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The Wizard Hunters

(The Fall of Ile-Rien #1)

Martha Wells (Goodreads Author),

Donato Giancola (Illustrator)

3.96 · Rating details · 2,003 ratings · 169 reviews

Once a fertile and prosperous land, Ile-Rien is under attack by the Gardier, a mysterious army whose storm-black airships appear from nowhere to strike without warning. Every weapon in the arsenal of Ile-Rien's revered wizards has proven useless.

And now the last hope of a magical realm under siege rests within a child's plaything. ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 464 pages

Published May 25th 2004 by Harper Voyager (first published May 13th 2003)

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Aug 24, 2008 Mir rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: lovers of history, fantasy, adventure, war stories, or witty dialogue

Shelves: favorite, fantasy, adventure, parallel-dimensions

Those who read The Death of the Necromancer (related to this book, but not requisite for understanding it) will remember Vien as an urbane, prosperous city at the height of its power. From a cultural capital and political powerhouse, it has transformed in the space of only a few years as a mysterious and apparently unstoppable enemy reduces the city to ruins and its inhabitants to refugees.

Before the war, Tremaine was a successful playwright with a circle of entertaining arty friends. Now she v ...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Rachel Neumeier rated it it was amazing

Okay the first thing to know is: If you’re starting THE WIZARD HUNTERS and you’re not sure you like it? Read at least three or four chapters before you decide.

The Characters:

We have a third-person divided pov structure, Tremaine in a world with the flavor of, say, mid-1800s England; and Ilias in a very different world that doesn’t map terribly well onto any real historical era I can think of but is much less technologically advanced. It’s important that you wait for the two plotlines to converge ...more

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Jan 06, 2019 Para (wanderer) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-english, sci-fi, fantasy, 2-stars, portal-fantasy

Initially picked up because of the Bingo challenge, I hoped this would be a good fit for a difficult square. And while the world is interesting, I found the The Wizard Hunters boring almost to the point of DNFing it. I have no idea why I persisted.

The book is initially split into two storylines. In the first, Tremaine, a playwright, is contacted by a group of sorcerers because she possesses the last magical sphere that could help Ile-Rien in the war against Gardier, a nation of people who attack Initially picked up because of the Bingo challenge, I hoped this would be a good fit for a difficult square. And while the world is interesting, I found the The Wizard Hunters boring almost to the point of DNFing it. I have no idea why I persisted.

The book is initially split into two storylines. In the first, Tremaine, a playwright, is contacted by a group of sorcerers because she possesses the last magical sphere that could help Ile-Rien in the war against Gardier, a nation of people who attacked suddenly and with seemingly no reason. The sphere doesn't work without her presence, so she's dragged along on a dangerous adventure. Then we also follow Illias and Giliead as they explore a cave occupied by evil wizards. The storylines eventually converge, though the beginning was quite confusing - I felt like I was missing out on a lot of context.

The worldbuilding is where it should have shined. I haven't seen a secondary-world book that combined electricity and magic before, or one that would contain contact between two civilisations on very different technological levels. And I love books about culture clashes. By all means, it should have worked.

Unfortunately, it's a colossal yawner regardless. It's quite hard to put a finger on why, too. The prose is of the unremarkable windowpane kind (could not find a single quote), but this alone shouldn't have been so bad. I think the biggest problems are that I couldn't connect to any of the characters - they all seem quite bland and two-dimensional. The book tells us that Tremaine is suicidal, but it doesn't really show her mental health issues or discuss them much - and what's worse, (view spoiler). And the Gardier come off as the standard evil-for-the-sake-of-evil. The plot...well. I found the sphere a bit of a convenient deus-ex-machina at points, and most plot twists predictable. It definitely doesn't reinvent the wheel.

It's really not a bad book. It doesn't have many glaring flaws. But it didn't have many virtues either, and definitely nothing that would make me excited about reading on - the above paragraph feels like justifications for the simple facts that I was bored, and it was a chore to read. Aggressively mediocre, I suppose, is the term. Anyway, I'm unlikely to continue the series.

Enjoyment: 2/5
Execution: 3/5

Recommended to: if the combination of tech and magic sounds interesting to you...maybe?
Not recommended to: most people

More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds. ...more

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Feb 26, 2014 Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommended to Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship by: Kate Elliott

Shelves: fantasy, 1-star-and-a-half, epic-fantasy

Warning: slight spoilers below. But stuff I’d have wanted to know.

An obscure epic fantasy that came highly recommended (by Kate Elliott, for instance. I like her books and the way she talks about books, particularly the social consciousness with which she reads, but I have to stop taking her fantasy recs. They’ve ranged from so-so at best – Daggerspell, Banner of the Damned – to unreadable at worst – Irons in the Fire, bleh). But in the end this bored me so much I took nearly a month to finish Warning: slight spoilers below. But stuff I’d have wanted to know.

An obscure epic fantasy that came highly recommended (by Kate Elliott, for instance. I like her books and the way she talks about books, particularly the social consciousness with which she reads, but I have to stop taking her fantasy recs. They’ve ranged from so-so at best – Daggerspell, Banner of the Damned – to unreadable at worst – Irons in the Fire, bleh). But in the end this bored me so much I took nearly a month to finish it, a bad sign for an adventure fantasy book of under 400 pages.

Wells must have heavily workshopped the first sentence – for that matter, the first chapter – because this book started off very well, only to disappoint within the first hundred pages. Here’s the opening line:

“It was nine o’clock at night and Tremaine was trying to find a way to kill herself that would bring in a verdict of natural causes in court when someone banged on the door.”

Who could read that and not want to know more about Tremaine, and what has brought her to this point? Not me. Too bad the characterization turns out to be so flat. Tremaine is supposed to be suicidally depressed, but she doesn’t come across as suffering from depression at all, more like a morbid smart-aleck, and once her suicidal inclinations have served their plot function (getting her into a dangerous adventure), they soon disappear, only to be ultimately explained away by magic. I am not sure why Wells felt an external force was needed to “explain” why Tremaine was hit harder by events than others; why isn’t it enough that she’s a different individual, one more prone to depression?

Not that there’s a whole lot of individuality to anyone in this book. Even many of the most important secondary characters, like Florian and Gerard, can be easily summed up as “nice people, who do magic” – more plot function than personality. And the minor characters? Forget about it. I still can’t tell you who that guy Niles was, though apparently he had some importance. And I regularly read books far more populated than this; I keep track of characters like it’s my job.

But back to that beginning. When a character worries about a court verdict in the first sentence of a fantasy novel,* I expect a story built around a highly structured society: something like His Majesty's Dragon, or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, or Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw. For the first few chapters that’s what we get, as Wells builds a fascinating fantasy version of London during the Blitz. But all too soon, the leads are dumped on a remote island and spend 100 pages running around tunnels and fighting. That was where it lost me, and by the time we return to the original setting toward the end of the story, I was so bored by these shallow and static characters that I no longer cared. Nor did the worldbuilding turn out as deep as expected; this is more the kind of fantasy where people conk enemies (mysterious evil invaders with no discernible reason for their belligerence, natch) over the head than the kind dealing with social intricacies.

That said, obviously there is an audience for this kind of thing, and the plot isn’t quite as silly as you might expect from some of the blurbs (which make it sound like it’s all about uncovering the secrets of some magical object – there is some of that, but it isn’t overwhelming). It is not as dire as a lot of fantasy out there, and the writing isn’t terrible, so if you are a reader more interested in plot than character, this may be for you. But after this bait-and-switch I won't be reading the sequels, so I'm glad there's at least a bit of resolution here.

* This part of the sentence apparently meant nothing, just another way of saying "trying to find a way to kill herself that would look like natural causes." I hate it when I'm paying more attention to what a writer is saying than the actual writer is. ...more

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Dec 15, 2011 Elsiekate rated it it was amazing

this is actually a review of the trilogy, comprised of the wizard hunters, the ships of air, and the gate of gods. i think that you could probably read the later books without having read previous books and get filled in enough to comprehend what's happening, but don't do that. start at the beginning, even though the first book starts slowly, and enjoy spending time in this place with these people.

ile-rien is the world where several other of wells' books are set, so if you've read her other book this is actually a review of the trilogy, comprised of the wizard hunters, the ships of air, and the gate of gods. i think that you could probably read the later books without having read previous books and get filled in enough to comprehend what's happening, but don't do that. start at the beginning, even though the first book starts slowly, and enjoy spending time in this place with these people.

ile-rien is the world where several other of wells' books are set, so if you've read her other books (and you should) some things will sound familiar--names of past rulers and such. but those books took place further back in ile-rien's past. we're not quite up to modern days, but electricity and motor cars are present now, in addition to magic. ile-rien is now at war with the gardier, who come from another world, and they are losing the war. we meet tremaine, who has been volunteering in the war effort. the sorcerers of ile-rien are trying to use spheres of a type first created by tremaine's uncle (by title, not by blood) to fight the gardier, and they are running out of spheres and sorcerers to test them. tremaine has an old prototype in the house, doesn't she? it turns out that she does, but it won't activate unless she is in contact with it when a sorcerer tries to do a spell, so she will have to come along to help out.

then the scene shifts to another world. we follow two wizard hunters, ilias and gilead. gilead is the chosen vessel of the local god, given the power to sniff out magic spells, or curses as they are known in that world. there is new wizardly activity in a location where the two of them previously encountered and defeated a wizard, so they are investigating to see if a new wizard has taken over.

point of view shifts from group to group, person to person, world to world. we even sometimes see things from a gardier viewpoint. the spheres give the power to move between the worlds but the gardier have that power too. the two main groups of the rienish sorcerers and the (don't have the book with me but i think the world was called) syprian wizard hunters meet up and discover that they need each other's help, but can the syprians overcome their deep hatred and justified suspicions of magic enough to work with the rienish?

there's a romantic element to the story, too--i enjoyed it but i guess if you can't stand any hint of romance (and i don't mean of the harlequin variety) in your fantasy reading, take note of that. i can't recall most of what happened in which book, only that once it took off, i didn't so much read it as devour it and roll around in the delight of reading something that was so much fun. again, i warn you--it started slow. but once the groups meet up, stuff starts happening so fast that you feel like you will fall out of the chair as you read. there are some lulls, as you travel about on an ocean liner inspired by the queen mary, for example, but you can't trust a lull when a gardier airship can show up in the sky above you at any moment. ...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Just A. Bean rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Thirty (or so) years have passed since the previous book, and much has changed in Ile-Rien. For one, the technology has jumped form mid-19th century to early 1930s (I noticed that the tech advance in Ile-Rien is a lot faster than in our world, but magic may have something to do with that). Most of the main character of the previous book are missing, absent or dead. Ile-Rien has been losing a war for about three years.

In the middle of all this, two sets of characters from two different worlds com Thirty (or so) years have passed since the previous book, and much has changed in Ile-Rien. For one, the technology has jumped form mid-19th century to early 1930s (I noticed that the tech advance in Ile-Rien is a lot faster than in our world, but magic may have something to do with that). Most of the main character of the previous book are missing, absent or dead. Ile-Rien has been losing a war for about three years.

In the middle of all this, two sets of characters from two different worlds come together: the daughter of Our Heroes from the last book, and her wizard friends who are trying to find out who the country's mysterious enemy is and how to stop them, and a pair of warrior brothers from a parallel world that's still iron age tech, who hunt wizards for a living. The two groups don't speak the same language when they meet. It's exciting :D

I love the culture clash, and how it continues in large and small ways through the series. You've got diesel punk people (eventually) teaming up with age of heroes warriors to combat people with 1960s(ish) tech, and the ways that works and doesn't is a constant theme and source of both conflict and entertainment.

As always, it's the character that really carry it through. The protagonist from the Ile-Rien side was more or less raised by James Moriarty, and as a catalogue of issues because of it, including suicidal depression and an inability to make friends at the start of the story. I loved watching her figure herself out, and try to alternately use and avoid what her father taught her to save her country. For the iron age side, there's a young wizard hunter with massive abandonment and loyalty issues (a familiar type for Wells), and already something of an outsider view of his own people. Together they fight crime! (Well, evil wizards). Along with them is a whole cast of supporting characters, including many interesting women, and a (sort of) robot, and it was just really hard to put this book down. Or the next one. Or the one after that. ...more

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Jan 31, 2021 Ron rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, ebook

A steam-punk action-adventure tale set in the city of a previous series by Wells. This/these stories are independent. Strong, independent but not-yet self-assured female lead. Excellent story telling.

Early Wells work. Her voice has improved since. Still, fans of her Murderbot series may be disappointed that the self-depreciating humor and snarky inner dialogue of Murderbot aren’t there.

Unfortunately, I lost my notes, and while this is a good story I’m not inclined to re-read it just to pepper my ...more

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Nov 16, 2016 Robo Ric rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: Hardcore Wells' fans

Martha Wells is one of my favorite writers. Her ability to create entire new worlds and, in particular, beings and societies, is amazing. She's very detailed and always displays great imagination. That being said, this trilogy was the first time I had trouble finishing one of her books.

Minor plot description: We've got Ile-Rien, a world technologically set in about the 1930s, except without airplanes or cannons. They also have magic. They are in a war with a mysterious race called the Gardier wh ...more

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Oct 10, 2008 Gail rated it liked it

This is a VERY different fantasy. Almost a steampunk fantasy, because the magic is worked by means of mechanical doohickeys. In one of the universes of this story. This story crosses multiple universes. Two, anyway, with a probable third. The heroine's world is at war with these technologically advanced magic haters that fly in blimps and fry the magical instruments of her world. The hero lives in a completely different universe where ALL wizards are evil, and all magic spells are curses. He's a ...more

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Apr 03, 2013 J. rated it it was amazing

I do love this trilogy with a passion.

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Jul 07, 2018 Hannah Ringler rated it liked it

This review is for the entire series, and contains spoilers.

Ile-Rien is under siege. Blackouts and bombings wrack the city of Vienne. But Tremaine Valiarde has something else on her mind: how can she kill herself most effectively, without causing problems for anyone else? When her guardian turns up, asking for her help with a dangerous spell, Tremaine leaps at the opportunity. Instead of killing her, though, the spell drops her in a strange new world, which just may hold the secret to saving her This review is for the entire series, and contains spoilers.

Ile-Rien is under siege. Blackouts and bombings wrack the city of Vienne. But Tremaine Valiarde has something else on her mind: how can she kill herself most effectively, without causing problems for anyone else? When her guardian turns up, asking for her help with a dangerous spell, Tremaine leaps at the opportunity. Instead of killing her, though, the spell drops her in a strange new world, which just may hold the secret to saving her own.

Most summaries of the first book in the series spend substantially more time focusing on the political and worldbuilding elements of the setup. Honestly, that’s a fair call. Tremaine’s initial primary motivation is her desire to commit suicide, and it does show up throughout the first book and the sequels, but overall, the book itself is more concerned with the action of the plot than substantive character development.

Ultimately, that’s also why, while I enjoyed this book, it’s never going to be on my list of must-recommends. The worldbuilding was fun, the plot was fast-paced and compelling, the stakes were substantial, but not overblown, but the emotional core of the book, the internal struggles and shifts that engage you as a reader, those fell a bit flat. It’s a pity, because the setup for those internal struggles was, across the board, excellent.

Let’s start with Tremaine. Tremaine Valiarde has some reasons to be deeply unhappy. Her mother was murdered when she was a child, her father was largely absent and often cold until he up and disappeared some years ago along with her much-loved uncle, her country is outmatched in its war and seems likely to be defeated, and she spent six months doing rescue-from-bombs work. And she was kidnapped and wrongfully imprisoned in a mental hospital a while ago.

While I can see why Wells chose not to make much use of Madeline’s death in characterizing Tremaine (we all know that a tragically murdered mother is both overdone and usually lazy writing), the vacuum left by Tremaine’s lack of reaction results in Madeline’s death serving largely to help us understand Tremaine’s father’s absenteeism and general ruthlessness, which is an inherently more problematic characterization choice. Not much hay was made of her other losses and stressors, either - the only thing that comes up repeatedly as something that still bothers her was her brief stint in the asylum, which she perceives as highly stigmatizing.

This perception may or may not be accurate; her encounters with one character, Anders, suggest to her that he bases his attitude towards her on this event. However, from an outside perspective, his refusal to take her seriously seems more in keeping with his overall smug paternalism towards women in general and with the fact that when they met she was sowing some wild oats. There are some interesting places to go with this fear she has, especially since the author suggests (a bit awkwardly) that she struggles to reconciles two very different personas, but her uncertainty about her identity is ultimately lost in the plot.

This unwillingness to deeply engage with questions of mental health and stigmatization is mirrored in a later incident in the third book. At this point, Tremaine has met and formed a relationship with Ilias, who comes from a world that is substantially less developed, industrially-speaking, than Tremaine’s world. Wells does an excellent job of presenting Ilias and his countrymen as fully-developed human beings with a society that is every bit as intricate and civilized as Tremaine’s own, and the automatic, unthinking respect that Tremaine and her friends demonstrate towards Ilias and his society provides an on-point, if unsubtle, contrast to the way that other characters characterize the Syprians as “savages.” Incidentally, I also liked that the Syprians are given opportunities to find Tremaine’s people uncivilized as well.

However, in the third book, they’re back in Tremaine’s world, and they encounter the remainder of a colonized people begging in the street. Wells shies away from fully engaging with this moment - Tremaine shuttles Ilias off without contextualizing what he’s seeing, and has a very brief internal commentary about how she fears that the same thing will happen to Ilias’s people now that worldgating technology is available. The topic of colonization is never again addressed, and while it becomes a moot point as far as Ilias et al are concerned, the lack of development of the theme was unsatisfying. Wells clearly wanted to include themes of colonization, mental health, and gender (Ilias’s society is a matriarchy), among others (militarization, nationalism, sexism, etc), in her novels, she ultimately seems unwilling to engage with them fully.

This is a legitimate choice, as the plot and pacing don’t leave much time for reflection, but I couldn’t help feeling that the novels would have been more satisfying if they had chosen one or two of these themes to develop more fully, rather than paying lip-service to many. The Fall of Ile-Rien is a gripping trilogy, but it lacks the emotional impact I was anticipating based on the opening (and the length - I generally assume that 1500 pages is enough to get some good characterization and thematic exploration in - the romantic element, incidentally, is much better than in Death of the Necromancer, but it’s still not Wells’ strong point). As light entertainment, it’s a good way to spend a couple of days. If you are looking for sprawling high fantasy with high stakes that will stick with you and make you cry, read the Inda series by Sherwood Smith.

There’s one other thing I want to mention, which is that some elements of the book feel derivative in a way that may or may not be homage. For example, the slum district in Vienne is called Riverside, the same as in Ellen Kushner’s Riverside series - the main character is suicidal and named Tremaine, and Alec, future duke of Tremontaine, is notoriously self-destructive. Other elements felt merely conventional, such as the worldgates, the magical spheres, and the whole thing with the crystals and the mind control. Where Wells really digs into the worldbuilding, she’s plenty fresh, but the trappings of conventionality are very present.

tl;dr - a fun, light summer read that doesn’t quite live up to its promise but is a pretty good way to spend a hot couple of days. Trigger warnings for suicidal ideation, misogynistic characters, references to colonialism, mental illness. ...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Nathan rated it it was ok

Shelves: rated-2-star, steam-punk, author-female, read-2012

First posted here

The land of Ile-Rien is under attack by the seemingly invincible Gardier, who use their black airships to destroy, then seemingly disappear. The Gardier also somehow have the ability to block all the magic the Ile-Rien have for protection, and they also have a magic of their own that destroyed mechanized weapons.

Invincible army, one person holds an object of power, a person may wonder why I even cracked the cover of what seems like a very trite read. I admit at times in the book First posted here

The land of Ile-Rien is under attack by the seemingly invincible Gardier, who use their black airships to destroy, then seemingly disappear. The Gardier also somehow have the ability to block all the magic the Ile-Rien have for protection, and they also have a magic of their own that destroyed mechanized weapons.

Invincible army, one person holds an object of power, a person may wonder why I even cracked the cover of what seems like a very trite read. I admit at times in the book I wondered the same thing. There is some interesting stuff in this book, and in many ways it pushes beyond the cliches, but I can't say it ever grabbed me.

What worked well in this book? It had some unusual hooks. The main character, Tremaine, is looking for a way to keep herself in danger, a death wish without the desire for people to know it. This keeps her early motivations mysterious(though this plot line is almost completely discarded by the mid point). Both the Ele-Rien and the Gardier are living a technological era where magic is in use everyday, not hidden from the common eye. And there is an early culture clash when it is found the the Gardier hold a staging area in a land with a more "primitive" culture.

For all that almost nothing worked for me. There just wasn't the focus needed to make any thing work, none of the good ideas were really expanded on. Tremaine has a death wish, but it is gone halfway through the book, then explained away at the end. Not transitioned out, just explained away. The interesting first contact plot line is ruined for me by the ease of communication and by just how little difference there really is in the cultures, despite the characters seeming to think otherwise. And the neat mix of technology and magic comes to nothing, as magic rules throughout the entire book. The Gardier are given no depth, they are a faceless evil. The "primitives" are shallow, following the typical book wherein they need to have all their traditions proven to be wrong by a more knowing culture.

The book could not seem to decide what it wanted to be. At times high fantasy, escape story, war story, epic quest, and even a sad attempt at subversive espionage activities. Perhaps if the focus had been on a couple of these items it would have worked better, but none were expanded on enough to catch my interested, making the whole read fairly disjointed.

Lastly, and this is neither good nor bad, this book is definitely the first in a series. There is very little resolution in this book, it is obviously a setup for the future.

And for perhaps the strangest nit-pick I have every had, every male character of note in the book had a name that started with either A, I, or G(mostly G). Gardier, Giliead, Gerard, and Gervas. I am not sure if anyone else reads the way I do, but this caused me to backtrack and figure out which character is which several times.

2 stars. I can see it being of interest for fans who want something different, but for me it tried too many things, and did very few of them very well. ...more

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Jan 18, 2016 Micah Goettl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Spoiler-Free Review (I think . . .)

The story opened with a killer hook. What a fantastic opening line! It drew me in and introduced the heroine really well. Tremaine is an interesting character, full of delicious dichotomies. I love her moments of vulnerability because the rest of the time she's as tough as they come, but not with the kick-butt charisma of some other tough characters. She's so awkward. Ilias is strong with a good sense of humor; Giliead is protective and uncomfortable with the Spoiler-Free Review (I think . . .)

The story opened with a killer hook. What a fantastic opening line! It drew me in and introduced the heroine really well. Tremaine is an interesting character, full of delicious dichotomies. I love her moments of vulnerability because the rest of the time she's as tough as they come, but not with the kick-butt charisma of some other tough characters. She's so awkward. Ilias is strong with a good sense of humor; Giliead is protective and uncomfortable with the responsibility put on him--and perhaps a little lonely.

The first chapter was great. Then, like someone hit the breaks, it slowed way down. The introduction of Ilias and Giliead was not my cup of tea. There was a lot of narration about past events and not much action. I don't even need swashbuckling . . . just something more than paragraphs of backstory sprinkled with them climbing through a cave. Not exactly riveting. But I held out hope and after a few chapters it picked up again.

One thing I really like about this book it how not much happens but it fills lots of pages without feeling slow (except for the first few chapters, of course). I know that may sound weird--"not much happens"--but what I mean is that the events are so localized, so focused, that the characters, once entangled in those events, have no time to meander. Once the ball got rolling, it kept rolling.

At the same time, with all that rolling going on, it didn't feel rushed. There were scenes with crazy chases and fights, and then there were scenes where they just sat around tending to wounds and it was interesting. There was a good balance on the whole.

On the writing style: there were many, many commas. For example: "She struck hard-packed sand, the breath knocked out of her, the man landing heavily a few feet away. Wheezing, she twisted, kicking out at him. Caught by surprise and badly shocked, he lost his grip on . . ."

You get the idea (and hopefully that bit completely out of context didn't destroy anything for anyone.) Sometimes it just felt like the sentences could have been broken up a bit more. But that might just be personal preference; I tend to like short and punchy interspersed with the occasional long bit for emphasis. Overall, the writing was of good quality and didn't really bother me.

On the world-building: detailed and fascinating! I really liked Ile-Rein and Syrnai and how well they were described, how well the cultures were developed. Another thing I thought was absolutely fantastic was how she played the language card. All these races speak different languages. But everything is written in plain English--no funny keyboard slap thing that are meant to look like foreign languages. "Sorbgouerg irnilshhhf," he said, voice booming like war drums. That doesn't give me anything. Martha Wells did a fantastic job with this, making you feel the language barrier between the characters without creating one between them and the reader.

The realization at the climax had me gripping the book tightly!

Overall I really like this book! My only complaint is the initial slowness. But I know from experience that novel beginnings are hard, so I'm not going to fling around any blame.
...more

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Nov 30, 2020 StarMan added it

Shelves: fantasy, no-insta-love, magic, steampunk

Fantasy/magic with a dose of steampunk. Readers searching for something slightly different in fantasy may be pleased here.

Some folks might call this a SciFi story; I'd say that's a huge stretch (magic & spells + wizards + magical creatures = pure fantasy). Tossing in a few traditional weapons and dirigibles doesn't make it SciFi.

It varied from 1.75 to 3+ stars for me, with the best parts being those that followed Tremaine and Florian. So let's call it 2.75 stars for me--but I think many fantasy ...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Megan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, adult-fiction, favorites, airships

I've committed to trying to give more word reviews instead of my typical stars, including going back and writing reviews as I re-read anything I've already read.

The Wizard Hunters is a book I frequently re-read. It's always loaded on my nook, although the first time I read it, it was a paperback version I picked up in a used book store. My usual used bookstore bookcheck involves picking out something with a title or cover that draws me in, reading the back or the inside flap, and then reading on ...more

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Jun 15, 2015 Brittany rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy

Martha Wells has more imagination and more heart than any other 12 authors put together. (Unless you're exceptionally persnickety about which authors you pick and the list includes a lot of names like "Pratchett," "Dunnett," and "Bujold.)"

She creates the most breath-taking and ambitious, and also enjoyable, worlds. In the Raksura books, she created the best tree-houses ever. Here, she reminagines World War II and the London Blitz, being sure to incorporate world-travel and a gorgeous cruise ship ...more

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Jun 28, 2007 Wealhtheow rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, mannerpunk

Dammit, Wells! Her first book was excellent, her second was good, her third was terrible and this, her fourth, is only passably good. The story starts with the main character trying to kill herself. She’s sarcastic about the reasoning behind her suicide, which really endeared her to me; unfortunately, I didn't like the character that much for the rest of the novel. Wells excels at constructing theories of magic and dealing with the ensuing complications, and the novel itself is set in a magical ...more

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Jun 22, 2014 Li rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2013, fantasy, cross-posted

I loved the prequel, The Death of the Necromancer, but it took me a while to settle into this story. But once I did, it worked for me - well, strong fantasy with a subtle romance would obviously tick all my boxes. This was written almost ten years ago, and I thought its age showed slightly, but overall, good read.
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Mar 29, 2018 Mikhail rated it really liked it

Very, very rough start -- it's like a crossover event with two series you haven't read before. But if you can get past the first couple of chapters it starts to flow much more smoothly, making for an interesting book. Not really Wells's best (that would be the Death of the Necromancer), but good all the same. ...more

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Feb 01, 2016 Jessica rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, own

Read this for my old book group. I liked it quite a bit at the time, it was an intriguing high fantasy, but now I don't really remember the details much. It's something that I would recommend, though, and that I'd pick up again if was in a mood for high fantasy. ...more

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May 23, 2017 Megan rated it it was amazing

In case you're wondering how into this series I am, I definitely almost chanted "OT3! OT3!" out loud at more than one point. (I for sure did it in my head.) ...more

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Jan 25, 2018 l. rated it really liked it

Shelves: novel-novella, american-lit, sff, 2018

My favourite of her novels thus far.

I love her heroine. I love the opening. It's just what I wanted to read. ...more

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Sep 13, 2020 Tim Hicks rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy

So here we are, 14 years before Murderbot 1. Wells has a few books under her belt, and we have #1 of a trilogy.

It's a fairly standard alternate-world magic-and-soldiers adventure, but some things stand out and suggest that this author's going to rise above the others eventually.

Tremaine, for one. She's plucky, but doesn't start out that way, and as she grows into her power and confidence, her own opinion of herself lags behind her achievements. She'll be a good one to carry into subsequent vol ...more

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Jun 16, 2020 Zora marked it as couldnt-get-into

I felt like I'd gone to a party where I didn't know anyone and knew nothing of the people they were talking about. Maybe you have to read a different series before reading this one? Disappointing, after my liking the murderbot books so well. ...more

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Jul 27, 2018 Ben rated it really liked it

Shelves: overdrive, mental-health

I’m sorely tempted to poke fun at all the eyebrow action going on in this book, but that would be ungrateful of me. This was a very entertaining read that kept me hooked until the end, with a nice wrap-up that left me satisfied enough to wait several hours before starting on the sequel.

This is the first book I remember with an unlikeable main character that I still found interesting to read about. It helps that Tremaine doesn’t like herself for many of the same reasons I don’t like her. It made ...more

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Jun 29, 2018 Nicole Luiken rated it really liked it

Shelves: ebook, sf-fantasy

Reading this ate up most of yesterday. I was hooked from the first line. Great adventure story with lots of twists and cool magic reveals. I'll be buying book two soon! ...more

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Jan 03, 2019 Claire rated it really liked it

My favorite under-rated character might be the Sphere itself. This book is so much fun, now I need to read the sequel. Because the world needs more of this sort of team co-operation and girls who are encouraged to be the winning-est winners on the team. Also a bit of respect for a very different worldview goes such a long way for a cheering read in these times.

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Dec 08, 2013 William Leight rated it really liked it

As might be expected from the first in a trilogy, “The Wizard Hunters” has a lot of setup in it, but Wells prevents this from dragging by deploying the backstory in the form of a series of unfolding revelations. Depressed, bohemian playwright Tremaine Valiarde (our heroine) is not what she seems: her father Nicolas was an adventurer and master criminal, and Tremaine’s unusual background has given her some unexpected skills and attitudes. The mild-mannered, scholarly wizard Gerard, being a former As might be expected from the first in a trilogy, “The Wizard Hunters” has a lot of setup in it, but Wells prevents this from dragging by deploying the backstory in the form of a series of unfolding revelations. Depressed, bohemian playwright Tremaine Valiarde (our heroine) is not what she seems: her father Nicolas was an adventurer and master criminal, and Tremaine’s unusual background has given her some unexpected skills and attitudes. The mild-mannered, scholarly wizard Gerard, being a former associate of her father, is also not quite what he appears to be. Giliead and Ilias, the hunters of the title, are far more intelligent and resourceful when facing a technologically and magically superior foe than their relatively primitive society would seem to suggest. And most importantly, the experimental magical device that was left with Tremaine by her father’s old friend Arisilde Damal prior to his and Nicolas’s disappearance is far more than simply a handy gadget for moving between worlds. Otherwise, though, the book follows a fairly predictable arc, with intervals of backstory alternating with action sequences that help to illuminate what the characters are learning, and finishing with a small victory, the difficulty of which makes clear the magnitude of the task that will be faced over the next two books. As Wells is adept with both backstory and action sequences, this is nothing to complain about. If we don’t learn much about the Gardier, who are almost invincible, vaguely steampunky, and pure evil, Ile-Rien — fin-de-siecle England, except that we’re in Paris — and the Syprians — Giliead and Ilias’s people, whose world has a resemblance to the ancient Mediterranean basin, except with more evil wizards — are both well-described, and Wells gets good mileage out of the clash between a culture where magic is omnipresent and one where wizards are evil madmen and any sign of magic is to be shunned. And the action sequences are, as always, brilliantly done: Wells expertly maintains tension as the characters maneuver around the island where they spend much of the book, trying to avoid both its former inhabitants — the vicious creations of the evil wizard who used to have his base there — and its current ones, the equally vicious Gardier. Extra urgency is added by the Rienish characters’ knowledge that the fall of their country (which gives its title to the trilogy) is a matter of weeks at most. The characters are mostly handled competently, with the main arc involving Tremaine, giving something useful to do and something to hope for, emerging from her funk. Though watching Tremaine surprise people, including herself, is a lot of fun, Giliead is the other key to the book. As the Chosen of his god and the defender of his people against wizards, he is placed under an almost impossible burden, one that is made worse by the way that most Syprians view any contact with magic — even defeating it — with suspicion. Creating a believable character from these ingredients requires a tricky balancing act between an unrealistically pure hero and an angsty mess, but Wells pulls it off very well. ...more

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Oct 17, 2017 Lorelei rated it liked it · review of another edition

I went back and forth on whether I wanted to rate this one 3 or 4 stars. I did get what wanted out of it, which was an engaging and not overly-heavy adventure story, but I don't think I'd come back to it, and I'm not in a huge hurry to read the sequels. Tremaine and Ilias are great characters, but most of the secondary characters feel less developed. The setting of Ile-Rien is an unusual one for fantasy, but we don't get a lot of time to explore it outside of Tremaine's memories. Meanwhile the c ...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Lindsay Stares rated it really liked it

Premise: Tremaine lives in a world at war. Her home, the nation of Ile-Rien, has been besiged for years by the people known to them as the Gardier. They come in airships to bomb the cities, can disable engines and mechanisms from afar, and nothing Rien's highly educated sorcerers have come up with has been able to defend them. Somewhere both close and very far away, Ilias and Giliead live in a fishing village. There are indications that a wizard may be operating on the Isle of Storms, and they g Premise: Tremaine lives in a world at war. Her home, the nation of Ile-Rien, has been besiged for years by the people known to them as the Gardier. They come in airships to bomb the cities, can disable engines and mechanisms from afar, and nothing Rien's highly educated sorcerers have come up with has been able to defend them. Somewhere both close and very far away, Ilias and Giliead live in a fishing village. There are indications that a wizard may be operating on the Isle of Storms, and they go to investigate. They are ready to kill, since of course all wizards are corrupt and insane. Tremaine's heirloom, a mysterious sphere, holds the key to a spell that will change the course of the war and bring two very different cultures face to face.

Now this is fabulous world-building. Ile-Rien is at a vaguely late-Victorian level of technology, plus some very civilized magic. Sypria is at a medieval level, plus a relationship with local gods and a pathological distrust of magic. The confrontation between the worlds does run the risk of feeling obvious when I describe it that way, but the characters are so unique and well drawn that I completely accepted both points of view.

Tremaine is a fantastic character from the first page. The last daughter of a somewhat checkered family, her inital melancholy introspection is soon driven into action. She is a mass of contradictory forces: well-spoken and well-educated but with a streak of only slightly buried violence and a fierce determination to win.

Ilias and Giliead I had a slightly harder time with at first, because their setting and mindset is so different that I didn't see how the two plots could fit together. Eventually I really liked them as well, though: fearless warriors with a dark sense of sardonic humor from a society that needs them but doesn't fully appreciate them.

I really enjoyed all the supporting characters as well; there is a complex web of allegiances which is constantly shifting. Hanging over the character drama is the looming threat of the Gardier, whose motives seem inscrutable. There is a huge reveal late in the book that was masterfully done, and while I expected a twist of some sort, I didn't imagine it would be so fascinating.

While I wouldn't characterize this book as extremely brilliant or ground-breaking, I did completely adore it, and I moved immediately on to Book Two. ...more

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What's the Name o...: SOLVED. Alternate History/Fantasy, WWII, with trapped sorcerers and a female protagonist [s]	5	38	Nov 29, 2013 08:51AM

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About Martha Wells

Martha Wells

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Martha Wells has been an SF/F writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes The Books of the Raksura series, The Death of the Necromancer, the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, The Murderbot Diaries series, media tie-ins for Star Wars, Stargate: Atlantis, and Magic: the Gathering, as well as short fiction, YA novels, and non-fiction. She has won a Nebula Award, two Hug ...more