Vacation is over, so it’s time to get back to work and tackle the growing list of new books, starting with some of the latest releases.
…or I could go with the book Charlie N. Holmberg released last May, The Plastic Magician. I’ve been waiting for this one, since it’s been a couple of years since we’ve had a new book set in the same world as Holmberg’s wildly successful The Paper Magician trilogy.
The previous three books were mostly about paper and glass (and occasionally flesh); this one is centered around Polymaking, the magical control of plastic. Polymaking is the youngest of the magical disciplines, and plastic is still a new enough man-made material that there are all sorts of opportunities to come up with an invention that will change the world. There are also plenty of Polymakers who are determined to make a name for themselves, even if it means stealing someone else’s discovery.
The main character for this spin-off has a completely different origin from Ceony (the star of the original trilogy). Rather than being forced into a magical discipline that she has no interest in, Ohio native Alvie Brechenmacher is super enthusiastic about plastic, it’s her very first choice (paper is second to last; no one seems to have much respect for paper). Her father is a respected inventor; in this version of America he invented the light bulb, which means Alvie’s family could afford a very good primary school and it gave her the drive to come up with her own world-changing invention.
She also has the good luck to be assigned as an apprentice to the famous Magician Praff, the London Polymaker who made his fortune with inventions like The Imagidome. I was afraid that the good-natured Alvie would end up being apprenticed to a Polymaker version of Mg. Bailey (the stick-in-the-mud jerk that Ceony had to deal with in Book 3), but Mg. Praff sees Alvie’s drive and optimism as a breath of fresh air. And one of the first things he does when Alvie arrives at his laboratory is to give her a present that’s thoughtful, wildly appropriate for Alvie, and gives the reader a taste of what plastic is capable of.
Everything about the magic in this world is still as endlessly fascinating as it was in The Paper Magician. The author keeps coming up with dazzling ways that man-made materials can be shaped and controlled by magic: a walkway made of glittering metal tiles that react when someone walks over them, lamps that either glow with Gaffer magic (glass) or Pyre magic (fire) depending on what the best choice is for each application, letters that can be written on an origami bird that will literally fly to the recipient (with a smaller bird inside it for a return letter, naturally). Holmberg has created a whole set of rules for her Materials Magic, and then surprises you with ways that they can be be bent or limited, like the fact that glass made by a lightning strike can’t be manipulated by a Gaffer, since it’s not actually man-made.
Alvie herself keeps the story running forward at top speed by surprising everyone with just how enthusiastic she is about her work. Cheerful and bookish and not used to social situations, she can space out a bit when trying to work out a calculation in her head. And a lot of the humor in the book comes from her appealing clumsiness. Even when she’s got her coke-bottle glasses on, she constantly has numbers and equations rattling through her head and her thoughts are usually going a mile a minute, which means her hands and feet get left behind to knock things askew and trip over other people’s feet.
She has a healthy appreciation for the ridiculous, adjusts fairly quickly to the cultural change of studying in a different country in a wealthy household where you have maids setting out your clothes every day and offering to do your hair, and she obsesses in the usual way about mistakes, and fixing them, and the opportunity for making things worse if she doesn’t slow the heck down.
“I wouldn’t have thought Magician Bailey the dating type, is all! You must have really…”
“Oh. On no. It’s for his apprentice. His name is Bennet Cooper. I’ll be sure to address them all to him.” Alvie paled at the thought of her grand gesture going to the wrong person. Oh hello, Bennet, Not only did I forget about your dinner, but I’m apparently crazy for your mentor. La-di-da, something British.
The story itself is the usual Girl-Adventure, with a bit of near-Victorian romance (and all the hesitation and second-guessing that comes with it) and a two-dimensional villain with standard scenery-chewing dialogue. Simple but satisfying, with just enough peril, it’s a perfect quick read for young adults (or people like me who can’t get enough of this setting.)
The world of Materials Magic is still expanding; this book is set slightly after the original trilogy, and technology (something that inventor’s-daughter Alive bristles at being called “the poor man’s magic”) has already progressed to the point where it’s beginning to compete with, and sometimes meld with, magic. Alvie’s invention in this book is a huge leap forward for what plastic can do in this world, and it opens the way for all sorts of inventions where technology can improve on magic, and vice versa. It’s also leaves things wide open for more many books set from the point of view of other magicians. (Oo, and if Mg. Holmberg is taking requests, I’d like a story about an up-and-coming Smelter figuring out how to make a steampunk robot, kthxbye!)