A Deadly Education

In many ways, you would think that the wizard school trope has been done to death, but Naomi Novik proves there is life to this subject still. Her world and school is a much darker affair than the typical Harry Potter-esque wizarding school. Death does stalk the corridors. There is no adult teaching staff, which gives a slight lord of the flies vibe at times. The characters themselves are darker, and greyer in their morals. The imperative to survive outways any heavy moralizing. This is Harry Potter, the Grimdark version.

Our main protagonist is a dark wizard waiting to happen. In this world magicians have affinities. Hers is the magic of death and destruction. The spells she can learn easily are ones that cause carnage. It is an interesting moral quandary. The school itself is also a character in its own right - it provides what it thinks the student needs, but is infested with evil creatures and traps that the students have to learn to survive. And these things are deadly - plenty of people do die from these traps in these pages.

I will acknowledge that there are some issues that have been raised with the writing of ethnic characters in the book - Naomi has acknowledged and apologized for the misuse of the word ‘locs' in an unintendedly insensitive way in a late edit, which will be corrected back in future editions. This was fair criticism and it is good the way that the author has owned up to it. The other criticism has come across as a little bit overblown - this is a magical alternative reality. To me, none of this detracts from what is a supremely dark and intriguing take on a magical school story.

I enjoyed this immensely and can highly recommend it. It was easy to read yet intriguingly dark.