The Magician's Daughter

My dear friend Samara recommended The Magician's Daughter, by H.G. Parry to me, and after the super-heavy Fractal Noise I was delighted to open up a fairly concise fantasy adventure. I read it on my X3 running Crosspoint, although the stock SD card started to die halfway through so I had to migrate the contents to a more reputable brand before I could finish, which delayed me some.

It's really easy for anyone writing speculative fiction to get bogged down in worldbuilding and explaining the "rules" of their fiction, but Parry neuters this risk with three specific approaches:

• First, this is a standalone book, with no intention for dozens of sequels, and Parry only formalizes enough for this plot.
• Second, the point of view character is not a practitioner of the fictional magic/technology, having grown up in isolation from the wider community of the fiction.
• Third, the magic is rare in this story, having largely dried up from the world some decades prior.

With good execution of the above three items, I was left actually wanting a sequel, which is a great outcome for a piece of speculative fiction.

Things that could have used improvement in my eyes:

• The historical setting is largely ignored, and sometimes borderline anachronistic: references to motorcars and telephones are not in violation of the vague "1910s-ish" setting but certainly speak of the technologies with modern reverence and assumptions of reliability and relevance, while poor Irish/English relations are largely unacknowledged, and settings that are almost certainly miserable for a girl who grew up in a castle on a magical island, like the London underground and a poorhouse and the streets of Whitehall at night, are insufficiently grimy.

• The bad guy is a moustache twirler (metaphorically).

Things that I loved:

• "Biddy" as the POV character's nickname (for "Bridget") was initially off-putting but I came around.
• Magicians have familiars with reminiscent rules to His Dark Materials' daemons, which is an excellent storytelling tool.
• Off-screen atrocities (magical torture) are sensitively handled for the book's tone without ignoring the consequences for characters or being minimized narratively.
• Good depiction of Irish folklore.

Good poolside/beachside/plane/bus read. Endorsed.