The Geomagician

If you were a poor, uneducated girl in Victorian England, and you managed to teach yourself enough about paleontology to become known throughout Europe as a woman with a knack for finding and identifying plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and pterodactyls, would you make it your life's work to advocate for other women and class equality? Or would you concentrate on advancing your own ambitions to join the Geological--excuse me, the Geomagical Society of London, and getting fucking paid?

This question is at the heart of the story of Mary Anning, whose life is the inspiration for the alternate history of "The Geomagician." Fictional Mary's life trajectory departs from historical Mary's life story when the fossilized pterodactyl egg she finds in the cliffs of Lyme Regis comes to life in her hands. She is then thrust into a world of politics, theological secrets, science, and forbidden sorcery.

The intriguing world-building provides for fun adventures with dinos in Victorian London, but also for a fresh perspective on the effects of early capitalism on society, as in this world, where everyone has a bit of magic, the desperately poor often resort to selling their own magic to brokers, enabling the rich to power their grand mansions with the stored magic of thousands of poor people. The book's strength lies in its believable character-building, and Mary's growth over the course of the book is a highlight. It has perhaps a touch more romance than I'd like, but I did appreciate the casual insertion of a sapphic love story (not of our main character but of her best friend). Enjoyable read and I'll definitely be checking out the next book. Apparently real life Mary met with actual European royalty (King Frederick of Saxony), so I'm curious to see if this is represented in the sequel, "The Paleomancer."

A fascinating book that uses the real-life story of Mary Anning and sets it in a fantasy England where magic is real and is accumulated by storing it in objects, with fossils being one of the strongest ways to store magic. In this world, Anning is still a fossil hunter, finding remarkable fossils that she sells to scholars at the Geomagical Society of London for income. But her hope is to be a Geomagician by joining the society, which rejects women (magical Victorian England is still like real-life Victorian England). That hope is suddenly bright when she discovers a live pterodactyl. She contacts the society which sends two people to evaluate her find: her mentor William Buckland and, unexpectedly, Henry Stanton, who broke her heart when they were young.

Travelling to London, Anning is thrown into a different world, where politics, religion, social caste and Victorian ideas of a woman's place clash with her desires to protect her pterodactyl (called Ajax) and to be a Geomagician on her own terms. It also doesn't help that her feelings for Stanton rekindle, especially when he helps her figure out how Ajax came to be; and it might to due to Anning's own magical skills.

But social disorder between the wealthy and those who have to sell their magic to make a living, and the discovery of a way to make powerful magical items threaten Anning and her friends, and may also overturn the social, geomagical and religious order of the day.

The book makes use of real-life characters, like Anning, Buckland, and other members of the real Geological Society of London, as well as real-life events to weave an interesting fantasy world where magic is real and can be wielded by those using magical items or have a natural affinity for magic (witches). The story posits a magical system that is gradually revealed and shows how Anning may be able to use a special kind of magic, which makes her a key character in a power struggle.

An interesting book, and I look forward to reading the following one.