A Lesson in Character: A Darker Shade of Magic

Four Londons: all distinct, with some parallels, bound by magic. One closed off from the others, whose horrors begin to creep back into the rest.

It's a great premise, which is of course why I picked up A Darker Shade of Magic. The plot itself: the invasion of hungry, murderous, black magic into the remaining realms: one on the brink of destruction, one prosperous, and our plain ol' regular London, felt fresh and new. The concept of how the worlds interacted with each other (which is to say very little), the description of different magical systems, (especially Black London's magic), all that was very good. But overall, the book was only "meh." For one glaring reason: the characterization sucked.

The two main characters, Kell and Delilah, are painfully shallow and contradictory. Kell is one of two remaining blood magicians, capable of traveling between worlds. For someone who wields unspeakable power, over blood and the elements, Kell is constantly on the run in this book. He was weak at every turn, waiting to be rescued by the female, presumably just for the sake of having the stronger character be female. Which in this universe, made not a lick of sense, since she's been living in Grey London (our London, where magic is forgotten). You wanna have her discover some powers she couldn't possibly have? Fine by me, but her snarkiness rubbed me entirely the wrong way. She came off as pig-headed rather than brave, which I didn't appreciate. Her biggest contradiction is that she thinks of herself as a pirate. She seems to have no seafaring background whatsoever, and of course no realistic conception of pirate as privateer - something the author would do well to demonstrate she understands. Additionally, her desire to do that, in addition to cross-dressing, and the use of a top hat are anachronistic. Tri-cornered hat is more like it, if she dreams of being a pirate.

It peeved me, these little details about how the worlds are built-essentially, that there wasn't a great attention paid to details. The concept of how the worlds interact is not enough-each one of those worlds felt empty, and I had to do a lot of the work in terms of imagining the places where the characters traveled, filling in gaps that the text didn't provide. And the secondary characters are worse-off than the mains: they get so little page-time, that they're barely established, let alone made complex and capable of growth. Which is a problem, because those are the people whom the mains care about. But I can't empathize with them about stock figures.

Then again, I'd like to see something substantial happen in this universe: not just plotwise, because that this book semi-accomplished, if in a somewhat rushed way, but the first book in this series left off suggesting that their escapades would be episodic, rather than part of a larger arc of depth and growth. Which is frustrating. I want to like this series. If I can just get some characters I can care about, I'll be fine.

K Rating: 5/10


**New Author Goal: 12 out of 30**