There are so many current themes addressed in this book, class differences, equality, the consequences of our actions and how we cannot go through life alone. Naomi Novak keeps the tension throughout, as El and her classmates fight to stay alive, in this horrible and fearsome world she has created where literaly there is no where to run in the void. Even is you survive the horrors this school holds there is still graduation, where students face the worst of the monsters, before they can leave, if they leave. The fear is not just of monsters but of other students that practice’malia’ a dark magic that feasts on ‘mana’ a life force, from people and iinaminate objects, that have to be sacrificed. Monsters lurk everywhere, in the food, the showers, the classrooms, just waing for a lonely, unwitting student to come along. This book has its roots in Romanian Folklore about Scholomance, a fabled school of black magic run by the devil, and reading this book I think the monsters there, and some of the students are more frightening than the devil.
As El tries to survive she has to open herself up and learn to trust others if she wants to survive. Her magic is strong and dark, but also dangerous, so whilst she could kill the monsters, she could also kill the students, and has a prophecy for slaughter an destruction. Into this comes Galadriel, El, a loner in a place where safety is in numbers, but her magic is not like the others, she can’t use it to make alliances. There are no teachers only monsters, and less than half the students are expected the graduate, the other half killed by the monsters. The school is set in a black void making it impossible to to leave until graduation, or another student pushes you into to it to die. This is the first in a Duology set in a school of magic, like no other imagine a nightmare version of Hogwarts. She has quite a good back catalogue, but I was lucky enough to be given a copy of A Deadly Education which was published in paperback in May. When I first started reading Fantasy Fiction about two years ago Naomi Novik was one of the authors I was told I should read. So El is trying her hardest not to use it. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions – never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school.Įxcept, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. Once you’re inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die.Įl Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school’s many dangers. There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered.
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