So, last night I finished reading A Radical Act of Free Magic by H. G. Parry, the second (and final) book in the series started by A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians.
As you would expect, this one moved on from the French Revolution to the Napoleonic Wars. (Well, the first of them.) And, as you also might expect, it was still excellent.
In the afterward, the author said she had spent the last seven years working on the duology, and I can easily believe it! The way she wove her story of magic and...something I shouldn't mention because spoilers...into the actual historical events was amazing in its seamlessness. There were even actual quotes from the real people involved. (Napoleon's line about "forty centuries look down on you" in reference to the pyramids is quite famous, but there were also several speeches in the first book (both in Parliament and by Robespierre) that I was pretty sure were the real speeches (with some modifications in some cases to add in mentions of magic), and so on.) And although I'm still pretty sure Fina was entirely fictional, the words she used to start her life story were, I suspect, either quoted or adapted from those of a real person who had suffered the same fate (minus the magical/alchemical aspects) she had in childhood.
Even after giving myself overnight to think about it, I'm still not sure what to say, because it was just that good, you know?
Then again, if I'm mostly keeping this record for myself, I guess I don't need to say anything.
So I guess I won't. 😅
Original language: English
(Also, what the heck do I read next? It's gonna be a jarring shift no matter what it is. But maybe something lighter, since this got pretty heavy at times?)
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