Benedict is perhaps best known for his Alex Verus series of urban fantasy books. Here though he starts a new series.
An Inheritance of Magic focusses on Stephen Oakwood. Told in the first person, Stephen is a young adult struggling to make a living in a modern London. He’s pretty much an outsider – his Mum didn’t want anything to do with him when born and his Dad disappeared a while back, although he did leave a cryptic letter.
In this world magic exists, although not so that most people would notice. In fact, anyone with the basic skills can use magic – known as drucraft – providing that they can pay for it. Magic is reached through the creation of and use of sigls – something that Stephen has been able to do since he was little, although not very well. It certainly doesn’t help his current lifestyle, living in shared accommodation with his cat Hobbes for company.
The issue is that magic costs money. The best sigls cost thousands or even millions of pounds and are unsurprising kept as closely guarded secrets by those in power. They are used by the government, by the military and most of all by corporations who have the money, manpower and resources to control and limit their use. It’s a world run by the privileged.
Much of this reads like a Young Adult novel. The main characters are all young, and there’s a sprinkling of contemporary references throughout usually involving social media that I think young adults will appreciate. Stephen is (of course!) an outsider, one of the under-privileged who has not the funds to develop his latent talents. He cannot afford to go to the universities that nurture such abilities, nor has he the social connections to gain access to the Great Houses that seem to run the magic network.
Much of the magic system reads like a different version of Pokémon Go!, whereby magic can be accessed or topped up in wells, centres of magical power that often pop up at random. Benedict has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about how the magic works and much of the book is spent explaining how Stephen manages to find these wells and develop his own abilities.
Stephen himself comes across as a realistic young man, trying to make a living. I thought that the idea of monetarising magic was interesting, perhaps a logical extension and a commercial consequence to the capitalist world we live in.
With this in mind then, it should not be a great surprise to find that as the book progresses Stephen finds that he has a personal connection with House Ashcroft, one of the world’s most powerful Magic houses. He is noticed by the arrogant but fiercely intelligent Head of Ashcroft House, Charles Ashcroft. (For some reason I imagined Charles, the, as actor Charles Dance, which seemed appropriate.)
This has consequences for Stephen and those around him, not just House Ashcroft, who will do anything to maintain or even expand their own positions. This includes cousins Lucella, Tobias and Calhoun of House Ashcroft in an interesting power game whereby Calhoun is the natural successor to Charles, but Lucella and Tobias are determined to usurp him – and want to use Stephen to do so. This creates an interesting political and social dynamic where the characters are detailed enough to make them interesting, but are also enigmatic enough to have secrets which will no doubt be explained in future novels.
I also liked the setting. I got quite a feel for the setting of this modern-day London as a real place, although with added magic, although beneath the glossy surface it is at times not a world that is particularly enjoyable.
However, it would be remiss of me not to mention that there is one horrific act of cruelty which is not pleasant and may not be easy to read. It is important to the story, but may be quite upsetting to some readers.
In summary then, An Inheritance of Magic is a great read that uses its setting to tell us something new in urban fantasy. It’s accessible and generally entertaining, but with that point mentioned above, with enough originality to keep the pages turning and leave the reader wanting the next book as soon as possible. A good start to a new series.
AN INHERITANCE OF MAGIC by Benedict Jacka
Published by Orbit, October 2023
360 pages
ISBN: 978-0356519920
Review by Mark Yon
