Review: Fundamental Magics: Leander's Machine

Fundamental Magics: Leander's Machine by Alex Evans
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From the author's blog, it emerges that this book was translated (by the author) from French, and it badly needs an editor to get it into smooth English. Not only do we get a full collection of all the usual editing issues, but the verb tenses are frequently off, and there are a great many mangled idioms (with missing or substituted prepositions, missing words, and singular and plural sometimes swapped round). I'm used to seeing books where the author uses simple past instead of past perfect tense; I seldom see one where it's also the other way round, as here. There's also a whole passage of three or four paragraphs copied and pasted into the wrong place at one point, which is nothing to do with being translated or the author (probably) not having English as a first language; it's just careless proofreading.

Usual disclaimer: I had a pre-publication version from Netgalley, and there's some chance that there will be more editing before publication. However, given that there's so much work to do, I'm confident that it still won't be in good shape when published. I mention these things in my reviews because they bother me, and if they bother you, you probably want to know that they're present; I know they don't bother everyone.

The start of the story is slowed by too many initially unconnected subplots with no clear overall plot question to resolve. We get the MC's flashbacks to her difficult childhood; a visiting scholar from a distant place that most local people distrust; an incubus (who, at one point, refers to himself as a succubus) who's dropped through a rift; disappearing academics; the MC's hiding of her status as a shaman. Switching back and forth between these means that none of them progress very fast, and there's not much sense of forward momentum until at least halfway through the book, when the supposedly intelligent main character chooses to go with a man who has more red flags than a May Day parade, without telling anyone where she's going or with whom. This despite the fact that two people with similar knowledge to her have already disappeared in unexplained circumstances.

And then she goes with another dodgy guy, and accepts a drink from him. I don't appreciate stupid female characters, especially when they're supposed to be intelligent.

On the upside, this is a magic-as-technology book, which I enjoy; that's why I picked it up. The worldbuilding isn't in great depth, but it's adequate. There is a bit of "Aerith and Bob" (where made-up fantasy names are mixed with familiar names from our world), but there are several different ethnicities in the city and, giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's the reason and the author has worked it all out carefully. The magical terminology is suitably arcane, and sounds like real technical jargon.

I was engaged enough to finish the book, without ever wanting to put it down and read something else, so that's something. And despite her narrow life, poor choices and determination not to get involved in the plot until it intersected with her academic interests, I did like Adrienne and want her to emerge as a winner, even if it wasn't clear exactly what that would look like. But she is always reactive more than proactive, and ends up having to be rescued from several situations she should have been smart enough not to get into in the first place, and between that and the non-idiomatic English, I won't be picking up the sequel or adding it to my recommendation list.

View all my reviews