A review by laurareads87
Servant Mage by Kate Elliott

adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Servant Mage follows Fellian, a fire mage, who, through the course of the story, goes from indentured servitude to revolutionary and adventurer all while finding her way home to the town she was taken from as a child.  In this world, dominated by the 'Liberationists' who are anything but liberatory, mages are identified early and forced into servitude or worse.  Liberationists associate magic with lack of virtue and so those with magic are punished; opposed to the Liberationists are the Monarchists, seeking to re-establish a magical lineage of rulers and create a world that would not oppress mages in this way but would certainly be rigidly hierarchical in class structure.  Fellian, understandably, hates the Liberationists, but falling in with Monarchists was never part of her plan and when it happens, she has some difficult choices to navigate.
What I liked most about this book was the world-building.  Despite the novella's short size this feels like a fully fleshed out world complete with social, political, and magical systems that make sense.  The plot moved along at a good quick pace and the action scenes were well described and exciting.  What didn't work for me here was character development.  Aside from Fellian, all of the characters felt undeveloped -- little really distinguished them from each other even when some of their back stories were revealed.  The supporting characters felt more as though they were there simply to serve a narrative function for Fellian than to be interesting in their own right; some of this, I think, is a function of the book being so short.  As for Fellian, I found her... whiny?  I don't need to love a protagonist by any means, and am entirely fine with a book where no characters at all are straightforwardly likeable, but I somehow found Fellian very irritating to follow.
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