#benedict jacka

Dieses Buch wurde mir vom Bloggerportal als Rezensionsexemplar zur Verfügung gestellt. Meine Meinung bleibt davon unbeeinflusst. Nachdem ich bereits die komplette Alex-Verus-Reihe von Benedict Jacka gelesen hatte, war ich natürlich neugierig auf seine neue Urban-Fantasy-Reihe rund um Stephen Oakwood und das magische Haus Ashford. Mittlerweile ist mit „Eine Frage der Magie“ bereits der dritte…

Today Julia Kitvaria Sarene reviews Benedict Jacka's Chosen! 🐉

"The found family dynamic has always been one of this series’ strengths, and here it finally gets the pressure test it deserves. The outcome is not guaranteed."

2026 is here, and I’ve got a review up at Strange Horizons magazine. Please, go check it out, and while you’re there, look at all the other wonderful stuff that Strange Horizons offers. It’s an excellent genre magazine worth anyone’s time. They feature original fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and reviews. I’ve reviewed for Strange Horizons before, and I hope to continue to do so in the future. It’s…

I received a free copy from Berkeley Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Publish date November 4th.

I requested a copy of this title because it's book three of an ongoing series I've been following. In A Judgement of Powers, young Stephen has finally made contact with his missing father in an urban fantasy London where powerful Houses collect power from magic wells. Meanwhile, the secretive order trying to recruit him is increasing the pressure, and his part-time job guarding his aristocratic cousin from his own House is getting more dangerous.

This book is a bit outside my usual taste. It's very much in the line of Red Rising, Will Wight's books, Name of the Wind--centered around Young Man Who Levels Up. The inherent conflict in this style of narrative is that it glorifies a guy who is just so hardworking and talented that he advances to positions of great power--while simultaneously depicting a inherently unfair world where power is clearly not merit based. Jacka is excellent at depicting the minutae of an unfair system--there was a great arc in book two on how the well finding industry sucks in poor people with promises of big windfalls, forces them to buy licenses and finding stones rigged to fail within months, and then sets them loose burdened with debt and competing against armed raiders who steal their finds. Stephen himself grew up poor and spends a fair chunk of each book worrying about making enough money for rent and food.

However, Jacka is also painfully avoidant of making any sort of statement that could be construed as political. With a plot about rival sinister societies who control media and politicians and steer the forces of history, you'd think that they'd have at least some politically relevant ideology, if only to lower taxes for the rich. But Jacka athletically pirouettes over any opportunities for systemic commentary. In Stephen's world, apparently the solution to the trap of grinding poverty is to be smart and special and make it by yourself as an entrepreneur with no bosses.

After spending two paragraphs picking the book apart, I do want to emphasize that I enjoyed it. A Judgement of Powers is compulsively readable, and Jacka has an excellent touch with the pacing. It's clear that he intends to write a book a year in this series for another decade, and the power build is carefully calibrated to keep up the tension. Stephen learns more about magic and gets greater powers--but the deeper in he gets, the more formidable his opponents. Stephen's not always the most politically canny protagonist, but he's persistent, stubborn, and loyal to his friends. The book ends on a relatively climactic battle that provides closure for Stephen's arc in this book while also leaving clear hooks for next year's sequel.

Finished this one yesterday evening.

I'm very glad that Alex didn't full on go darkside and that everyone I cared about survived.

An Instruction in Shadow is book 2 in Benedict Jacka’s awesome new urban fantasy series. Here, Stephen Oakwood is trying his best to make sense of this new and dangerous world he’s stumbled into and fast, before his imperfect understanding of magical society gets him killed.