![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Scholomance 1 and 2, Novik
I read the second novel, The Last Graduate, in one of those all-nighters that starts, "oh, I'll just read the first chapter before going to sleep." Riiiight.
The first novel, A Deadly Education, is set during protagonist Galadriel "El" Higgins' junior year at the Scholomance, a school for teenage wizards which is only palatable because the other options, readers are assured again and again, are even worse. Loner El reluctantly makes friends and alliances in time to face down the challenge of fixing some desperately broken infrastructure, and worse, the seniors who will throw the juniors, sophomores, etc, to the not-so-metaphorical wolves to improve their own dire odds of surviving graduation day. The Scholomance graduation makes Buffy's graduation day look like a walk in the park. El also attracts the attention of junior year hero Orion Lake, monster hunter extraordinaire, who may or may not think she's rude, hostile, an evil wizard, and/or dating material.
The graduating seniors' fates are not known when the sequel, The Last Graduate, opens, but having grudgingly helped one or two people not die, El finds herself thrown into a chain of situations that force her to consider the possibility of helping others survive The Worst College Track High School Ever because it's the right thing to do. Eventually, El & Co. elect survival by destruction, and conjure a plan to slag the Scholomance, as one does.
Somehow, in the dubious misadventure that was 2020, I read but never logged A Deadly Education. I could blame 2020, but I also struggled with whether I really wanted to talk about fanfic as part of my reaction. Well, it's 2021, another year that has done little for my faith in humanity at the micro level, so my level of caring about how much Transformers fanfic I talk about in public has achieved new lows.
And the reason this comes up is that people who follow Novik's fanfiction might reasonably see "magical boarding school novel" and think back to her stint in Harry Potter fandom, a decade-plus ago. However, I opened the book to snarky, overpowered, angry El, and her keen sense of the Scholomance's class injustices, where students are treated "equally" (but some came in more equal than others) and thought, "it's not Hogwarts, it's the arena," and other unhelpful things like "they have built an empire of lies / where the dead beneath are buried twice / to better feed the living above / and you can keep the teeth of hunger off your own neck / only if you tell the ravening lies yourself."
tl;dr when the story tells me El has a prophecy about destruction hanging around her neck, not only do I believe it, I believe she'll do it because levelingCybertron some people's homes will give the many wizards who are not comfortable and safe in their magical enclaves at least an even chance with the smaller enclaver numbers. See exhibit 1, book 2: destroyed a greater than 150 year old social and cultural institution because it was the best way to give all teenagers better odds of survival.
Only...
...But...
...there's that book two cliffhanger...
...which might lead to a spate of teenage angst and/or split-second Really Bad Judgment...
I have no doubt that Orion's going to emerge from book three alive and in a place to get his ears verbally boxed by El, but I am dying to know how this will come about. Is El gone enough on this well-meaning idiot to jump back into what's about to be 100% void and monsters? Is getting Orion out of the crumbling school going to be key to Operation Fulfill Prophecy? Maybe Orion will make El cry, which would absolutely guarantee Very Disappointed Gwen Higgins. Could that possibly be worse than El verbally flaying Orion? (Clearly I cannot wait for El to bring her basketcase of a boyfriend home to mom with requests for assistance making him less of a basketcase, please mum, you can fix anything.)
It should go without saying at this point that I am 100% here for Novik's take on female friendships, and her skill at sucking the reader into the story. But for once, I am also here for the romance. Making female protagonist El the overpowered overthinker in the relationship is a reversal of Novik's usual approach to romance (see also: Uprooted, Spinning Silver, the emotional arc of the Temeraire relationships, 30 years of fanfic including the HP stuff) and also I am here for teenage idiots and their not-dating slow burn, it seems.
On the minus side, I think the internal brainstorming / infodumps could be reviewed and reduced a smidge. And there's some stuff that's either worldbuilding oversight, or a gun on the mantelpiece:
1.) The zero-to-adult survival rates just don't add up.
Deletes five paragraphs ranting about same, in detail.
So either it's an oversight, because Novik really, really wants the Scholomance to be the clear-cut lesser evil. Or something changed in the last 300 years or so... an explosion of enclaves, maybe?... to shift the odds against pre-adult survival. I will now stare at the Golden Stone sutras in a pointed fashion, as though I expect we are not done with the other shoe dropping from this insanely valuable plot twist.
2.) El believes she is her anti-mom, a selfish, cynical, and sinister potential with an Aura Of Menace (tm) that can only be explained by the dark future prophesied to be hers. This is countered by the fact that she, uh, makes loyal friends in her junior and senior years. This is counter-countered by Orion throwing out that El gets past his tendency to lump everyone into "human being, not a mal = not interesting" by looking, well, a bit mal-like. I suspect it's got more to do with how mana and malia are generated / manipulated, or by mana/malia capacity, rather than by mals soaking in malia, and El looking like that. If Orion could step outside himself, Mr. Orion "I accidentally drained New York's entire mana stash and didn't blow up" Lake would probably have the sharp edges he lets slip El and mals (and briefly, Liu) do. Watch book three for more about this, doubtless.
There are also items that aren't oversights, but also prick my interest.
First of all, the Scholomance one-year info-lag. I've spent too long in science fiction fandoms where this stuff matters, I'm fascinated to see if Novik manages this for maximum drama. The rising freshman class went into the Scholomance with news of the Bangkok enclave's fall, and of West-East power jockeying, hours after the graduating seniors came out with a story of El and Orion helping to fix the graduation hall machinery, then disappearing into a wall of mortal flame. So El might be on at least some enclave radars. And she's walking into whatever power jockeying has happened in the year since her last bit of political intel. And she just blew up the Scholomance, one of the East-West bones of contention for decades, with the prominent help of a major New York enclaver's son. Only he didn't necessarily make it out...
I'm peripherally curious whether the Scholomance's library survived book two. How valuable are the books in the library, and what happens if/when that information gets into circulation?
Also, I have Thoughts on El and her mom reuniting. I suspect some feet of clay are going to be discovered. (I also want El to meet Orion's parents, and preferably sass the heck out of them. Or worse, be the bearer of dramatic Orion news, and get the full Mark Vorkosigan "yeah, he's an idiot like that. Damn him," reaction from his parents.)
And also! How long until we get to see Aadhya and Liu again? Is Liu going to shack up with her girlfriend? What is going to happen to her cousins, how that there's a.) no Scholomance b.) a lot less need for a Scholomance?
I think it's fair to say this series has the right balance of compelling protagonists and dubious worldbuilding to hold my attention. Absolutely will read the third novel when it comes out.
The first novel, A Deadly Education, is set during protagonist Galadriel "El" Higgins' junior year at the Scholomance, a school for teenage wizards which is only palatable because the other options, readers are assured again and again, are even worse. Loner El reluctantly makes friends and alliances in time to face down the challenge of fixing some desperately broken infrastructure, and worse, the seniors who will throw the juniors, sophomores, etc, to the not-so-metaphorical wolves to improve their own dire odds of surviving graduation day. The Scholomance graduation makes Buffy's graduation day look like a walk in the park. El also attracts the attention of junior year hero Orion Lake, monster hunter extraordinaire, who may or may not think she's rude, hostile, an evil wizard, and/or dating material.
The graduating seniors' fates are not known when the sequel, The Last Graduate, opens, but having grudgingly helped one or two people not die, El finds herself thrown into a chain of situations that force her to consider the possibility of helping others survive The Worst College Track High School Ever because it's the right thing to do. Eventually, El & Co. elect survival by destruction, and conjure a plan to slag the Scholomance, as one does.
Somehow, in the dubious misadventure that was 2020, I read but never logged A Deadly Education. I could blame 2020, but I also struggled with whether I really wanted to talk about fanfic as part of my reaction. Well, it's 2021, another year that has done little for my faith in humanity at the micro level, so my level of caring about how much Transformers fanfic I talk about in public has achieved new lows.
And the reason this comes up is that people who follow Novik's fanfiction might reasonably see "magical boarding school novel" and think back to her stint in Harry Potter fandom, a decade-plus ago. However, I opened the book to snarky, overpowered, angry El, and her keen sense of the Scholomance's class injustices, where students are treated "equally" (but some came in more equal than others) and thought, "it's not Hogwarts, it's the arena," and other unhelpful things like "they have built an empire of lies / where the dead beneath are buried twice / to better feed the living above / and you can keep the teeth of hunger off your own neck / only if you tell the ravening lies yourself."
tl;dr when the story tells me El has a prophecy about destruction hanging around her neck, not only do I believe it, I believe she'll do it because leveling
Only...
...But...
...there's that book two cliffhanger...
...which might lead to a spate of teenage angst and/or split-second Really Bad Judgment...
I have no doubt that Orion's going to emerge from book three alive and in a place to get his ears verbally boxed by El, but I am dying to know how this will come about. Is El gone enough on this well-meaning idiot to jump back into what's about to be 100% void and monsters? Is getting Orion out of the crumbling school going to be key to Operation Fulfill Prophecy? Maybe Orion will make El cry, which would absolutely guarantee Very Disappointed Gwen Higgins. Could that possibly be worse than El verbally flaying Orion? (Clearly I cannot wait for El to bring her basketcase of a boyfriend home to mom with requests for assistance making him less of a basketcase, please mum, you can fix anything.)
It should go without saying at this point that I am 100% here for Novik's take on female friendships, and her skill at sucking the reader into the story. But for once, I am also here for the romance. Making female protagonist El the overpowered overthinker in the relationship is a reversal of Novik's usual approach to romance (see also: Uprooted, Spinning Silver, the emotional arc of the Temeraire relationships, 30 years of fanfic including the HP stuff) and also I am here for teenage idiots and their not-dating slow burn, it seems.
On the minus side, I think the internal brainstorming / infodumps could be reviewed and reduced a smidge. And there's some stuff that's either worldbuilding oversight, or a gun on the mantelpiece:
1.) The zero-to-adult survival rates just don't add up.
Deletes five paragraphs ranting about same, in detail.
So either it's an oversight, because Novik really, really wants the Scholomance to be the clear-cut lesser evil. Or something changed in the last 300 years or so... an explosion of enclaves, maybe?... to shift the odds against pre-adult survival. I will now stare at the Golden Stone sutras in a pointed fashion, as though I expect we are not done with the other shoe dropping from this insanely valuable plot twist.
2.) El believes she is her anti-mom, a selfish, cynical, and sinister potential with an Aura Of Menace (tm) that can only be explained by the dark future prophesied to be hers. This is countered by the fact that she, uh, makes loyal friends in her junior and senior years. This is counter-countered by Orion throwing out that El gets past his tendency to lump everyone into "human being, not a mal = not interesting" by looking, well, a bit mal-like. I suspect it's got more to do with how mana and malia are generated / manipulated, or by mana/malia capacity, rather than by mals soaking in malia, and El looking like that. If Orion could step outside himself, Mr. Orion "I accidentally drained New York's entire mana stash and didn't blow up" Lake would probably have the sharp edges he lets slip El and mals (and briefly, Liu) do. Watch book three for more about this, doubtless.
There are also items that aren't oversights, but also prick my interest.
First of all, the Scholomance one-year info-lag. I've spent too long in science fiction fandoms where this stuff matters, I'm fascinated to see if Novik manages this for maximum drama. The rising freshman class went into the Scholomance with news of the Bangkok enclave's fall, and of West-East power jockeying, hours after the graduating seniors came out with a story of El and Orion helping to fix the graduation hall machinery, then disappearing into a wall of mortal flame. So El might be on at least some enclave radars. And she's walking into whatever power jockeying has happened in the year since her last bit of political intel. And she just blew up the Scholomance, one of the East-West bones of contention for decades, with the prominent help of a major New York enclaver's son. Only he didn't necessarily make it out...
I'm peripherally curious whether the Scholomance's library survived book two. How valuable are the books in the library, and what happens if/when that information gets into circulation?
Also, I have Thoughts on El and her mom reuniting. I suspect some feet of clay are going to be discovered. (I also want El to meet Orion's parents, and preferably sass the heck out of them. Or worse, be the bearer of dramatic Orion news, and get the full Mark Vorkosigan "yeah, he's an idiot like that. Damn him," reaction from his parents.)
And also! How long until we get to see Aadhya and Liu again? Is Liu going to shack up with her girlfriend? What is going to happen to her cousins, how that there's a.) no Scholomance b.) a lot less need for a Scholomance?
I think it's fair to say this series has the right balance of compelling protagonists and dubious worldbuilding to hold my attention. Absolutely will read the third novel when it comes out.