- Hardcover: 300 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books (Mar 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0765303086
- ISBN-13: 978-0765303080
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,557,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Samuel Lambert, all too aware of his responsibilities as a guest, saw with dismay that there were loose bits of tea leaf in the bottom of his cup. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Samuel Lambert, all too aware of his responsibilities as a guest, saw with dismay that there were loose bits of tea leaf in the bottom of his cup. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Like Caroline Stevermer's earlier book 'A College of Magics' this is set in the Edwardian era in a parallel universe where magic is part of everyday life. Samuel Lambert, a sharpshooter from Wyoming, is staying at Glasscastle University,(Glastonbury?) a very exclusive establishment which teaches magic to young men of the right sort of background. Lambert has been invited there to help with a mysterious top-secret project konw as Agincourt, for which his marksmanship talent is essential. He makes friends with a student called Nicholas Fell, and meets the provost's attractive sister Jane (from 'A College of Magics'),a teacher of mathematics at Greenlaw, a women's magical college in Normandy. Jane has a message for Nicholas Fell, he is to be the new Warden of the West (a sort of magic guardian) but he doesn't want to be. Strange things being to happen, Nicholas Fell disappears, as does Jane's brother Robert, and she and lambert set out to find them. Then Jane disappears too, and Lambert has to find all of them,and try and find out who is responsible for the disappearances. And why has the Agincourt Project been cancelled? This is a very enjoyable story with a clever plot, interesting characters and lots of humour. One of my favourit bits is where Lambert fells the villain with a cricket ball. lambert is an amiable hero, and Jane is an attractive and interesting heroine, in spite of her passion for reckless driving. And unlike the earlier book, this one has does not have a depressing ending. Great fun.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
19 reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Riproaring read
29 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
I could not put this down once I had started it. From the first chapter I just had to find out what would happen in this alteranate magic world of Edwardian Great Britain.
Glasscastle is the University of Magic - and a very traditional, English hidebound one full of arguing highly eccentric Fellows and university politics.
Samuel Lambert is a sharp-shooting American recruited by the university on a top secret weapons plan, The Agincourt Project. He is fascinated by the university and its scholarship, if not its prejudices and professors. Then Jane Brailsford sweeps onto the scene. She is a witch, a very feminist one, who is a teacher at the female magical college in France of Greenlaw. She is at Glasscastle not just to harry her professor brother Robert, but to persuade Nicholas Fell (the most eccentric of eccentrics) to take up his post as Warden of the West.
The tale then takes off with great velocity, nearly as fast and enthusiastically as Jane does in her brother's motor car as she sets about her tasks. For there is more going on in England than meets the eye, there is something wrong with magic itself and Fell is determined to refuse his post until he can heal the problem.
The whole magical world created by Stevermer is wonderfully realized and believable through its grounding in realities. Magic is presented as a strong part of this world without too much oohing and aahing.
Then the characters of Lambert and Jane are so well presented, and so very engaging. They strike sparks off each other, but are never shrill or stupid or unnecessarily argumentative. Jane resents the stupid prejudices against women, but does not belay the point continually. She simply goes ahead regardless, but is not revoltingly feisty.
The mysteries and dangerous plots are full of surprises, but not so obscure as to defy our puzzlings. There is a choice of villains and a great piece of villainy in the Agincourt weapon itself. The legend of Comus comes into the tale very magically and is woven into it.
Villainy is of course defeated and Lambert is granted his desire to study at Glasscastle.
I await very impatiently what will happen next.
Glasscastle is the University of Magic - and a very traditional, English hidebound one full of arguing highly eccentric Fellows and university politics.
Samuel Lambert is a sharp-shooting American recruited by the university on a top secret weapons plan, The Agincourt Project. He is fascinated by the university and its scholarship, if not its prejudices and professors. Then Jane Brailsford sweeps onto the scene. She is a witch, a very feminist one, who is a teacher at the female magical college in France of Greenlaw. She is at Glasscastle not just to harry her professor brother Robert, but to persuade Nicholas Fell (the most eccentric of eccentrics) to take up his post as Warden of the West.
The tale then takes off with great velocity, nearly as fast and enthusiastically as Jane does in her brother's motor car as she sets about her tasks. For there is more going on in England than meets the eye, there is something wrong with magic itself and Fell is determined to refuse his post until he can heal the problem.
The whole magical world created by Stevermer is wonderfully realized and believable through its grounding in realities. Magic is presented as a strong part of this world without too much oohing and aahing.
Then the characters of Lambert and Jane are so well presented, and so very engaging. They strike sparks off each other, but are never shrill or stupid or unnecessarily argumentative. Jane resents the stupid prejudices against women, but does not belay the point continually. She simply goes ahead regardless, but is not revoltingly feisty.
The mysteries and dangerous plots are full of surprises, but not so obscure as to defy our puzzlings. There is a choice of villains and a great piece of villainy in the Agincourt weapon itself. The legend of Comus comes into the tale very magically and is woven into it.
Villainy is of course defeated and Lambert is granted his desire to study at Glasscastle.
I await very impatiently what will happen next.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
An alternate-Edwardian romp
17 Oct 2004
Format:Hardcover
Jane Brailsford, a student at Greenlaw College in A College of Magics, has now been an instructor there for several years. She visits her brother Robert, a Senior Fellow at Glasscastle University, England's premier school of magic, and his wife Amy while on holiday for the first time in years, and won't quite admit that this is odd enough to need an explanation. On arriving, she meets another visitor at Glasscastle, Samuel Lambert, an American sharpshooter who has been retained by the University in connection with a highly secret defense research project. Mr. Lambert is interesting enough in his own right, but he's also staying with Nicholas Fell, another Senior Fellow, who, it turns out, is the real reason for Jane's visit. The old Warden of the West has died, and Nicholas Fell should be, must be, the new one, but he has determinedly resisted taking up the post, and rejected all efforts at communication from the other three Wardens. Why won't Dr. Fell do what he ought to do? What does the research project Samuel's involved in have to do with it-and what's the goal of the research project anyway? Who are the mysterious figures that keep walking across Glasscastle's lawn and breaking into Fell's study? And why are Samuel and Jane the only ones who can see them?
A very entertaining romp through an alternate Edwardian England.
A very entertaining romp through an alternate Edwardian England.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Reasonable followup, but lacking a little magic
29 Mar 2004
Format:Hardcover
A College of Magics is my all time favorite book, so I had high hopes for A Scholar of Magics. While it didn't quite meet those hopes, I still very much enjoyed it. Jane, from A College of Magics, is reintroduced and we experience Glasscastle College--where young men go to learn and become wizards. The attitude of the men attending, and of the school itself is very typical and in line with the time frame the book is set in. I just didn't feel like there was quite the flavor and humor in this novel that was present in Stevermer's other books (for example College of Magics, or Sorcery and Cecilia). However, she's still a lovely and wonderful author, and I'm happy to step into the world of Greenlaw anytime I'm allowed the opportunity.
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