The High Lord - review

First of all, this book is the third part of the trilogy I reviewed here and here. If you plan on reading the series, I suggest you don't read this review yet. I won't hide spoilers for all three books in the summary part and only hide spoilers for this one in the impressions.

The Facts

Title	The High Lord (The Black Magician Trilogy, part 3)
Author	Trudi Canavan
Genre	Fantasy, young adult
Publisher	Orbit Books
Publication date	2003

The Summary

After the events in the previous book, Sonea now has the respect of her fellow novices and magicians. She is, however, still afraid of her guardian, High Lord Akkarin, who is a powerful black magician. Akkarin shows Sonea a book that tells the story of Coren, the architect who designed and built the Guild. She is shocked to learn that Coren was a black magician. From another book, Sonea learns that black magic was once called higher magic and was widely accepted by the Guild Magicians. After one novice abused his powers in his quest for power, the Guild banned black magic.

Akkarin then takes Sonea to question a Sachakan spy, who’s being held captive by Sonea’s old friend Ceryni. Akkarin teaches Sonea to read the mind of unwilling people and she learns that the spy was sent by a group of Sachakan rebels, the Ichani, to kill Akkarin, who used to be their slave. Later on, Akkarin confides his story to Sonea. He was a slave to one of the Ichani, but was taught black magic by another to kill this Ichani. This Ichani’s brother is now seeking revenge and gathering the other rebels around him to attack Akkarin and the Guild. Sonea’s view of the High Lord changes from fear to sympathy and respect. She manages to convince him to teach her black magic.

One night, Sonea and Akkarin are out in the city to deal with another spy. After Sonea kills her and they head back to the Guild, both she and Akkarin are arrested by the Guild, who have discovered that both of them know black magic. Not sure whether Akkarin’s warning of the impending Ichani invasion of Kyralia is true or not, they decide not to execute him, but “merely” exile him to Sachaka. Sonea refuses to remain behind because she fears for his safety, so together they leave the Guild and head to the dangerous wasteland of Sachaka. During their journey through Sachaka, Sonea develops romantic feelings for Akkarin. Initially she tries to hide those, until she accidentally discovers the feelings are mutual. They travel back to the Kyralian border and sneak back into the capital city Imardin so they are nearby when the Ichani invasion starts.

With the aid of the Thieves, Akkarin and Sonea manage to isolate and kill several of the Ichani. In the final confrontation, they face the three remaining Ichani, who have been absorbing the power that was stored in the Guild buildings. Their leader lays a trap and manages to stab Akkarin in the chest. Mortally wounded, Akkarin refuses to let Sonea heal him, instead asking her to use his power to kill the Ichani. She does this, only to discover that he gave her all of his power and died.

The final chapter reveals that Sonea is now the Guild’s “official” Black Magician, that she runs a few hospitals in the slums and that she is pregnant.

The Impressions

So Miss Canavan killed my favorite character. Thanks a lot. Well, I have to say it wasn’t entirely unexpected. About halfway through the book, I started thinking “yep, that one’s going to die.” And they did. Why was that character my favorite? Because they weren’t just good or bad. Most other characters had a very clear position on the goodie-versus-baddie scale, right from the start of the trilogy. This one did not. And let’s be honest, what girl doesn’t like a tall dark mysterious man? The way the story was written, however, clearly set up the stage for that character to die.

The pace of this book was quite high, with Sonea first discovering Akkarin’s secret, learning black magic, being exiled and finally returning for the big battle. That was a nice change from the previous books, that dwelled on Sonea hiding from the Guild and her being bullied by Regin for far too long. At the same time the story was rather predictable. Like I wrote in the previous review, Akkarin was indeed the Misunderstood Guy With A Big Secret. Sonea learns about this, starts feeling more sympathetic towards him and during their exile even falls in love with him. Oh and look, a picturesque valley and a waterfall in the middle of the wastelands. Oh and look, the story ends with Sonea revealing she’s pregnant. That’s quite a number of clichés. Now, these books aren’t world-class literature or even pretending to be, so I guess we can forgive the author.

Back to the story then. There are two storylines I was struggling to fit into the summary. The first one is about Ambassador Dannyl infiltrating a group of nobles who want to learn magic in secret, without joining the Guild. I tried but could not find a link between this and the main plot, other than ensuring Dannyl was at the Guild when the invasion took place.

The second one is about a mysterious woman, Savara, whom Ceryni falls in love with. We know Savara is Sachakan, but she says she’s not from the same faction as the Ichani. The mystery remains and if you want to find out who she is, you’ll have to read the next trilogy by Miss Canavan, The Traitor Spy. Same with Akkarin’s blood gems. He tells Sonea he made three rings. We know his servant wears one and Administrator Lorlen has another, but we never learn where the third one is. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t like this. If you write a trilogy, make sure you tie up all the loose ends. I don’t like feeling forced to read the next trilogy or to look up the answers on the internet. If I like your books and the world you created, I will read those next books. No need for you to attract me with unsolved questions.

The Conclusion

In some regards, this final part of the trilogy is an improvement compared to the first and second part. The pace is higher, there is an actual threat for the entire Guild (not just for Sonea) and we finally see what the previous books were building up to. On the downside, the story is rather predictable. And purposely leaving loose ends to attract readers for your next trilogy, that’s just not very nice. All in all this trilogy was fun, brainless entertainment for young adults.

Quick note: I’ve read the follow-up trilogy but I won’t review it here because it’s less entertaining than this series. The pace is once again very slow and the characters are very two-dimensional.