The Wretched of Muirwood

Lia is a Wretched in the service of Muirwood Abbey, one of the great centres of learning and craftsmanship where the privileged and gifted come to learn the ways of the Medium, the guiding principle of the universe. When an injured man, Colvin, is brought into the kitchen where Lia works, her decision to hide him pitches Lia into an adventure filled with loss and heartache, but one which will unlock her true potential and reveal her heritage.

The Wretched of Muirwood is the first in a fantasy series that has some good ideas and some gaping flaws.

The Medium is a bit like the Force, but more overtly magical rather than psychic. It is inherited in families, and family is everything; if you don't know who your family is, you are a Wretched, one of the worker caste, forbidden to learn to read and engrave (words being too precious to this culture to consign to mere paper) or to train in the use of the Medium, even if the Wretched in question is self-evidently a magical powerhouse.

Lia is, naturally, a magical powerhouse, being as she is a superspecialsnowflakegirl. Despite this, and despite secretly knowing her identity and caring deeply about her and having the wherewithal to create a false identity - given that the Abbeys are apparently the repositories of genealogy as well as general scholarship and wizard school - the Aldermaston refuses to let her learn 'for her own safety'. The Aldermaston, the caring Dumbledore figure, is a dick, which would annoy me less if Lia were less of an insufferable brat.

The art of using the Medium is to let yourself flow with it, like the Force. Attempting to control the Medium leads to suffering, tainting the body and soul and either creating or calling the Myriad, demons of the psyche who feed on pain and suffering and especially fear. The enemies of working with the medium are fear, envy and pride. One of the reasons that Lia is so strong in the medium is that she is not envious or prideful, we are told, although in fact she spends half her time bemoaning the fact that she can't read or learn, hiding her tears from people or acting as if she knows better than everyone else. One of the more powerful Medium users in the book is a sneering jerkass who constantly berates Colvin for being a prideful peasant and points out repeatedly that he could totally kick his ass. Colvin himself isn't much better, being a scary Puritan with a heart of gold, who basically terrifies and infuriates Lia by turns. Naturally, she falls in love with him, and probably vice versa.

The book is interesting in parts, but basically something of a mess in its execution. Its merging of fantasy and real-world elements - Jedi and mediaeval abbeys, non-deistic mystery religions and maypoles on Whitsun - is only partially successful, and it suffers from a fundamental misapprehension of what pride and envy look like.