Magisterium: The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black
| Magisterium: The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Jill Murphy
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| Summary: | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 320 | Date: September 2014 |
| Publisher: Doubleday | |
| ISBN: 0857532499 | |
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Everyone at the Iron Trial is desperate to pass and gain entrance into the Magisterium's mage school. Everyone that is, except Callum Hunt. Call's father has always told him that he can never trust a mage and that the Magisterium is everything rotten and evil. So Call does his best to fail. But he doesn't. Chosen by Master Rufus, Call is separated from his anguished father and begin his magical training.
Why is Alistair Hunt so set against his son becoming a mage?
What are the chaos-ridden?
Can the truce with The Enemy hold?
And what are the secrets being kept from Call?
Ok. It's Cassandra Clare co-writing this story with Holly Black so we know there will be an internet war of words with one side screeching Harry Potter rip off, again!! Plagiarism at 6 o'clock!! Hostile, hostile!!! (You can never have too many exclamation marks if you're an interwebz partisan) and the other half screeching It's a GENRE, you fools, a GENRE!!! With tropes!!! Check the definition of tropes!!! And by the time you've ploughed through it all, you'll be so fed up with the whole thing that you won't bother to read the book. So I will try to save you some time.
Here's the thing: everybody's right and everybody's wrong. The Iron Trial won't really give you anything new or groundbreaking. It is chock full of tropes shared with Harry Potter. A world of magic hiding in plain sight. A trio of young magicians (yes, yes: two boys and a girl. I don't think anyone's ginger, though). A terribly evil and largely invisible antagonist. Yadda ad infinitum. But it is a genre story and it intends to appeal to readers who like the genre and want a new story but one with all the familiar characteristics. There's nothing wrong with that.
So, if you're looking for something new and different, you really should look elsewhere. But if you're looking for a particular kind of fantasy magic story with a slightly different flavour to the ones you've read before, then you'll enjoy The Iron Trial. It has an easy, comfortable, yet page-turning style and it's a pleasure to read from that point of view. Call, the central character, is highly relatable and sympathetic and the supporting cast are all credible and well fleshed out. And there's a cool twist at the end, so you won't be waiting through endless instalments to understand what this series is all about.
See? No need for screeching. Or multiple exclamation marks. I'm going to stick out my neck and say that I rather enjoyed The Iron Trial. So there!!!! (Teehee).
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You can read more book reviews or buy Magisterium: The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Magisterium: The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black at Amazon.com.
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