Magic School – Page 2 – Marked for Plot

Sufficiently Advanced Magic

Progression Fantasy is a subgenre that happily draws on video games, anime, and tabletop RPGs as inspiration points. Sufficiently Advanced Magic happily wears its influences on its sleeves. It’s a big magic school story with lots of cool fights, badass moments, without a whole lot mental load required of the reader. And while I think I ultimately prefer Journals of Evander Tailor for my ‘queer kid enchants items in a big magic school’ read, this is a phenomenal option, and definitely the more widely popular one.

The Premise:
Corin enters the Spire hoping for many things: an attunement to grant him magic, clues about the fate of his brother, who vanished years ago in his own Spire trial, and maybe a fun magic weapon or two. He comes out with all three things (though perhaps none as intended), the attention of one of the immortal Visages who can destroy countries with a thought, and a pissed off abusive father who can’t stand his son got an enchanting attunement instead of one designed for combat. Corin heads to school, hoping to develop his abilities to eventually be able to find his brother and gain independence.

Read If Looking For: anime vibes, overly analytical characters, dungeon crawling

Avoid if Looking For: books without filler, mystic magic, healthy parent/child relationships

The Enchanter

I was a Harry Potter kid growing up, and despite falling out of love with the series for a wide variety of reasons, magic schools will always hold a special place in my heart. I also loved Shoenn Manga, and remember buying the newest Naruto books released to see what was happening during the Chūnin Exams. This has since transformed into an adult love of the Progression Fantasy genre, featuring readable prose, fun battles, and lots of power ups. There’ve been a couple good marriages between these two elements, and even a few with lots of queer rep (Arcane Ascension and Mage Errant both get a big shout out for this!), but Journals of Evander Tailor is by far my favorite. The Enchanter is the first book in the journey, and I’ll keep singing its praises as long as I can.

The Premise:
Evan is the human adoptive son of an elvish tailor. When he discovers that he has magic, albeit weakly, he decides to take the risk of attending an expensive university to broaden his future prospects. When he arrives, he discovers a system set up for nobility to succeed on the backs of commoners, strange eldritch creatures in the woods, and a desperate need to grow his power quickly and avoid being drafted into the military via flunking out.

Read If Looking For: breezy reading, detailed magic systems, supportive relationships, consequences for actions, a thoughtful and pragmatic lead character

Avoid if Looking For: beautiful prose, queer-friendly worlds, magic that remains mystic and unexplained

The Daughters of Izdihar

It’s rare that a one line pitch for a book makes me immediately spring for a novel (Lesbian Necromances in Space didn’t get me for Gideon the Ninth) but when I heard ‘women’s rights movement in an industrial-age Cairo analogue” this went straight to my bookshelf. And while the description isn’t perfect – it should mix in some Avatar the Last Airbender references – it’s pretty darn close, and an excellent execution of that concept.

The Premise:
This book follows two women: Nehal, a noblewoman in an arranged marriage who wants to join the army, and Giorgina, who works in a bookshop and is grappling the love of her life got marrying to Nehal against his will. The book’s primary focus is how each of them interacts with the women’s rights movement ‘The Daughters of Izdihar’. There are protests, speeches, multiple prison cells, anti-weaving (bending) sentiment, and a looming war with the neighboring country.

Read If Looking For: nuanced examinations of feminism and misogyny, complex relationship dynamics

Avoid if Looking For: novel depictions of magic, violence-forward stories

The Storm Beneath the World

As and English teacher, I constantly tell my kids not to judge a book by its cover. Dumb advice, but I have to try to get them to give Tamora Pierce a try somehow. It’s also undoubtedly true that a good cover is far more likely to get me to actually look at a book and give it a shot, and great cover artists are hard to find (especially since they and the authors rarely get a lot of say in what the cover looks like). And I’m ashamed to say that, with two horrible covers, I didn’t give The Storm Beneath the World a shot the first few times I saw it. Eventually, the premise of excellent fantasy featuring insect-people got me to pick it up, and thank goodness people kept hyping it. I’m now happy to say that it has a third, much better cover (for my tastes at least), and I think epic fantasy fans will find a lot to love here.

Elevator Pitch:
The world is a river of wind, through which continents on the back of ancient tentacle creatures host countries of insect-folk with some serious aristocracy issues. Four POV characters discover their Talent, a unique skill your are a prodigy at, but that has a serous dark side. Talents can be … well anything. Pottery, farming, conjuring fire, being lucky, sensing lies, etc. But using Talents overloads your brain with bliss leading to addiction, religious and social ostracization, and the promise of a relatively quick death as you ignore basic life needs to live in the bliss of your Talent. But with war looming as the Mad Queen Yil’s island approaches, these four protagonists find themselves pressed into service of Queen Nysh, putting their powers to use for the good of their society.

Read If Looking For: classic epic fantasy style writing in a totally alien setting, insect characters, ethical quandaries

Avoid if Looking For: books that avoid brutal violence, books with familiar settings

An Academy for Liars

Dark Academia isn’t a subgenre I read a lot of. I tend to prefer my magic school stories on the kid-side of things. But when this year’s bingo card asked me to dive into a Dark Academia, I started looking for a 2024 release that would satisfy me. An Academy of Liars seemed like fun, and I had a great time with it, even if I had some issues with the book’s execution.

The Premise
Lennon’s life is in pieces when she’s invited to Drayton, a college secluded in time and space for those who have the gift to persuade people (and reality itself) to bend to her will. She just fled an engagement with a cheating fiancé, is in the midst of a sever mental health crisis, and is looking to reinvent her life. While there, she meets a hot tattooed professor who becomes her advisor, and discovers that she’s got abilities that the everyone is jealous and terrified of. Oh, and the school and all its inhabitants are all harboring dark secrets. Fun times!

Read If Looking For: Dark Academia with a romance focus, fast paced books, rats named Gregory

Avoid if Looking For: healthy relationship dynamics, quality mental health rep, books that will make you think

A Deadly Education

I grew up in the era of Harry Potter. I dragged my parents to bookstores, standing in line for midnight releases. I went to Harry Potter themed summer camps. I asked for my mom to knit me scarves with the colors of each Harry Potter house. And while I’ve soured on Harry Potter for a variety of reasons – Rowling’s raging transphobia being only one of many – A Deadly Education plucked at the joy of magic school stories, which is something that’s never going to entirely vanish from my fantasy reading habits.

The Premise:
I pitch this story as a magic school where everything tries to kill you: the monsters, the students, even the furniture. El is foretold to be a sorceress of epic proportions. With a knack for apocalyptic magic and stealing power life itself, she’s been told from a young age that she’s going to rip apart wizarding society at the seams. Not that she ever uses those dark powers. She mostly just wants to survive her four years at this death-trap of a school in one piece on her shoestring mana budget. When she finds her big moment to show off and win alliances ruined by class savior Orion, her path shifts forever.

Read If Looking For: brutally fast pacing, snarky narrators, magic dystopias

Avoid if Looking For: characters growing in power, grey morality