord—as well as Priestess of the White and Last of the Wilds, Books One and Two of her Age of the Five trilogy. She lives in a little house on a hillside, near a forest, in the Melbourne suburb of Ferntree Gully in Australia. She has been making up stories about things that don't exist for as long as she can remember, and was amazed when her first published story received an Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story in 1999. A freelance illustrator and designer, she also works as the designer and Art Director of Aurealis, a magazine of Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction.

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    Reviews for The Magicians' Guild

    4/5

    423 ratings65 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a light, entertaining book that I enjoyed reading. The action takes place mainly in the slums of Kyralia and the Magician’s Guild, both of which were wonderfully realised. While there wasn’t a strong sense of place in the book because only the two of these places was described in any great detail, the slums and Guild allowed a contrast to be established between the low and high status societies in the city. This was pivotal to the plot of the book, so I was not disappointed at the lack of detail about the world external to the two places. In contrast, I found the pace of the story to be entirely too slow. Sonea’s attempts to evade the Guild as they searched for her were gripping at first, but quickly became monotonous as it dragged on. Just as I began to think that perhaps Canavan was taking us in direction where Sonea would not be captured at all, it became clear that she would die without the assistance of the Guild. I felt the search for her could have been confined to a few chapters without taking anything away from the plot. The pace picked up once she was found by the magicians, and I enjoyed seeing her slowly open up to the Magicians and allow them to help her. The characters were engaging but cliched, developing very little thought the novel. Sonea was a good heroine, if a little annoying because of her stubbornness concerning her generalised beliefs about magicians. In turn, many of the magicians, who are leaders in society, believed in stereotypes of the street dwellers without ever interacting with one. My favourite character is Lord Dannyl, easily the most interesting character because of his willingness to co-operate with the Guild of Thieves to find Sonea. Sonea’s introduction into the Guild allows the factions and alliances within the society to be revealed and this gave depth to the otherwise superficial world of the Magician’s Guild.An entertaining novel which establishes Canavan as a talented storyteller, The Magician’s Guild will appeal to YA readers as well those who enjoy high fantasy. Although it is clear that this book is setting up the rest of the series, the trilogy shows a lot of promise, and now that most of the world-building is out of the way, I look forward to reading about Sonea’s time as a Novice of the Magician’s Guild. See the full review here
    • 4/5
      Another new author for me; I've seen Trudi Canavan's books around before, so now I've finally dipped a toe in and read one. I whizzed through this one, because I've been hanging onto my library books for so long, I can't renew them anymore, and I have to say that (at just over 500 pages), this was quite easy to read. It's nicely written; engaging, but not too complicated, and the language and plot flow smoothly.In the country of Kyralia, magicians are supposed to be taken from all walks of life to be trained in the Guild, but for a long time, the practice has been that only those from the Houses are tested for the gift, and so it is assumed that only the rich can become magicians.Every winter, the Guild magicians hold purges in the capital city of Imardin, to indiscriminately clear the slum areas, and this causes resentment amongst the slum dwellers. One year, Sonea throws a rock at the magicians with all the weight of her anger behind it, and it breaks through the magicians' shield to knock a magician unconscious. Stunned that the unthinkable has happened, other magicians reflexively respond with fire. Knowing she has been seen and fearing for her life, she goes into hiding, at the same time trying to learn how to use her burgeoning powers - unaware that they will destroy her unless she is taught to control them. The magicians of the Guild have to search the slums in a race against time to save her and the people around her, to try to convince her to trust them and to return with them to the Guild so that they can help her.
    • 4/5
      I began with the prequel to The Black Magician Trilogy as I hoped this would be a good introduction. Now I've finished the first in the trilogy proper I'm starting to get a handle on both the attractions and drawbacks of her books, her writing style and the world she has created.The interest centres on a young girl Sonea, who accidentally comes upon her magical potential after a confrontation with magicians. The story is largely taken up with her attempts to evade capture by the magicians of Imardin, a city clearly inspired by the geographical siting of Melbourne in Australia. It becomes clear that unless she is found by the magicians she is likely to be consumed by her magical powers, and it becomes a race against time to avoid the catastrophic release of all her magic. Trudi Canavan's concept of magic is ingenious, and the creation of the several jeapardies that provide the impetus for the story is clever. She's created interesting characters for Sonea to react with and against, and by the end of the story I do want to find out the consequences of the twist in the tale that must surely follow in the sequels. However, much as it's clear that she has fallen in love with her created world and hopes that we have too, towards the end there is a sense that there is too much talk, ruminations as Sonea and others consider all the alternatives that may result from an action and the character traits of friends and enemies. This, like the prequel, is very much a 'talky' novel, and at times I would welcome more action and less discussion.
    • 3/5
      3.5/5 stars
      I ended up really enjoying this book! I didn't really have any expectations going in - I had picked this up at my local used bookstore, and I liked it!

      We follow Sonea, a "dwell" - a girl who lives in the slums and her journey with her friends, the magicians, and how she discovers her magic.

      I actually really enjoyed Sonea's character development and her journey with her magic. I also really liked Dannyl and Rothen and Cery. They were all very well fleshed out and well developed.

      The plot was a little slow, but the pacing remained the same throughout the whole novel. I liked the detail we got of each part of the plot and how things progressed.

      The writing was engaging as well.

      Overall, it was good, and I will continue on with the series at some point.
    • 5/5
      Love this book and the trilogy!
    • 4/5
      I love this series an enjoyable read
    • 3/5
      It took me a while to get into this book. Mainly because the first half was far too long, as we all knew Sonea would end up studying at the Magician's Guild. I couldn't see a point to dragging this out for so long and just wanted the story to progress.

      The second half of the book was much better, but I do enjoy a good magic system and explaining how everything works more than most I admit. I wish the magic system was a little more complicated though.

      Overall a pleasant read.
    • 4/5
      This is the start of a very interesting world. It's created internal tension, external tension, and the threat of problems due to its many character conflicts. The difficulty became the slow build of the story line to reach the point of moving at a decent pace. It isn't until you near the end that you see the need of the building the author did early on. The normal trope appears here: powerful magic user who didn't know gets sought for their new found power. One gripe: Too many names ending with the similar end sound. Sonea, Tania, Dania... The characters might be different but the names blended together.There was little question who the focus bad guy would be in the book. It was telegraphed, dropped in front of the reader. Sure, some red herrings were offered, but they didn't hold well enough to distract. The overarching plot bad guy, on the other hand, they were a surprise. I'm saying this is a worthy start to a series and I'm interested to see where the author goes from here.
    • 4/5
      These books don't appear to be as complex as some of the author's I have read, say Anne Bishop or Terry Brooks. That said, I enjoy her style and I like her approach to magic. She uses the room as her metaphor. When magicians touch mind to mind, they talk of entering the other person's room, of placing thoughts you don't want the other person to see behind a door, of placing thoughts you are willing to share in picture frames on the walls of the room, etc. A person's power is visualized as a ball of energy behind one of the doors in the room.I also find her idea of the Guild to be interesting. All magicians are members of the Guild or they are declared "rogue" magicians and are under penalty of death if they are found. There are five nations/races. The Kyralians control the Guild and the other four send their magicians to the Kyralians for training. The Guild sends ambassadors to the other nations to make sure the magicians that return are behaving themselves. A mix of democracy and "king of the hill" seems to control the Guild's leadership positions, although they ultimately have to answer to the King of Kyralia.I think she does a great job of closing off the loose ends by the end of The High Lord. The few items not completely closed out could serve as interesting elements for the next trilogy to be called The Traitor Spy Trilogy according to her web site.
    • 5/5
      Story was gripping the charters and world kept me glued
      First time in a long time I skipped sleep
    • 3/5
      I rate this 3.5. Fantasy is one of favourite genres. I love being taken to another world. The Magicians' Guild, the first of The Black Magician trilogy, by Trudi Canavan, is a fantasy with the typical elements - magic, the good ones, the bad ones and the really bad ones, a conflict that makes things difficult for the protagonist, a minor love interest, attempt to create another world... The class difference in Kyralia is WIDE and vehement, and very clearly portrayed through the doubts Sonea has about joining the Guild. The plot is strong, with quite a bit of intrigue, politics, introspections, etc. But I kind of expected the "twist" that came at the end.

      The characterisation is strong - the author manages to build up reader sympathy towards almost all the characters in the book. From the protagonist Sonea to her benefactor Lord Rothen, from the "Thieves" Cery and Faren to the magicians Lord Dannyl and Lord Fergun, from Lord Rothen's helper Tania to the High Lord Akkarin. However, here are a couple of things that made me take away 1.5 stars from the rating are:
      a) The magical world is not convincing enough. The story is set in a fictional country called Kyralia, which is ruled by a King and a Guild of Magicians. That's fine. We can't all aspire for Narnias and Middle Worlds. But I felt that the attempt at creating a new set of words for flora and fauna - ceryni and ravi for rodents, faren for spiders - was quite feeble, almost forced. It would have made no difference to the plot if the names weren't in another "language" or whatever it is that the author envisaged them as.
      b) The book is very slow-paced until almost 40% in. I thought the parts about Sonea trying to escape the Guild went on far too long. I almost lost interest in those parts.

      The writing in The Magician's Guild is mature, the narration is smooth - overall, it is an enjoyable work. I'm definitely picking up The Novice, the second book, to know how it goes for Sonea.
    • 4/5
      the only thing I would say is it an be a bit confusing hoping between character voices, there are no lines or breaks that warn you are you switching narrators. Other then that I really enjoyed the book and look forward to the others. I just worry that for a beginning reader it might be very confusing and a bit frustrating to keep up with.
    • 3/5
      It's okay, not an epic fantasy but a decent read. i enjoyed the intrigue to a degree. the characters appear to grab you. everything happens in one city over a few months, so you don't get an idea of the world. a couple of mysteries like the high lord and the graveyard of magicians
    • 5/5
      Comfortable read. Extremely enjoyable and kept my attention throughout every page.
    • 4/5
      loved it!
    • 2/5
      This story was just okay. The first major plot point took over half the book to resolve when it should have taken 3 chapters at most. That really sums up why this book didn't earn another star or two from me. All in all, not a lot happens. I'm guessing if I finish the series, it will all add up to the content that would comfortably fill a single book. It's just a bit to leisurely written for me.
    • 3/5
      This book was quite interesting. I enjoyed delving into this world of magicians, the chase, and even her capture. When she began trying to learn to do magic on her own I couldn't help but cringe because, in my heart, I knew it would end badly - it never goes real well. Not when you have no idea what you're doing. Her friend, Ceryni, is awesome and I really wish I had a friend like him. Faren, also, was very cool and I'd like to meet someone like him in the future - although I do hope that maybe, he is on the right side of the law. As I read the book it continued to get more and more interesting, at first I thought about putting it down but it began to pick up a little bit after the fifth chapter.
    • 3/5
      I am not gonna say much, I have a fever and I still want to finish this review.

      It was a nice fantasy tale about a young girl on the run as she is discovered to be a magician. She is scared they will kill her. We do get to see the conflicts in society that way. Not all is well, actually some have it really crappy.

      So we have a story about running for your life. I liked the main characters and after I finished I did want more. It seemed like a nice world and I wonder how it will turn out for Sonea
    • 4/5
      Decent fantasy novel. I found it suffered from a common flaw in first books of a series -- a bit too much set-up at the cost of plot. I did like the fact that Canavan just drops the reader into her world & leaves him/her to figure things out (with the assistance of the maps & glossary provided). I liked it enough to be curious about what will happen in the next books of the trilogy!
    • 5/5
      This was a favorite series of mine back in high school and I'm pleased to say it remains a favorite. It was almost like reading the book again for the first time because I'd forgotten all but the bare bones of the story. Sonea is probably your generic, fantasy underdog character, but she's one I enjoy reading about. Canavan's world-building is great and I find myself easily caught up in the drama of the guild. I also enjoy the way Canavan weaves relevant topics like class and sexual preference into her characters and world. To me, this is one of those fantasy books that feels timeless. If you enjoy the magical school atmosphere, but you don't want the detail of daily courses and homework (a la HP), this is a series you should check out. It still gives the university atmosphere but focuses on the bigger picture.
    • 3/5
      It was very cute. All I've been seeming to pick up these days are fantasy crusades and massacres, so this was such a good turn away. It was very light in terms of intensity, which is great for those times when you're not into the slaughter of villages. It was strange because I feel like with another book I would have said, "But nothing happened . . ." but this was a good enough story that I didn't mind. I understand that it was just the beginning and the fact that I was explicitly told what at least the next book would be about was a bit better than a lot of other instances. The main problem I had was that the first half of the book was unnecessarily long-winded. It was basically the concentration of my "but nothing happened . . ." thoughts. The second part is much better. I almost skipped ahead to it, but I, rather obviously, figured I'd miss stuff.

      I would recommend it. It's actually good and the main character is super great and a super strong person. I love her a lot and I want to see what happens to her. On to the next one.
    • 4/5
      Magician's Guild follows the adventures of Sonea, a young slum dweller who discovers she is a magician. Angered by the annual purging of the slums where she lives, she throws a rock at the magician's magical shield and manages to break it. This sets the magicians on Sonea's trail as they wish to locate the untrained mage before she destroys the city.

      Magician's Guild is a fairly decent fantasy read. Sonea is realistically characterised as a mistrusting slum dweller and we get a look at the magician's who are trying to find her. We spend a good deal of the book, watching Sonea hide from the mage's and more time watching the mage's talk about her. That may sound like a criticism, but it's not really. We get to spend time with these characters, we understand their motivations and dreams.

      The world building is very good; not quite on the level of Robin Hobb, but at least I don't feel the persistent need to strangle the main character, even if she is slightly annoying and a little passive at times. I do want to find out more about her and her future. Not particularly sold on the budding romance, but there's two more books to go.

      Will certainly be reading the rest of the series.
    • 3/5
      This is the first book in the Black Magician series. I have had this book on my shelf to read for quite awhile. It was a decent fantasy book, but the pacing is a bit slow and the plot is repetitive.I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was very well done. The narrator is pleasant to listen to and does character voices well. I would definitely recommend listening to this on audiobook.The magician’s of Imardin have gathered to do their yearly purge of undesirables from the Inner City. One of these “undesirables” is Sonea, she is a young woman whose aunt and uncle were actually making an honest, if meager, living when they were driven out of their house as part of the Purge. Sonea, in an unusual fit of anger, joins the other slum kids in throwing rocks at the Magicians’ impenetrable shield….only Sonea’s rock doesn’t stop at the shield...it goes through it. Sonea is terrified that the Magicians will kill her her for what she’s done, common folk just don’t have magic. So Sonea begs her thief friends to hide her from the Magicians as long as possible. Unfortunately Sonea needs to be taught how to control her magic before it spirals out of control and kills everyone.There are a lot of good aspects to this story. I really and truly enjoyed all the characters (well not the evil ones, but all the good ones). They are well done and have a lot of depth to them. In general the characters are kinder to each other than I would expect characters eking out a living in the slum to be. I also really liked Sonea; she is smart and resourceful...if a bit too dependent on others sometimes. Additionally I enjoyed the magic and the idea of the Magician’s Guild and their different schools of magic.However there was a lot I didn’t like as well. Sonea spends the first two-third’s or more of this book running from place to place hiding from the magicians. It gets very repetitive and boring. She doesn’t actually get involved with the Guild until very late in the story. I also wished we had saw more of the world outside of Imardin; we really don’t and it makes the world-building seem stunted.What kept me engaged in the story was the whole idea of Sonea’s magic destroying her; you are constantly wondering what choices she will make and how they will all play out. The story is very nicely tied up with another storyline started right at the end to keep the reader enticed...it’s not a cliffhanger but more of a presentation of yet another mystery.Overall this was a decent fantasy that suffered from some repetitiveness and slow pacing in the beginning. I did however really enjoy the characters and magic throughout and would love to learn more about them both. I am unsure whether or not I will continue with this series. I have heard that the latter two books of the series are much better, so since I already have the books I may go ahead and read them.
    • 3/5
      I don't think this book/series is marketed as young adult, but it does have that sort of feel to it. Everything is a bit simplistic; the main conflict between Sonea and the magicians is mainly that of misunderstanding and extreme differences of class. The characterization is rather simplistic as well with no real depth. The setting is the rich magician's guild complex and the poor slums.

      There's lots of opposites in conflict, lots of black and white but very little in shades of grey. It's a relaxing read, especially considering the heavier books I read earlier this month, but I do hope that the rest of the series has a bit more depth to it.
    • 2/5
      Sonea lives in the slums with her Aunt and Uncle and is no longer allowed to associate herself with her friends and their gang. However, during the annual Purge, she meets them again and gets mixed up in their stone-throwing hatred towards the Guild Magicians. When the deep, concealed magic she has within her is loosened, Sonea must hide herself because the Magicians are after her: no-one from the slums have ever showed magical potential and they are scared, but not as scared as Sonea.


      I had read the Traitor Spy Trilogy previous and, whilst I didn't love it, I wasn't put-off completely from this author. I enjoyed grown-up Sonea in those books but found her to be completely different in this book: obviously that would be the case since she is a child here, but she's almost a completely different person. Perhaps in the next two you see how she will turn in to the only character from the other trilogy I liked, but I don't feel compelled to do so.

      I had no sympathy for any of the characters, except perhaps Lord Rothen, and even then I couldn't remember his name to write this review. But even so, he was just a nice man and I like nice men.

      It was also so incredibly slow. Half the book was just Sonea running about and hiding: you don't need 300 pages to show someone running from hideout to hideout. The first part (the book was parted in to two) could have honestly been condensed in to one chapter, if that, giving the excitement that almost peeped its head out at the end could have been put in to the first book.

      I will not be reading the rest of the series, or any more from this author. There is nothing I want to go back to.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this story enough to keep reading the series. But there wasn't enough of a glimpse into the peoples that occupy the world it's set in. Also, I kept feeling that animals & plants were given alien names when they had known equivalents. I don't mind alien names for people or places - it's to be expected - but don't make up strange names for spiders, coffee & palm trees.

      Otherwise, the story is about a poor girl who develops magic abilities, and the Mage's Guild want & need to find her to teach her to use her powers without losing control, which she does several times without proper training. But not everyone looking for her has the same motives...
    • 4/5
      Trudi Canavan is an author I'd been looking forward to read for a long time. Thanks to my book hoarding habits, I found that I actually own the first books from both her Black Magician Trilogy and the Traitor Spy Trilogy and didn't know which to tackle first. Then I found out that the latter series is a continuing story of some of the characters in the former, which ultimately decided it for me. I always I prefer to read things chronologically and in publishing order, so The Magicians' Guild it is!The book centers around the life of Sonea, a young vagrant girl caught up in the disturbance which occurs every year during the Purge, an event which expels all the city's poor, homeless, beggars and other undesirables from within its boundaries. Sonea sees a group of children trying to annoy the guild magicians in charge by throwing stones at their magical shield, and decides for fun to join in. In a moment of anger, however, the stone she throws somehow manages to pierce the magicians' protection, beaning one of them on the side of the head. Then everything explodes into chaos.The Magicians' Guild immediately launches a manhunt for the little girl who so effortlessly foiled their shield spell, because it must mean she possesses magical ability as well. No untrained magic user can be trusted to roam unchecked around the city, for the results of that uncontrolled power can be dangerous for all. Not knowing this, Sonea flees and goes deeper underground with the help of her friends, but a time will soon come when she won't be able to escape anymore, neither from the magicians nor herself.At first, I wasn't sure if I was going to like this. I spent a good chunk of the book wondering when the story will get to the part where the Magician's Guild and Sonea meet up with each other, so that they can finally get on to training her properly in the ways of magic. That's how these kinds of stories usually go, right? Then I realized that the hunt for her was actually the whole point for the entire first half of the novel, dashing any preexisting expectations I had for the plot.Going to be honest here, the book still didn't quite hook me until the Magicians do eventually end up finding Sonea, and that was around the halfway mark. Everything that occurred before this point detailing the search and Sonea's struggle to control her magic felt like this huge, unnecessarily drawn out introduction, but the good new is, I started to enjoy myself a lot more. It's almost like, "Okay, now that all that's out of the way, we can finally get this show on the road." The conflicts in the plot started to get more interesting, and I found myself drawn to characters like Rothen, for whom I previously felt nothing.It also wasn't until I finished this book that I heard this series had been re-marketed for the young adult market. If so, that actually made a lot of sense. Assuming that a YA audience probably wouldn't be as critical as I'm being, I thought the story and characters were strong but could have done with a little more depth, especially since a few sections of the plot felt thin to me and not very convincing. As general fantasy though, I liked this book well enough and I think it can be appreciated by all.
    • 4/5
      A good book with well-developed characters, but fairly slow-moving.
    • 3/5
      I really quite can't make up my mind about how I feel about this book. On the one hand I loved the idea of the world that Canavan has created, even though it feels very derivative, and the idea that a girl, from the wrong part of town, can have magical powers. But on the other hand, I found the book quite flat and just misses the mark. Sonea's journey through the slums as she tried to elude the Magicians should have been exciting and interesting, but, because we'd been told that she'd die unless she was properly trained, and the only place to do that was with the Magicians, it just felt overly long and, frankly, boring. The other issue is that there's something missing from the characterisations as the spark that would bring them alive is missing, as a result, I couldn't even work myself up into caring for the villain, and usually the villain of the piece is the most exciting and charismatic character in the book, and the most memorable. It just feels as though if Canavan had written another draft that would’ve put the spark into the book.

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    • 2/5
      This was a well-narrated audio book but plot-wise and character-wise it didn't interest me at all.
      Everything seemed very predictable.
      You looked at the stupidity of some of the character actions and you just shook your head.
      It was very slow as well.
      I'd give it 2.5 stars.