That one has been on my list for years now. It’s just got such a fun title!

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”

Now, having read it… I think that I enjoyed it?

It’s certainly a magical sort of book, despite the fact that magic in this book is somewhat limited at most. There are some rather spectacular feats of magic (honestly, to a terrifying extent) along with some more whimsical fae sorts of feats. But that’s not really the point.

He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.

The characters are fascinating. I don’t know, especially after finishing the book, if I were to meet these people if there’s even one of them I’d actually like, but I will say they all feel complicated and real in a way not many authors pull off.

“Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel.
“Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!”
“Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner,” said Strange. “That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one’s imperfections.”

The writing style is complex. It’s already a weighty tome (800-1000 pages depending on the printing) and there’s a tendency to jump a bit from plotline to plotline and character to character. Some chapters I’m still honestly not sure what the point of them was.

On top of that, piles of footnotes, some of them pages long in their own right. If that’s your sort of thing, you’re going to love this book. 😄 (I don’t recommend skipping them. You will miss out.)

Conversely though, there are some truly odd spellings. ‘chuse’ being one that jumped out at me. Time period appropriate spellings that make me almost think this book was written hundreds of years ago… rather than about 20. Which instead just makes it feel strange.

Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married.

It is interesting being roughly the third historical fantasy I’ve read in this time period (His Majesty's Dragon and A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians). It’s amusing to see the same (real) people writ different ways.

Overall, it’s an interesting book. It’s entirely longer than it probably could have / should have been. Like I said, I think I enjoyed it. But it’s certainly a lot book.