A Darker Shade of Magic

TLDR
+ well written, good enough plot and characters
. unique idea of multiple worlds not explored well enough
- rushed, stereotypical ending

Summary

Kell is the most powerful wizard in a 17th century London where magic is commonplace. He is one of the only two people capable of traveling to alternate planes of existence, where other London exists as well.

Each London has a varying degree of magic present, from none to a-world-destroyed-lot. During his day to day affairs as an emissary to the kings of the different London, Kell stumbles upon a dangerous artifact, that grants its wielder great magical powers. But in increasing the level of magic from the world, you risk bringing it to the same fate as the London that was destroyed.

There are people after this artifact as well, and they don't mind the consequences. Kell must at the same time prevent them from getting the artifact and resist the urge to use it himself. He is joined in this task by Delilah, a street-raised thief from a London with no magic.


Analysis

Some of the minor things that bothered me:

- you get a magical sword, somehow you feel it's evil, with the potential to destroy the world. You resist the urge to wield its power and you get rid of it... by throwing it out of the window. 10 for intention, 0 for execution :-)

- The whole world is filled with magic, but that doesn't come come across too much in the story. The idea of alternate ‘realities' is barely developed.

- The main character is a wizard, one of the two most powerful wizards in the ‘worlds'. Yet he basically looses a brawl in an alley, and is ridiculously weaker then the other one.

The major thing I disliked was the last part of the book. It felt like the whole book was slowly building up the story and characters, and then they fight, the hero who is much weaker then the villain, somehow wins.The villain has a fortified castle, elite guards, magical traps. He drops the castle bridge, order the guards to stand down and disable the traps, just because.The

I liked the alternate worlds idea, but it felt too much unexplored. Also, the I freely reinterpreted some parts of the book to better fit what I tough was most logical. The hero wasn't responsible to bring his world to a near destruction, as he kept blaming himself for. For me, he was just bored out of his mind and decided to make things more interesting whenever he could, in order to have some fun and to improve his abilities.

The antagonists got a hold of this fact and exploited it to their advantage. In my mind the hero basically had no blame in the matter, as he wasn't even necessary for the event to happen. He was just chosen as an emissary because the villains wanted to have some fun as well.