The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it’s all we dream about: the hideously slim chance we’ll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls.
And now the impossible dream has come true. I’m out, we’re all out—and I didn’t even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother’s prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn’t kill enclavers, I saved them. Me and Orion and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: We saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves everywhere.
Ha, only joking! Actually, it’s gone …
The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it’s all we dream about: the hideously slim chance we’ll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls.
And now the impossible dream has come true. I’m out, we’re all out—and I didn’t even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother’s prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn’t kill enclavers, I saved them. Me and Orion and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: We saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves everywhere.
Ha, only joking! Actually, it’s gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war. And the first thing I’ve got to do now, having miraculously gotten out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.
A great way to end the series. It was nice seeing more of the 'real' world, without losing the connections to the hidden spaces walled off by the enclaves. Having invested a day or so with the previous 2 books, it felt important to read carefully and enjoy each experience as it came along. I did eventually feel that the use of the word wanker was a bit overdone, but perhaps I'm just getting old and conservative. The story, the arc of the characters and the way things wrapped themselves up was very good indeed.
A great way to end the series. It was nice seeing more of the 'real' world, without losing the connections to the hidden spaces walled off by the enclaves. Having invested a day or so with the previous 2 books, it felt important to read carefully and enjoy each experience as it came along. I did eventually feel that the use of the word wanker was a bit overdone, but perhaps I'm just getting old and conservative. The story, the arc of the characters and the way things wrapped themselves up was very good indeed.
This is the conclusion of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series. In the first two, El gets to realize she's not alone, she's connected. She realizes she needs help and that when she works with others, she can do more than she can alone. Her school learns the same. Massive battles are fought, huge sacrifices are made. El has grown powerful and early on was offered a place in an Enclave - which used to be her childhood goal. In the world of the Scholomance wizards are delicious to monsters. That's why they don't just rule everything. There are two ways to get the power for a spell - a hard way and an easy way. The easy way is.. dark. And that darkness makes monsters. And those monsters love to eat wizards. Wizard children are especially delicious - that's what drives the creation of a school for wizard children where it's …
This is the conclusion of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series. In the first two, El gets to realize she's not alone, she's connected. She realizes she needs help and that when she works with others, she can do more than she can alone. Her school learns the same. Massive battles are fought, huge sacrifices are made. El has grown powerful and early on was offered a place in an Enclave - which used to be her childhood goal. In the world of the Scholomance wizards are delicious to monsters. That's why they don't just rule everything. There are two ways to get the power for a spell - a hard way and an easy way. The easy way is.. dark. And that darkness makes monsters. And those monsters love to eat wizards. Wizard children are especially delicious - that's what drives the creation of a school for wizard children where it's considered acceptable that merely most of each class dies. So, of course the dark way is considered awful and no one would do it. But it is easy. And just a little bit of it when you really need it can be excused.
In the same terrible logic that drove the bleak stories of The Tangled Lands, we find that there sure are a lot of monsters out there. And the worst monsters are the ones called "maw mouths". If you are eaten by one, you never fully die, you just merge and are digested forever and are used by the maw mouth. They are incredibly difficult to kill. El has learned how to kill them, but there is a horrible price, and not just that it's painful to kill them.
In this world, an Enclave is a place of refuge. It's a hideout where powerful wizards can take refuge and protect each other from the stream of hungry monsters that sniff out wizards. They cost a lot to make and maintain and less fortunate wizards strive and scrape and bow and serve to either gain admittance or get their children in to the relative safety. They councils of the Enclaves around the world are incredibly powerful and the economics are tragic. And that's not all. There's an even darker cost at the center of it all, a true Omelas that El is forced to make choices about.
Our hero does well. She has learned to work with others, to take care of them, and others have put their hearts in her as well - even if she is the crankiest person on Earth. Faced again with a terrible system and a brutal dilemma she does what she was born to do. She refuses to be shunted into a stupid trolly problem and figures out a pure cooperative play. The final end of this is a decent place to stop, and it all comes together so smoothly it seems like Naomi Novik had a plan all along - no idea if that's true!
The series is a fun read - I blasted through these like they were Halloween candy and I love it when my hero brings everyone together.
Aw, I just really like this series. Thoroughly recommend it. I keep expecting it to be less polished, because a lot of Temeraire feels less polished and more, like, thematically aimless to me, but it‘s very well-thought-out I think. I enjoy how the protagonist‘s perspective on the world changes, and we get to see some of this world‘s politics and the inequities thereof. There‘s also a very effective horror scene in this book. Mostly it‘s really nice to read a well-executed series that leads the reader inexorably toward the necessity of working with others to change the systems of global & institutional inequality, in ways that will be frustrating and incomplete but are worth doing - what this rekindled in me is a sense of powerful urgency & drive to join others in this work, which seems like a sign of a successful series to me. Themes of personal development …
Aw, I just really like this series. Thoroughly recommend it. I keep expecting it to be less polished, because a lot of Temeraire feels less polished and more, like, thematically aimless to me, but it‘s very well-thought-out I think. I enjoy how the protagonist‘s perspective on the world changes, and we get to see some of this world‘s politics and the inequities thereof. There‘s also a very effective horror scene in this book. Mostly it‘s really nice to read a well-executed series that leads the reader inexorably toward the necessity of working with others to change the systems of global & institutional inequality, in ways that will be frustrating and incomplete but are worth doing - what this rekindled in me is a sense of powerful urgency & drive to join others in this work, which seems like a sign of a successful series to me. Themes of personal development & collaboration in order to effect radical change are of course present in Temeraire, but that feels like a lead-up to this in a few ways.
Anyway. Recommended! Time for me to see if I like Spinning Silver!
This book was full of gorgeous symmetry and symbology and dramatic irony. Novik is a master at dropping just enough hints for you to start putting together the bigger picture just ahead of the protagonist, making the next twist feel justified or somehow expected even if you couldn't have written a full prediction.
I especially appreciate how Novik continued to explore the unjustness of the enclave system in her world and how the protagonist El was forced to reckon with the practicality of her mission conflicting with her moral revulsion at the existing system. It is very easy to draw a parallel to activists trying to upend existing oppressive structures (racism, sexism, capitalism, etc). This book will help activists articulate their morals and wrestle with the realities of working with or next to an existing system while working to create a more just world.
The only critique I …
This book was full of gorgeous symmetry and symbology and dramatic irony. Novik is a master at dropping just enough hints for you to start putting together the bigger picture just ahead of the protagonist, making the next twist feel justified or somehow expected even if you couldn't have written a full prediction.
I especially appreciate how Novik continued to explore the unjustness of the enclave system in her world and how the protagonist El was forced to reckon with the practicality of her mission conflicting with her moral revulsion at the existing system. It is very easy to draw a parallel to activists trying to upend existing oppressive structures (racism, sexism, capitalism, etc). This book will help activists articulate their morals and wrestle with the realities of working with or next to an existing system while working to create a more just world.
The only critique I have of this book is that it was not long enough. Especially the concluding action at the final climax of the story. It was wrapped up so much more quickly than some of the preceding action. I suppose it's a truly excellent book when my main gripe is that it wasn't long enough.
Full and unapologetic 5 stars. This entire series is my favorite magical education series, with far more emotional depth and moral quandaries than anything like Harry Potter and more real life moral application than The Magicians
An overall satisfying conclusion to the series, but wow is it a wild ride (including the obligatory civil war) to get there. And the big secrets about how the enclaves were built? WOW
I’ll admit to getting somewhat frustrated at the “so here’s the really simple solution that just came to me at the last minute” that is just shy of deis ex machina, but it works out.
Not my favorite of the 3, but still a page turner. And anecdotally, it seems like really good source material to understand Gen Z point of view. Maybe it's just the recent midterm elections that make me see it through that lens but
Recent graduates (just the right age) Magic (mana) as wealth that is zero-sum Privileged enclaves of elites A structural system designed to benefit the powerful at the expense of the weak
And so on. The characters interact with each other in that framework throughout, and it works.
Not my favorite of the 3, but still a page turner. And anecdotally, it seems like really good source material to understand Gen Z point of view. Maybe it's just the recent midterm elections that make me see it through that lens but
Recent graduates (just the right age) Magic (mana) as wealth that is zero-sum Privileged enclaves of elites A structural system designed to benefit the powerful at the expense of the weak
And so on. The characters interact with each other in that framework throughout, and it works.
