Trudi Canavan

It's fascinating how different readers see the same story. I didnt even think about Sonya and the High Lords relationship as being a bit risky or perhaps seen as teacher pupil thing. I just saw it as a young lass with a major crush on a older guy.

And before we all say, this wouldnt really happen - hands up who thinks Sean Connery is to die for :D :D
 
I've only started reading the first one (about 250 pages in), but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it isn't YA fantasy. To me it just seems a pretty average, badly written, Harry Potter type novel - there's nothing explicit in it, and I have no doubt that a lot of things I read when I was 12/13 were more explicit and less suited for children/teenagers than this.
 
I saw the black magician trilogy in B&N when I was just walking around, and I was wondering if anyone has read it, and if so what they thought of it.
 
I absolutely loved it! I don'tknow about in the US but in the UK the covers are eye catching (white with a black figure on them). As the protagonist in the books is female I think that's why it perhaps appeals to me more? I've also got the priestess of the white to read :)
 
My initial impressions of the first book, Magician's Guild, were my final ones as well. It's badly written, badly characterised with a magic system in existence only as an excuse for deus ex machinas. The plot is utterly predictable. It also was completely lacking in imagination. That's not quite fair actually, there was a little evidence of imagination in the beginning and some sort of understanding of social and economic factors was hinted at initially. But then Canavan decided to go for the mass Harry Potter-reading audience and completely ignored everything interesting she created. Fair enough, if an author wants to make a lot of money I'm not going to complain, especially if leads to them writing something much better in the future when they can afford to. I just tend to avoid novels written with the implicit/explicit aim of generating the author money, because they tend to be completely lacking in merit.
 
I thought they were quite good! Not really interested in reading any more of her books though, but I didn't think the Black Magician Trilogy was bad! When I bought it originally it was in the adult's fantasy section but when I went to waterstones recently I see they've put it in the young adults section now, so maybe nobody knows for sure!
 
I read the trilogy and enjoyed it, though I thought there were some flaws, such as some repetitive descriptive cliches (I lost count of the number of times someone’s lip curled, or their heart skipped). I am surprised that none of the people she credits with help in her acknowledgements, or the publishing company, didn’t point those faults out as they were so glaringly obvious. I was unaware it was marketed at YA. I guess that would explain then why it seemed unusually coy by modern standards. I had assumed the author was uncomfortable about writing descriptive sex scenes so had simply chosen to avoid writing them.

The protagonist is certainly in no hurry to jump into bed with anyone until quite late in the trilogy. At that point she’s 20, so is definitely of age, and her lover is 12-13 years older. The only description involved is of kissing though it’s clear that they become lovers. If anything, the author glosses over the gay relationship even more. The scene where one man confesses his mutual attraction to another gay man does not even culminate in a kiss, though again the it’s obvious that the two men have a relationship subsequently, just from their conversations. I’m not a mum but would not have issues with say, a 15-year old reading this at all, possibly even a 14 year old depending on the individual child. There is violence and death but it is not lingered over pornographically, in my opinion.
 
I've read the books and must say I liked them. The first one was by far the worst, after reading it I doubted if I should get the second part from the library. Fortunately I did, and enjoyed it tremendously. The characters are much better written and the story is emotionally a lot more engaging and less predictable.
It seems that books are seen as YA books when the protagonist is a teenager... these books are not typically YA, I didn't have the feeling I read a book written for a younger age group (being 27 y/o myself). I think it depends on the 'maturity' of the child if you let them read this trilogy. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to kids under 14...
 
i read the black magician triliogy and finished it yesterday. i thought it was quite good. i mean its not the worst book i've read but not the best. she uses a lot of the same words again. apparently trudi is going to write a sequel to this the traitor spy triliogy. what do you think about that?
 
I got the Priestess of the White read, can;t say i was impressed. The main characters were very much like the ones in her first series, and this book was far too long :(
 
The BMT was good! In the first book, The Magician's Guild, I'm surprised their shoulders didn't fall off at the end from shrugging! The Novice wasn't any better. But in High Lord, she layed down a bit with the shurgging.
I was surprised when this trilogy was put in the YA section at the library! The first book, no way! The second, maybe. The third was more emotional than physical, but the odd kiss was mentioned which wasn't too bad. I mean, not being sexist here, but maybe Trudi's femenine side got the most of her when everyone started to fall in love. I mean, how many people did Sonea love?
WARNING: MAY GIVE PARTS OF STORY AWAY IN NEXT SENTENCE!
First Cery (surprise surprise) then Dorrien, (no, really, I mean it, surprise surprise) then Akkarin? Now that REALLY was a surprise. Before, she was scared of him mroe than anything.
Amazing what ink can do...
Anyway, in my opinion, I give the book a 9/10. With fantasy books like these, I'm easy to please >=]!

When I finished these books, I wrote to Trudi to ask if there would be sequals to The Black Magician trilogy. When I was told about her website, I saw that she already had more trilogys in mind. I was devestated to hear that they would be completely published in 2011. By then these kind of books will be WAY past me...

So yes, I'm happy with these books.

Although they were similar to Harry Potter, at the same time, they're not. Now if they had wands, that would be dodgy.

The books were also quite gruesome. What happened in the last book came as quite a surprise. After reading the first two, you didn't expect people to get their throats slit but, like they say, the pen is mightier than the sword!
 
Who was the fella who got crushed under the building and never found out that Akkarin was really a good guy after all? I found that bit tragic!!
(not read the books in a while!)
 
I don't have an answer for you Mouse, but I'm not surprised that the Magician's Guild was put in the YA section. I've always thought the writing isn't real in-depth but the characters are lovable and the story is interesting. It reminds me of the fantasy I was reading in high school (Dragonlance). Though I didn't realize it until I read this thread. As for the watered-down gay relationship, I think it fits in with today's YA situations.
 
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