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Mocklore Chronicles #3
Ink Black Magic
Because sometimes, it takes cleavage and big skirts to save the world from those crazy teenagers.
Kassa Daggersharp has been a pirate, a witch, a menace to public safety, a villain, a hero and a legend. These days, she lectures first year students on the dangers of magic, at the Polyhedrotechnical in Cluft.
Egg Friefriedsson is Kassa's teenage cousin, a lapsed Axgaard warrior who would rather stay in his room and draw comics all day than hang out with his friends. If only comics had been invented.
Aragon Silversword is missing, presumed dead.
All the adventures are over. It's time to get on with being a grownup. But when Egg's drawings come to life, including an evil dark city full of villains and monsters, everyone starts to lose their grip on reality. Even the flying sheep.
Kassa and Egg are not sure who are the heroes and who are the villains anymore, but someone has to step up to save Mocklore, one last time.
True love isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Happy endings don't come cheap.
All that magic is probably going to kill you.
You really can have too much black velvet.
All this and more in the third and final adventure of The Mocklore Chronicles!
Kassa Daggersharp has been a pirate, a witch, a menace to public safety, a villain, a hero and a legend. These days, she lectures first year students on the dangers of magic, at the Polyhedrotechnical in Cluft.
Egg Friefriedsson is Kassa's teenage cousin, a lapsed Axgaard warrior who would rather stay in his room and draw comics all day than hang out with his friends. If only comics had been invented.
Aragon Silversword is missing, presumed dead.
All the adventures are over. It's time to get on with being a grownup. But when Egg's drawings come to life, including an evil dark city full of villains and monsters, everyone starts to lose their grip on reality. Even the flying sheep.
Kassa and Egg are not sure who are the heroes and who are the villains anymore, but someone has to step up to save Mocklore, one last time.
True love isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Happy endings don't come cheap.
All that magic is probably going to kill you.
You really can have too much black velvet.
All this and more in the third and final adventure of The Mocklore Chronicles!
- GenresFantasy
374 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2013
12 people are currently reading
338 people want to read
About the author
Tansy Rayner Roberts
133 books319 followersTansy Rayner Roberts is a fantasy and science fiction author who lives in southern Tasmania, somewhere between the tall mountain with snow on it, and the beach that points towards Antarctica.
Tansy has a PhD in Classics (with a special interest in poisonous Roman ladies), and an obsession with Musketeers.
You can hear Tansy talking about Doctor Who on the Verity! podcast. She also reads her own stories on the Sheep Might Fly podcast.
Tansy has a PhD in Classics (with a special interest in poisonous Roman ladies), and an obsession with Musketeers.
You can hear Tansy talking about Doctor Who on the Verity! podcast. She also reads her own stories on the Sheep Might Fly podcast.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 27, 2013
Ink Black Magic is the third book in Tansy Rayner Roberts' Mocklore chronicles. I haven't read the first two, but that wasn't much of a problem. While there are a few references to earlier events, the book pretty much stands on its own.
How to describe this one ... well, let's start with this snippet from the official description:
"True love isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Happy endings don't come cheap.
All that magic is probably going to kill you.
You really can have too much black velvet."
Basically, you've got Kassa Daggersharp, legendary ex-pirate and professor of magic; and Egg Friefriedsson, a university student whose comics come to life in the form of the foreboding and fashion-challenged city of Drak. And also a guy who's currently a winged sheep. And Aragon Silversword, who's in the midst of an identity crisis of his own. They have to save their home from Drak, which is expanding and transforming everyone it touches into dark, foreboding, sinister versions of themselves, all of whom dress like Neil Gaiman.
Other reviewers have compared this book to Pratchett's work, and I had the same reaction at several points while I was reading. There's a healthy appreciation for the absurd, and a lively cast of ridiculous and entertaining secondary characters. It doesn't have the same laugh-out-loud moments of funny, but it didn't feel to me like Roberts was aiming for that. So I didn't see this as a flaw, merely a different flavor of comic fantasy.
The plot was surprisingly layered, with mystery after mystery to be peeled back like an onion in which every layer of the onion is magical and might kill you or rewrite your mind or un-kill you or bring about a sudden rain of seafood. Or all of the above. While this made for a more complex and ambitious story, the pacing toward the end felt a little off to me, as if there was just too much to wrap up. But that could be a quirk of my personal taste.
Overall, a fun read and a nice change of pace.
How to describe this one ... well, let's start with this snippet from the official description:
"True love isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Happy endings don't come cheap.
All that magic is probably going to kill you.
You really can have too much black velvet."
Basically, you've got Kassa Daggersharp, legendary ex-pirate and professor of magic; and Egg Friefriedsson, a university student whose comics come to life in the form of the foreboding and fashion-challenged city of Drak. And also a guy who's currently a winged sheep. And Aragon Silversword, who's in the midst of an identity crisis of his own. They have to save their home from Drak, which is expanding and transforming everyone it touches into dark, foreboding, sinister versions of themselves, all of whom dress like Neil Gaiman.
Other reviewers have compared this book to Pratchett's work, and I had the same reaction at several points while I was reading. There's a healthy appreciation for the absurd, and a lively cast of ridiculous and entertaining secondary characters. It doesn't have the same laugh-out-loud moments of funny, but it didn't feel to me like Roberts was aiming for that. So I didn't see this as a flaw, merely a different flavor of comic fantasy.
The plot was surprisingly layered, with mystery after mystery to be peeled back like an onion in which every layer of the onion is magical and might kill you or rewrite your mind or un-kill you or bring about a sudden rain of seafood. Or all of the above. While this made for a more complex and ambitious story, the pacing toward the end felt a little off to me, as if there was just too much to wrap up. But that could be a quirk of my personal taste.
Overall, a fun read and a nice change of pace.
December 6, 2013
Ink Black Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts is the third book in her Mocklore Chronicles but is written to be accessible to readers who have not read the first two books. I personally read book one, Splashdance Silver, about a decade ago and have only dim recollections of it. I don't think I ever got the chance to read the second book, Liquid Gold, back then either. So rather than re/reading the first two books before starting the third, I thought I'd approach it by itself to see how well it stands alone.
It's easy to compare every comic fantasy book to Terry Pratchett. When I read Splashdance Silver, I think I remember comparing it to the earliest two Discworld books (The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic). In the case of Ink Black Magic, I can honestly say that only the start — the set up for the rest of the story — put me in mind of Pratchett. And not early Pratchett either, more like middle Pratchett, with Moving Pictures springing to mind as an obvious comparison (with bonus thematic parallels). But once the story in Ink Black Magic really gets going, it becomes very much Tansy-ish and not at all Pratchettesque.
The initial premise is that Egg starts drawing the first comics in Mocklore, and then his dark city that needs hero-saving comes to life and tries to take over the world. (See what I mean?) I found the introduction of Egg and Clio to be a compelling hook, more so than when we first meet Kassa Daggersharp, the heroine of the previous books. I have to emphasise that this was a personal reaction because I couldn't remember why I should like Kassa — due to not remembering the earlier book sufficiently well — but that quickly evaporated once Kassa started being awesome (ie pretty much straight away).
One of the interesting aspects of Ink Black Magic was the structure of the narrative. Instead of the story building up to one obvious climax from the very start, the nature of what the world needed saving from changed several times throughout. The problem was never quite what it seemed, taking the story from "oh, no, doom!" to "well that doom's gone away" to "oh dear, a different doom a-cometh". This is one of the main things (along with the characters and humour) which sets it apart from other books. I ultimately enjoyed the form, although it was a little disconcerting at times not to be able to accurately guess what was going to happen next. (That feeling might come from having read a little too much YA of late...)
Anyway, Ink Black Magic was a fun read and I definitely intend to go back and re/read the first two books. Although that will be interesting since Rayner Roberts' style has definitely changed between Splashdance Silver and the Creature Court trilogy. I was about to say that Ink Black Magic lies somewhere in between — which it does — but it occurs to me that it's not actually that far from A Trifle Dead, except in location. (And of course I'm overlooking a lot of short stories in this comparison as I've only read some.)
So I would recommend Ink Black Magic to all fans of comic fantasy and anyone who has enjoyed the author's work in the past. As should surprise no one, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on her future works.
4.5 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
It's easy to compare every comic fantasy book to Terry Pratchett. When I read Splashdance Silver, I think I remember comparing it to the earliest two Discworld books (The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic). In the case of Ink Black Magic, I can honestly say that only the start — the set up for the rest of the story — put me in mind of Pratchett. And not early Pratchett either, more like middle Pratchett, with Moving Pictures springing to mind as an obvious comparison (with bonus thematic parallels). But once the story in Ink Black Magic really gets going, it becomes very much Tansy-ish and not at all Pratchettesque.
The initial premise is that Egg starts drawing the first comics in Mocklore, and then his dark city that needs hero-saving comes to life and tries to take over the world. (See what I mean?) I found the introduction of Egg and Clio to be a compelling hook, more so than when we first meet Kassa Daggersharp, the heroine of the previous books. I have to emphasise that this was a personal reaction because I couldn't remember why I should like Kassa — due to not remembering the earlier book sufficiently well — but that quickly evaporated once Kassa started being awesome (ie pretty much straight away).
One of the interesting aspects of Ink Black Magic was the structure of the narrative. Instead of the story building up to one obvious climax from the very start, the nature of what the world needed saving from changed several times throughout. The problem was never quite what it seemed, taking the story from "oh, no, doom!" to "well that doom's gone away" to "oh dear, a different doom a-cometh". This is one of the main things (along with the characters and humour) which sets it apart from other books. I ultimately enjoyed the form, although it was a little disconcerting at times not to be able to accurately guess what was going to happen next. (That feeling might come from having read a little too much YA of late...)
Anyway, Ink Black Magic was a fun read and I definitely intend to go back and re/read the first two books. Although that will be interesting since Rayner Roberts' style has definitely changed between Splashdance Silver and the Creature Court trilogy. I was about to say that Ink Black Magic lies somewhere in between — which it does — but it occurs to me that it's not actually that far from A Trifle Dead, except in location. (And of course I'm overlooking a lot of short stories in this comparison as I've only read some.)
So I would recommend Ink Black Magic to all fans of comic fantasy and anyone who has enjoyed the author's work in the past. As should surprise no one, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on her future works.
4.5 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
November 27, 2013
Not sure I can link here, but I'm going to try. In short: a fun book in the Pratchett/Adams mode, cleverly done with good pace, imagination and entertaining characters. Well worth the investment. For the full review, try:
http://dflinthart.wordpress.com/2013/...
http://dflinthart.wordpress.com/2013/...
August 5, 2014
What can I say about Tansy Rayner Roberts and her fantasy novel, Ink Black Magic? 'Brilliantly intriguing and witty' is a start, but that doesn't really cover it. For genre, think Terry Pratchett meets J.K. Rowling and you may have some idea, yet Tansy Rayner Roberts has a gift all her own that sets her apart from all other fantasy writers.
She begins her book with a stern warning not to do magic, then proceeds to do it herself with gusto. Her heroine, former pirate and current witch, Kassa Daggersharp, aka mild-mannered?(not likely!)Lecturer at Mocklore Polytechnical College, Mistress Sharp, is beautiful, feisty, intelligent and has more costume changes than a Barbie doll. But then all the characters in this story have multiple costume changes, not to mention persona changes, all done with magic.
There's a world that's only supposed to exist in the sketchbook of a would-be comic book creator, but which begins to take over Mocklore and has to be stopped by any means. There's Kassa's stormy relationship with the dishy Aragon Silversword (it's complicated), also a flying sheep, a suavely sexy and sinister villain and a large cast of unforgettable characters, each more hilarious and bizarre than the one before. In fact, Tansy doesn't seem to do minor characters, every one of them is a stand out.
I have to confess that Ink Black Magic is the third of the Mocklore Chronicles and I haven't yet read the previous two. But that doesn't seem to matter, as it is a story marvellously complete in itself. So do read and love the Mocklore Chronicles in any order you like, because that's what I intend to do.
She begins her book with a stern warning not to do magic, then proceeds to do it herself with gusto. Her heroine, former pirate and current witch, Kassa Daggersharp, aka mild-mannered?(not likely!)Lecturer at Mocklore Polytechnical College, Mistress Sharp, is beautiful, feisty, intelligent and has more costume changes than a Barbie doll. But then all the characters in this story have multiple costume changes, not to mention persona changes, all done with magic.
There's a world that's only supposed to exist in the sketchbook of a would-be comic book creator, but which begins to take over Mocklore and has to be stopped by any means. There's Kassa's stormy relationship with the dishy Aragon Silversword (it's complicated), also a flying sheep, a suavely sexy and sinister villain and a large cast of unforgettable characters, each more hilarious and bizarre than the one before. In fact, Tansy doesn't seem to do minor characters, every one of them is a stand out.
I have to confess that Ink Black Magic is the third of the Mocklore Chronicles and I haven't yet read the previous two. But that doesn't seem to matter, as it is a story marvellously complete in itself. So do read and love the Mocklore Chronicles in any order you like, because that's what I intend to do.
Read
July 5, 2015Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
October 7, 2014
A brilliantly batty romp with magical catastrophes, flying sheep, raining salmon and completely useless university students,
February 16, 2025
Tansy Rayner Robert’s is lucky I’m not the type of person who cannot simply stop reading the last of a trilogy.
Having loved and thoroughly enjoyed Splasdance Silver since discovering it in the library at High School and then hunting it down along with Liquid Gold — with some effort — nearly a decade later via eBay, my enjoyment of Ink Black Magic was a question I had not even thought to pose.
Imagine my shock with the book opened with a new character. Imagine my shock when Kassa walks in as a professor. Imagine my shock when I realised Kassa disbanded her crew and gave up her life of adventure and pirate because Aragon disappeared and broke her heart after everything that happened in the last book! Imagine the sinking feeling of dread. Who even are these people?
I went to Goodreads, to check the blurb and to my horror realised Aragon isn’t even mentioned. Somewhere around the page 30 mark I was so distraught that I broke my own cardinal rule of reading books:
NEVER
LOOK UP
SPOILERS
I looked up “Ink Black Magic” in conjunction with “Aragon”. I was praying the series wasn’t too obscure for someone to have talked about it. I HAD to know if I was wasting my time.
The first words I spotted “presumed dead” had me panicking, but then I spotted “romance in the air between Kassa and the long lost Aragon” And was flooded with relief. I really don’t know what I would have done if that one review didn’t exist. Would my misery have won out or would my OCD really have preventing me from DNFing such a beloved series? The last one finished in such a good spot after all. The plot of this one was intriguing but was it worth the aggravation? Did I really NEED Ink Black Magic?
Thankfully the review DID exist and I didn’t have to find out what I would have done in the end.
I had hope.
I pushed through the slow intro — even started to enjoy it before Aragon’s was even revealed — and finally got around to loving it just as I always assumed I would.
[The ending of Liguid Gold was still better. I missed Dagger and was honestly hoping for at least a reference to his son that we kept hearing about in the future. Also the fact that Kassa’s meant to become emperor of Mocklore? Hello??]
Having loved and thoroughly enjoyed Splasdance Silver since discovering it in the library at High School and then hunting it down along with Liquid Gold — with some effort — nearly a decade later via eBay, my enjoyment of Ink Black Magic was a question I had not even thought to pose.
Imagine my shock with the book opened with a new character. Imagine my shock when Kassa walks in as a professor. Imagine my shock when I realised Kassa disbanded her crew and gave up her life of adventure and pirate because Aragon disappeared and broke her heart after everything that happened in the last book! Imagine the sinking feeling of dread. Who even are these people?
I went to Goodreads, to check the blurb and to my horror realised Aragon isn’t even mentioned. Somewhere around the page 30 mark I was so distraught that I broke my own cardinal rule of reading books:
NEVER
LOOK UP
SPOILERS
I looked up “Ink Black Magic” in conjunction with “Aragon”. I was praying the series wasn’t too obscure for someone to have talked about it. I HAD to know if I was wasting my time.
The first words I spotted “presumed dead” had me panicking, but then I spotted “romance in the air between Kassa and the long lost Aragon” And was flooded with relief. I really don’t know what I would have done if that one review didn’t exist. Would my misery have won out or would my OCD really have preventing me from DNFing such a beloved series? The last one finished in such a good spot after all. The plot of this one was intriguing but was it worth the aggravation? Did I really NEED Ink Black Magic?
Thankfully the review DID exist and I didn’t have to find out what I would have done in the end.
I had hope.
I pushed through the slow intro — even started to enjoy it before Aragon’s was even revealed — and finally got around to loving it just as I always assumed I would.
[The ending of Liguid Gold was still better. I missed Dagger and was honestly hoping for at least a reference to his son that we kept hearing about in the future. Also the fact that Kassa’s meant to become emperor of Mocklore? Hello??]
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2019
This is a good book, but not really for me. I find it to be a little too random, and the names irritate me for some reason. However, there are lots of aspects of it that are fun, funny and interesting. I didn’t feel like I missed anything starting with book 3 of the series.
I received a free copy of this book.
I received a free copy of this book.
September 14, 2018
Great book... new characters and some of the familiar ones. It would stand alone well but being familiar with the previous two books adds to it.
Read
March 21, 2020Probably my favourite of the trilogy. I enjoyed the university setting and fun had with the normal and "dark" versions of everyone.
May 17, 2020
Ugh ❤️
Full review on the entire series soon.
Full review on the entire series soon.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews