On V.E. Schwab’s “A Darker Shade of Magic” (A Darker Shade of Magic #1)

A Darker Shade of Magic [2015] by V.E. Scwhab

It’s the fantasy genre’s bread and butter: our world is a dull, flat, adventure-less universe that only exists to be the lame foil of a whole host of other, brighter, infinitely more magical universes. An adolescent human doesn’t fit into the dull, flat universe, and their life is awful, until one day an owl shows up with some mail. Or one day a wizard knocks on your Hobbit hole door with his wizard staff. Or one day a Jedi knight turns out to be your next door neighbor and you learn there are way cooler things to do than shoot womp rats with your T-16. Escapism may be the simplest of benefits from fantasy novels, but it’s one at which V.E. Schwab excels in her lovely new novel A Darker Shade of Magic, in which a young man and a young woman–both full of beautiful, adolescent angst and dreamy feelings–must find their proper worlds.

Kel belongs to Red London. The city is full of magic powered by the glowing, ruby-hued Thames, and Kel is the last of the blood magicians. His enhanced ability allows him to do something no other has been capable of for hundreds of years: travel between the three Londons. Red London is healthy and flush with magic. Grey London is magicless and dull–the world of the Muggles and the untalented. White London stands on the brink of disaster as the magic in this world sucks the life out of its inhabitants, who in turn grow increasingly and violently power-hungry. And there is one more London. A forbidden London. Mordor. … I mean, Black London. (How many times can I write, “London,” in this post, you ask? So many times. So. Many. Times.) When Kel finds an artifact from Black London, he becomes the unwitting pawn in someone else’s deadly game. But even more perilous than the puppeteer pulling at Kel’s strings is the Black London artifact itself.

Grey London is devoid of magic. It’s dull and weak and boring. It’s our London, so thanks for rubbing it in, V. (Photo from J.A. Alcaide)

In the boring London, leading a boring life but longing for something so much more, is Delilah Bard–thief and ne’erdowell extraordinaire with an appetite for adventure (as long as “adventure” is synonymous with “piracy”). Delilah, or “Lila,” is the epitome of the spunky genre heroine. Orphaned and living on her wit and deft hands, Lila steals to survive … until she steals the wrong loot and finds herself entangled in the adventure of her life.

“Trouble is the looker …. It keeps looking till it finds you. Might as well find it first.”

-Delilah “Lila” Bard

She is intelligent, headstrong, independent, and mildly damaged. In a word, Lila is familiar. I wouldn’t call her a tired trope, since this world needs all the strong female characters it can get, but Lila hasn’t achieved the depth of character that compels me to love a book. She pales in comparison to other fantasy novels’ protagonists like Seraphina Dombegh or Lyra Belacqua. I can only hope her character–and Kel’s, as well–grows in depth in the future novels of this series.

But speaking of tropes, Schwab’s characters aren’t the only aspects of ADSoM that fall a little flat. Tell me if this plot sounds vaguely familiar to you fantasy readers: an unsuspecting mortal finds herself in the possession of a dark, evil artifact from a cursed land far away; the artifact is hunted by the people who were left to fight back the darkness on their own and suffered great loss because of it; to destroy the evil artifact, said unsuspecting mortal must return it to the dark lands from whence it came, but carrying it has taken its toll! As long as Peter Jackson directs the film adaptation, I guess I wouldn’t mind so much.

Many of ADSoM‘s characters live behind masks, so it’s no surprise that Kell and Lila are headed to a masquerade. And, after all, what’s a fantasy novel without a ball?

The magic system itself, while not robustly defined, provided some wonderful action sequences. Schwab does not disappoint when it comes to building excitement or creating a detailed combat scene. Thanks to her descriptiveness, the intensity of Kel’s blood magic and the horrors of Black London’s power combine to add the freshness ADSoM needs. And, since this is apparently the beginning of a new, promising series of Schwab’s, I’m excited to see the lore and landscape of the Londons develop. Hopefully, Black London will take a more prominent role as a setting to see more of that sweet, sweet darker shade.

“‘I’m not going to die,’ she said. ‘Not till I’ve seen it.’

‘Seen what?’

Her smile widened. ‘Everything.'”

Read It: A Darker Shade of Magic is the perfect fit for the casual fantasy fan. It doesn’t delve for hundreds of pages into a complex world history or throw countless unpronounceable names in your face or require a glossary as thick as a stand-alone novel. The story of Kell and Lila is an age-old tale of adventure and daring, with just enough magic to escape from our own dreary, grey world.

Don’t Read It: Some of us can’t help ourselves. We’re hypercritical, self-righteous little snots who like to go to town on the inadequacies, however small, of entertaining fiction. ADSoM can really rack up the points against it between the shallow characters, mildly derivative plot, and sketchy magic system. So you may not want to pick this up if you’re the type who tends to over-analyze or needs to throw a book across a room because a fantasy author keeps finding new, thinly veiled ways to reference Middle Earth.

Similar Books: They may move vastly slower than ADSoM, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien is another story about an unsuspecting mortal with no powers but tons of heart who is tasked with returning a dark and magical object to a scary realm beyond the mildly nicer realms of humankind before it.

Victoria “V.E.” Schwab