Soh Kam Yung reviewed The Geomagician by Jennifer Mandula
A story of the real-life Mary Anning in a magical world.
4.0 stars
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 …
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.