A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Apr 09, 2015 Molly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, borrowed, recommended, 4-and-a-half-stars, i-want-to-go-to-there, book-riot-finds, read-in-2015

This was pretty great. Fun and well-paced, with solid world-building and interesting characters. I'm already excited to see where this series goes!
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I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I was initially skeptical for a couple of reasons: I had some major logic issues with The Archived, and I couldn’t even get through The Unbound, so the idea of parallel universes seemed a bit hinky. I was worried it wouldn’t make sense, or the universes would be go This was pretty great. Fun and well-paced, with solid world-building and interesting characters. I'm already excited to see where this series goes!
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I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I was initially skeptical for a couple of reasons: I had some major logic issues with The Archived, and I couldn’t even get through The Unbound, so the idea of parallel universes seemed a bit hinky. I was worried it wouldn’t make sense, or the universes would be governed by some ludicrous, illogical rules. Thankfully, none of my fears were realized! According to the catalogue markings on my library copy, this book is ostensibly for adults, but there’s definite crossover appeal. I could see it appealing to more advanced teenaged readers, but it doesn’t exist in that weird no-man’s-land of “who is your audience?” either.

Our two protagonists are Lila and Kell. Kell is a magician, one of the only living magicians with the power to travel between worlds. See, there isn’t just one London, there are four, and once upon a time, there were lots of magicians who could travel between them. But in this world, magic is a living entity and Black London eventually succumbed to its power. With all of the worlds at war, Kell tells us that Red London made the call to close (and lock) the doors between worlds. We don’t see Black London in this volume (which was a little disappointing!), but it’s the proverbial end of the line. Then comes White London, where magic is slowly sucking the life out of the populace and people will kill for a bit of power. Red London seems like the utopia in all of this -- magic is out in the open, but still under control -- and they’re protected from whatever is lurking in Black London by White London. (White, for the record, is ruled by a pair of Targaryan-esque siblings who are delightfully unhinged. I would kind of like to see this made into a movie, if only to see those characters fleshed out on screen) “Our” London is Grey, and it’s more or less the world as we know it, ruled by mad King George. My British history is rusty, so I forget what era we’re ostensibly in...sometime in the 19th century, based on context, I’d guess.

Anyway, as a traveler, Kell can move between worlds and acts as an ambassador of sorts for the Red King & Queen. There’s another like him named Holland, whom we’ll later learn (view spoiler). But he has a sort of small business on the side, trading artifacts from one London into another. This is how he crosses paths with Lila, who lives in Grey London. She’s a pickpocket who aspires to be a pirate, and she is awesome. Much as I was fascinated by the parallel Londons, I think I would have been perfectly content to read just about Lila’s adventures. She’s young, probably 19 or 20 at most, and she’s become accustomed to making her own way in the world (and she’s good at it). I pictured her swanning about like V in V for Vendetta. She and Kell cross paths thanks to a small, black stone, a relic of Black London. By all rights, it shouldn’t have gotten out, nothing is supposed to get out. But once it does, all hell breaks loose in Grey AND Red London. Kell has no choice but to attempt to return the stone, but it’s not as simple as just creating a door to Black from Grey -- he has to go through Red and White. And also Lila insists upon tagging along.

This world was absolutely fascinating. I found myself as enamored with Red London as Lila was, and it’s no wonder she wants to stay there! I thought it was a little cheap that, (view spoiler) Schwab creates a solid balance between logical world building and compelling action. I loved the explanation of how magic works -- that it always exacts a price, and that it’s truly a living...entity. It’s both powerful and seductive, and we see Kell fall prey to that, via the stone. It’s also interesting that while Kell is certainly the most powerful magician in the world, there are still limits to his power (not being able to go directly from Grey to Black, for instance, and not being able to take people with him). And even though the stone is ostensibly all-powerful, its power comes at a price.

What I really wanted, though, was a map. Kell tells Lila a bit about how the four worlds are connected, and we can intuit that certain source of power remain the same (there’s always a river where the Thames is, for instance. And there has to be something important about the bar that’s always on the same corner in each world). While all four cities are called London, each is part of a different country, and although the 3 countries we see are ruled by a monarchy, each monarch has different territory. I wanted to see more of the “wider” world. What are the surrounding countries like? And are there dragons? White London seems like it should have dragons. I’m also really hoping we get a glimpse of Black London at some point in the series -- it can’t just be an empty void, right? And even though (view spoiler) As annoyed as I initially was about the fact that this is a series rather than a standalone, I’m already excited about the prospect of returning to this world. Major bonus points for not ending on a cliffhanger too. The avenue is open for continued adventures of Lila and Kell, but you wouldn’t have to continue the series to find out what happens to them. I, however, am so on board! ...more

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