The Magician's Apprentice

The Magician's Apprentice
by Trudi Canavan

First published in Great Britain in 2009.

I was introduced to Trudi Canavan by my boyfriend.  He reads a lot of high fantasy and suggested Trudi Canavan to me because her main characters tend to be strong females and the stories are more to do with daily life than violent wars, for the most part.  When I got the book and saw it had a glossary at the back and maps at the front, I was pretty much sold.

The Magician's Apprentice is set one hundred years before The Black Magician Trilogy, and is a great introduction to her writing.  The main character is Tessia, a healer's daughter from peaceful Kyralia who helps her father with his work.  One day they are at the local magician's house, attending to a sick slave who belongs to a visiting Sachakan magician from the neighbouring country of Sachaka.  Whilst there, the Sachakan master attacks Tessia and she responds with magic she didn't know she possessed.  As she is a natural, the Lord (who is also a magician) takes it upon himself to train her to be a full magician.  As her training progresses tensions are rising with Sachaka, with rumours that Sachakan magicians are going to invade Kyralia.

The story is interspersed with that of Stara, a young woman who is moving to Sachaka to live with her father.  Although not a magician, Stara has learnt some magic from a friend and hopes to use this to help her father with his trade.  However when she arrives, she learns that he intends to marry her off so she will provide him with an heir.  As she struggles to adapt to Sachakan life she is taught higher magic in secret and becomes an integral part of the close circle of local women who plan to leave Sachaka.

There are also parts focusing on the Sachakan magicians as they attempt to invade Kyralia.  Their intense malice is a strong contrast to the morals of the Kyralians and gives a feeling of unease as you read.

I really like both Tessia and Stara.  They are both strong women who have to deal with difficult situations.  I find Tessia's story more interesting as she travels with the magicians and grows from a confused girl to a confident woman.  She is the only female apprentice and she copes with this with strength and humour.
Stara's story mainly focuses on her relationships - with her slave, her father, and the other women she meets in Sachaka.  Her struggle is with her family's expectations of her.  However with the invasions comes a different responsibility for her and Stara really comes into her own and seems the most sensible of the women at times.

The war is believable in that it builds slowly, with small events that have knock on effects, just like in reality.  I really cared about the characters, and felt the sadness that they felt when their villages were attacked.  The writing hints at the evilness of the Sachakans without being overly emotional.

The whole world is really well created, down to the smallest details.  There are a fair few different words for things but most are understandable just from the context (there is a short glossary at the back of the book as well).  The maps at the front of the book are a great help to see where each character is at each part of the story.  I get totally lost in the story, thanks to the detailed descriptions.  It is easy to put yourself in the rooms with the characters, which is always important to me.

The book is an excellent prequel to The Black Magician trilogy - it tells the reader how things like the wasteland and the Magician's Guild were created.  It's a bit like reading the history of the Black Magician world.  If you like high fantasy and want a book with more detail of everyday life too then add this to your bookcase.  Then get The Black Magician trilogy and The Traitor Spy trilogy.  I have yet to read Canavan's Age Of The Five but it's on the list!