Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell

Kel is a young magician approaching his trial day, he is desperate to fulfil his father’s wishes and join him in leading their people. The only thing is Kel doesn’t have any power, not even a whisper of air magic despite everyone else in his family being extraordinarily strong. He has succeeded to this point like a wasp in a bee hive, accepted out of assumption that if he was not one of them he would not be there, but he’s about to be called into action.

Pushed to explore more of the world he meets one of the Argosi, Ferius Parfax, a trader and card playing degenerate who has the air of Han Solo about her. She despises magic but embraces science and between the two of them they discover the old adage that magic is just science we have not figured out yet is to a certain extent true. The final member of this trio is a smart arse squirrel cat or Nekhek named Reichis that had me thinking of Rocket Racoon which was fun. The three of them uncover secrets about Kel’s family and the land around them and wind up making this a really great first book in the series.

Though it has a few heavy moments, one right at the start that had me swearing at a particular character and instantly labelling her the worst thing to ever grace the planet, it was far less emotionally taxing the reading the epic Greatcoats series which was nice. The writing has the signature wit and sharpness the readers of Sebastien will be familiar with and whilst it definitely has more of a YA flavour to it I think his adult readers will enjoy this change of pace.

The Spellslinger series is published by Orbit Books and all four books are set to be released in the US over 2018 and early 2019 so it is a great chance to get into a series that wont leave you waiting for years on end to wrap itself up.

Highly recommended fantasy!