Magic’s Pawn

Along with Nightrunner and Swordspoint, Magic’s Pawn serves as one of the foundations of gay male representation in the fantasy boom in the 80s and 90s. Apparently, this is the year where I finally got around to reading the classics of queer men in the genre I love so dearly. While Swordspoint and Nightrunner had some issues, I found them largely interesting and engaging reads worthy of their place in the cannon. Magic’s Pawn however, I struggled immensely with. I kept listening out of a desperate desire that it would return to the heights of its opening chapters. Unfortunately, I thought this novel was a bit of a mess. I deeply appreciate Lackey for helping to pave the way for greater queer representation, but it isn’t a series I plan on returning to.

Elevator Pitch
Vanyel is heir to a relatively minor noble house in the countryside. Unfortunately, he aspires to be a musician, while his father wants him to follow in the footsteps of toxic masculinity. Eventually, Vanyel is sent to court to live with his Aunt Savil, one of the highest ranking mages in the country. While there, Vanyel comes to terms with his homosexuality and falls in love with Savil’s star apprentice Tylendal. Their love is fated for tragedy however, and Vanyel’s story is far from a happy one. 

What Worked for Me
The opening sections of this book held everything that I love about older fantasy. It doesn’t drop us immediately into the plot – in fact, this book in its entirety is a bit of an origin story for Vanyel. Instead, Lackey takes time to play out a really delightful set of chapters showing Vanyel’s life in a home where he is isolated and doesn’t fit in. An abusive training master, apathetic cousins, and an older sister he depends on being torn away from him. It was meandering, but purposeful. Modern writing so often charges forwards, which is fun as well, but a sense of lingering was present in this section that made me very nostalgic. It set up an intriguing portrait of Vanyel. A classic protagonist for 90s fantasy; how often do we get protagonists who are truly understood by those around them, after all? But it was all executed so cleanly that the tropes were delightful, instead of frustrating. 

What Didn’t Work For Me
As much as I loved the extended opening of this book, it took a hard turn towards romance about a quarter of the way into the story. Sadly, I don’t think Lackey is a very good romance writer. She avoids a common pitfall I see in modern romantasy books: Vanyel doesn’t fall in love instantly upon seeing his eventual soulmate Tylendal. Sadly, what should have been a month of in-universe build up (which the opening shows me Lackey is more than capable of achieving), instead involved Vanyel going from completely indifferent to pouring out his heart and soul in the space of a single night. It was an abrupt shift for pretty much all characters involved (including his Aunt and mentor Savil), and also changed the structure and style of story. The pivot to saccharine conversations lacked emotional depth because I didn’t see their relationship build at all, and Vanyel’s personal journey seemed to be put on total hold once this plot began.

Even worse, this pivot came at the sacrifice of other plot points! There’s a whole political maneuvering scheme that we’re told Vanyel is participating in to help Tylendal after they start seeing each other. Do we see any conversations from that plot? We do not. Does the villain get any characterization? Nope. Is the fallout of that plot important? Extremely. Does the lack of any scenework about said plot have a negative impact on me taking the fallout of the plot seriously? It does. But the tragedy of (spoiler alert) Tylendal’s death and it’s devastating emotional impact on Vanyel felt hollow and empty.

Look, I love tragic gays and toxic relationship in books. I realise that happy endings for queer men were less common when this book came out in the 80s, but as a current reader this does not bother. What does bother me is how badly Lackey managed to bungle something with immense promise. If you want me to care about Vanyel being some tortured hero who keeps having everything good ripped away from him, you have to make me care about the good things, and you have to show me the process of how we get to the bad place. Vanyel’s very interesting plotline about becoming a social butterfly so soon after being a pariah in his community (and the arrogance that comes with that shift) got tossed out the window for a lackluster love story, which itself was a setup for an even more lackluster torture porn protagonist.

And I haven’t even talked about the well meaning but problematic Native American analogue characters. Just use your imagination, and you probably got it right.

I don’t know. I was hoping for more from this one. Its praises are sung widely and often. If people who have read the series tell me that the sequels are more in line with the opening portions of this book than the vast majority of it, I’ll consider giving it a chance. As it stands though, this is a novel whose impact I appreciate, but whose execution I don’t particularly care for.

Conclusion: an example of epic fantasy with a gay lead with a lot of potential, but which squandered opportunities for emotional depth with instalove and cheap tragedies.

• Characters: 3
• Setting: 3
• Craft: 2
• Themes: 1
• Enjoyment: 2