Mirror Magic

Hola Readers.  How was your weekend?  Did you all do something fun?  I finished a book (finally!) and am ready for a quick ramble so how about it?  The book is The Glass Magician by Charlie Holmbeg.  It is the second book in the Magicians series and follow our paper folder Ceony Twill.  How did I like it?  First as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Ceony, our Folder apprentice from the last book is continuing with her learning.  Mg. Thane is continuing to teach her the intricate, delicate, yet oddly versatile world of paper magic.  Of course all of this is tinged with a bit of awkardness after Ceony's trip through Mg. Thane's heart in the last book.  Luckily for Ceony, the trip seems to have affected both participants in a positive way.  Meanwhile Ceony and her friends and family have been targeted by violence stemming from two villains from the last book.  We have Saraj, an Excisioner ( essentially a magician who uses flesh and blood to perform usually nasty tricks) who pretty much just likes to inflict pain and Grath, a Gaffer (a magician who works with glass), a man who wants Ceony to release Lira (again from the last book) from her frozen state.  After several close calls, including a brush with Grath at a restaurant,  and a paper mill exploding, Ceony and Mg. Thane move into London to get things worked out.  Ceony as an apprentice is denied any real part in stopping the villians and she enlists Delilah, a fellow apprentice (who is a Gaffer) to help her catch the bad guys.  Meanwhile, Ceony is dealing with her feelings for Mg. Thane, one cannot expect to explore a person's heart without knowing them intimately.   As for Mg. Thane, it seems as if he shares Ceony's feelings, but keeps her at a bit of a distance due to her being his apprentice.   Ceony convinces Delilah to enchant a mirror for her to travel through and confronts Grath.  This leads to madness and mayhem ( a common theme in books I read).  Eventually Ceony falls into a trap where Grath has learned to unbond with a material and rebond with another (in case you forgot a magician takes an oath at the beginning of their apprentiship that bonds them to their material).  The ritual is simple enough, using the raw material of the magicians bonding element (eg:  sand for glass, wood for paper, etc..) to unbind oneself and then retaking the oath with a new material.  Grath turns into an Excisioner, killing Delilah in the process, and Ceony using the same method turns Gaffer to stop him.  Chaos ensues and Grath is stopped, but Delilah is dead and Ceony injured.  Meanwhile, Mg. Thane sets a nifty little trap for Seraj and imprisons him as well.  He and Ceony profess there love for each other and Ceony admits that she has changed materials, but plans to change back to paper.  She decides to keep the process a secret, but realizes that she is no longer constrained to one material.

First off, you pretty much have to read the first book The Paper Magician for this one to make any sense whatsoever, so there is that.  I felt that compared to the last book, there was a bit more world building in this one which made me happy.  The parts where some of the other magicians and their talents were showcased not only made the world a more sensible place, but allowed for later in the book when Ceony changed materials to make sense.  Since it was shown that she had been taught, had access to, and observed many of these spells being performed, she could then use at least the basics when she changed materials.  I liked that they acknowledged that there is no way for either Ceony or Mg. Thane to go back to "normal" after all of the escapades in the last book.  Speaking of that, I did not really enjoy the inevitable romance between Ceony and Mg. Thane (you will note I refuse to call him Emery, even though in the book it was a big deal).  All of the touching, significant looks, skin tingling and such got repetitive and obnoxious.  They hinted, danced and inferred all the way to the end of the book, but seriously there was no real romantic tension and the rest just felt like grade school note passing.  Delilah's death added some real consequences to Ceony's running off whenever she felt like it, which I felt was much needed since Ceony did not seem to appreciate the magnitude of her behavior most of the time.  On the flip side, the sheer lack of information and allowing of Ceony to do ANYTHING even though it was herself and her family and friends that were in danger was ridiculous considering Ceony was of an age to be an adult!  I enjoyed the extra info on the magics, but felt that such a simple solution to the bonding to materials thing, should/would have been discovered long before and Ceony's insistence on keeping it a secret, even with her valid reasoning seemed kind of selfish and stupid.  Over all it wasn't a bad read.  Not mind blowing, but not unfinishable.  I give it 6 out of 10 paper dolls and will probably finish off the trilogy at some point.  I recommend it to anybody who has read the first book and didn't hate it.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Books In My Dragons

I love dragons, I love books, I love books about dragons...how about some dragons made from books?!?

Dragon and Knight

Dragon On A Book

Dragon Book Sculpture

Paper Art Dragon

Dragon Map

I don't think I can ever get enough of my literary dragons!  Happy Reading Everybody!

Beating Paper Heart

Hello all, I've finally gotten a bit of sleep and feel a bit more coherent, so I thought I would ramble about a book I finished while on duty the other night.  The book is called The Paper Magician by Charlie Holberg and is the first book in a series.  I had picked it up after reading about it in some random place and decided to read it 'cause I was in the mood for a little magic. Was the book magic?  First as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Ceony is a little pissed off because she wanted to be a Smelter.  What is a Smelter you ask, good question.  A Smelter is a person who works with metal in a magical way.  You see in this world (which is set in Victorianish England) people who posses the gift of magic can bond to a man made object (glass, metal, paper, plastic ect.) and either manipulate or enchant it.  A person can bond to any man made medium, but once bonded a person cannot change mediums.  Ceony, who has finished her year of arduous magic training had her heart set on becoming a Smelter, but do to a balance being needed was assigned to learn the art of Folding, which is the enchanting of paper.  Ceony feels that paper does not give a person much substance to work with and is feeling quit petulant about being stuck as the apprentice of one of the few Folders left.  She is nominally impressed when Magician

Thane (who turns out to be much younger then expected) demonstrates some of the more interesting things that can be done with paper, such as bringing origami birds and frogs to life, making it snow paper snow that is actually cold and producing a whole garden of flowers.  Ceony (who also cooks) starts to realize there might be more to Folding then she first realized.  Mg. Thane starts her training right away and Ceony takes to it quit readily.  Mg. Thane secures her affections when he makes her a little paper dog that looks like the one she had to leave behind.  One day after coming home from a mysterious trip, Mg. Thane is attacked by his ex-wife Lira who is an Excisor, which a person who uses human flesh to do magic (the thinking that a human is technically made by another human being and therefore a "man made" material).  This type of magic is seen as dangerous and criminal as it usually involves the maiming and/or killing of another human being.  Lira takes the magicians heart and Ceony saves him temporarily by replacing it with a Folded Heart. Ceony follows Lira and gets stuck inside Mg. Thane's heart.  As she tries to find her way out she goes through the four chambers and literally gets to see everything inside Mg. Thane's heart.  At the end of her journey, a figment of Mg. Thane teaches her some extra magic and she uses it to defeat Lira.  Upon returning home with Mg. Thanes heart, she saves him and asks to stay on as his apprentice.  She realizes that after her journey through his heart she not only knows him better then any other person, but realizes she loves him.  He agrees to keep her on and realizes it may go further then that, but they take it one day at a time.

This was a solid little book that gave a good story, an interesting premise and a bit of magic.  The plus's to this book are mostly in it's characters.  Ceony is a very believable girl, who has had her share of ups and downs, but understands she needs to work to overcome them.  She is not perfect, but she is not dramatically flawed either, just a normal young woman, who happens to have magic.  Mg. Thane is a quiet, concise man who has just enough of a sense of humor to make him a likable human being.  There are other characters who also hit the non-extreme spot quit perfectly, making this an almost homey read when you are not battling flesh using magicians.  I liked all the examples of the magic one could use paper for, everything from the delicate origami birds to the precise cutting and folding of a chain of protection.  I think that my favorite part of paper magic was the ability to read a book with enough emotion to make the words form pictures above the book!  How cool would that be if it

was real!!!!!  I do wish that the rules of this magic world were a bit more explained.  For instance I understood that magic could only be done with man made objects and materials, but at what point is something man made?  Flowers for example are natural...but what about a bouquet of flowers?  Is that man made?  If pulping wood into paper counts, or humans being man made counts...then pretty much everything should be on the table right?  A few of the other magics were touched on briefly, but not in any real detail.  I enjoyed Ceony's journey through Mg. Thanes heart, the various chambers that housed his loves, his wants, his doubts, it all made a wonderful sort of sense.  Over all the story was good, the characters were great, but I wanted much more world building.  The book was less about the magic and more about the immediate story, which was well done, but I wanted more world building. I love stories about using ordinary things as magic and really wanted more of that in this book.   I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series and hopefully the world will start to flesh out.  I give this book 7 out of 10 origami frogs and recommend it to anybody looking for a quick feel good story with a little magic.
What medium would you work with?  Do you find origami as magical as I do?  Do you find it ironic that humans are considered 'manmade"?

Dainty Paper Cups

Check out these amazing cups made from the pages of books by the artist Cecilia Levy

These are just a few of her amazing works of art using paper, go to her website and check out what other cool things she has there...also who wants to get me a set of these?