The Accidental Sorcerer
The Rogue Agent Trilogy, Book 1
K. E. Mills
Orbit
Fiction, Humor/Fantasy
Themes: Dragons, Wizards
***+
Description
When Stuttey's Superior Staff factory exploded during a visit from Department of Thaumaturgy probationary inspector Gerald Dunwoody, it
wasn't his fault, but who would take his word over the irate factory foreman's? Gerald's just a lowly Third Grade wizard, trained by
correspondence course, with little ancestry and an unremarkable record, while Stuttey's manufactures the finest wizard staffs in all of
Ottosland... and a factory with that reputation would never, as Gerald claimed, overload faulty thaumaturgical equipment just to boost
profits. Besides, if the accident had happened the way he said it did, any Third Grade wizard would be a smoking pile of cinders on the
factory floor. Gerald can't explain how he survived, but with the powerful company screaming for blood, it wouldn't matter if he could.
Defamed, unemployed, and broke, he's ready to pack in the wizard gig and crawl home to his parents - until he chances upon a job offer halfway
across the world, beyond the reach of the Stuttey's scandal and the back-scratching old-boy's-network of the Department.
The kingdom of New Ottosland occupies a small oasis in the vast Kallarapi desert. Founded centuries ago and subsequently forgotten by their
homeland, they live and die by Tradition. The young King Lional has dangerously bold plans for the future, and try as she might, his practical,
headstrong sister Melissande can't talk him out of them... nor can the Kallarapi sultan, whom Lional antagonizes by refusing to pay the
traditional trade route tariffs. But the king foresees a day when New Ottosland won't have to kowtow to camel-riding heathens, when his kingdom
will be a force worthy of international respect. To realize his plans, Lional needs a new Court Wizard, and it's up to Melissande to find
one.
The day Gerald Dunwoody accepted the job of Court Wizard of New Ottosland, he thought his troubles were over. Instead, they're just beginning...
and before they're through, the factory explosion at Stuttey's will seem as insignificant as a pop cap in a playground.
Review
This book starts out light, meandering towards goofy. Gerald, his friends and enemies, and his magic-dominated world feel clunky and
caricatured. Time and again they act in ways that defied their own characters and general logic, just to get one more sarcastic line in or
further the slow-building story. I found it difficult to sympathize with them for quite some time. By the time I reached the part where the
emissaries of the desert nation were introduced - as infidel-hating grovelers to their triad gods - I wasn't sure I'd have the mental stamina to
push through to the end.
A few chapters later, the story starts taking some interesting turns. Shades of depth and darkness reveal themselves. Even the desert dwellers
bring far more to the game board than their inauspicious introduction hints at, becoming much more than pseudo-Arab stereotypes. By the end, Gerald
has visited many dark places and done many things he hadn't thought himself capable of... in good ways and bad. The very ending is pretty much
foreshadowed by the title (and the fact that it's Book 1 of a trilogy), but otherwise the story came to an unexpectedly satisfying conclusion on
several fronts. Unfortunately, the clunkiness held it down in the ratings, as did some of the characters, who retained several of their more
annoying, caricatured traits long past the point where things went in an otherwise original direction. The worst offender was Gerald's companion
Reg, a witch cursed into a bird's body; not only was she so shrewish and annoying that I failed to understand how anyone could be friends with her,
but she kept contradicting her own desires not to reveal her sentient nature by firing off her ever-loaded tongue at the drop of a hat. (And her
survival depends on secrecy? How has she lasted three minutes, let alone centuries?) I doubt I'll follow the rest of the trilogy, unless I find an
exceptionally cheap enough copy of Book 2.