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Friday, September 7, 2012

Stealing Magic

Blah Blah Blah I love Tanya Huff. This is not a secret. Wizard of the Grove is one of hands down my favourite books ever, the Blood Series is one I adore and the Keeper series this one I've read so many timees I've destroyed two copies. I haven't recommended these books to anyone who hasn't liked them. Huff is funny, smart and a fabulously entertaining writer.

Stealing magic is a collection of short stories (man I really do hate most short  stories.), really it's a double header of Huff’s comical short stories featuring Magdelene (the world's most powerful and laziest wizard) and Terazin (a top-notch thief). The book is charming, funny, and once again proves that Huff has no regard for the conventions and boundaries of genre I don't really know WHICH genre to effect. The Magdelene stories in Stealing Magic are certainly some of the few ‘high fantasy’ short works that I have ever liked. I'm pretty sure my favourite of the two are the Magdelene ones. Originally an apprentice to Adar, a castle wizard she unknowingly dismantles his most powerful spells like they don't even exist. She gains Adar's powers, just before he is turned into a pile of gray ash (oops), and decides to leave the castle. Traveling with H'sak, a demon trapped inside a mirItror, she finds that the most bucolic villages have the most unique customs concerning wizards, like welcoming them with axes or chains and manacles. Probably awkward. Basically I love that Huff gives us a lazy heroine who does not suffer from heart pangs, unhappy love, "save-the-world" complex and takes life, magic and men as something to be relaxed about. It's hot outside guys.

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