Review: An Inheritance of Magic

An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Stephen Oakwood is a bit of a loser. His mother left when he was small, his father mysteriously disappeared three years ago, all he has left now is his cat. He lives in a tiny bedsit and works as a temp at the Ministry of Defence fetching records from the basement. His only unusual quality is his aptitude for Drucraft (magic). The problem is, since his father's disappearance Stephen has no-one to ask about Drucraft, its not public knowledge and searching the internet gives as much fantasy as facts. What he does know is he can use his Drucraft to draw essentia (magical essence) from a magical well and create a sigil, the power is in the shaping and depending on the type of well Stephen can create a sigil which emits light, or one which improves speed etc.

Then one day an aristocratic young woman comes to visit, it turns out she is a sort of cousin to Stephen and a member of one of the elite magical Houses, House Ashford, she is looking for Stephen to be an ally against the current heir-apparent. However, when she discovers Stephen's abilities she quickly turns from potential ally to competitor and tries to eliminate him.

Stephen quickly realises he has been thrust into a vicious contest between cousins to be named the heir of House Ashford and in order to survive he will need to rapidly improve his Drucraft. His wealthy cousins have been educated in Drucraft from an early age and attended Drucraft universities, they are enhanced with sigils which Stephen can only dream of, powerful sigils can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, even millions. Stephen's only hope of earning money is to use his natural ability to sense wells and report unclaimed wells for a bounty.

In some ways I've seen this all before, it's not a dissimilar concept to the Inheritance Games series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, there's shades of Harry Potter, the Belgariad, The Tarot Sequence, the Hidden Legacy, and basically any book/film where someone is plucked from obscurity and, despite their lack of training, turns out to be better than anyone else. But that is too simplistic, with all these it is the storytelling that is key and Benedict Jacka is a master storyteller. I loved the juxtaposition between the idea of magical dynasties and twenty-first century capitalism. The way in which the magical elite have commoditised magic so that no-one makes their own sigils anymore, they just buy them, and cheaper sigils only last about two to three years.

Overall, I loved this, I can't believe I missed its release, and I'm gutted that I am going to have to wait until October for the second book.

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