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by Henry Leon Lazarus

Most of the time I'm very content to leave my reviewing to my QuickLooks column. However, every so often, there's a book or two that I feel might be missed. Some books also require more description than the two or three sentences I usually have available in that column.

Nameless Magery has two strikes against. It's not only by a new author, it's from Del Rey's Discovery series, a series with a lousy reputation. Nameless Magery is the exception that proves the rule, it's smart, well written, and most of all, so much fun that I couldn't put it down. Delia Marshal Turner has a heroine, a female magician, who breaks all the standard rules and yet keeps the reader enthralled. Think of it as a female, fantasy version of Tom Jones and you might just have a taste of what Delia Marshal Turner has wrought. Anything with chapter titles like, "In which I don't get my Man" has to be a bit on the edge and Delia Marshal Turner is.

Nameless Magery sets up the possibility of multiple worlds run by magic instead of science. The Enforcers have ships that can travel between these worlds, but who's ships eat the magic. Lisane's world, ruled by a year king and a mother figure, is conquered by these Enforcers. Lisane, groomed to be the next mother and daughter of a popular year king (she wears his finger bone as an amulet) escapes and finds herself on another world. We meet her when she is starving and follows a magician to a school of such people.

All of this, would be standard, even generic fare for the grist of current fantasy, but Nameless Magery has a cockeyed look at this things. There are only boys in the school, but every one of them killed their family before being found, one even killed his whole village. In a way they are in exile until they can be proved safe. Lisane is not only the only female there, but the only one without a guilt burden to bear.

After a year, Lisane, the student who hates her most, and their teacher go on a quest to meet the Beast who will finally judge them. The tale becomes very sensual as Lisane falls for her teacher and has a solid relationship. In normal novels, this would, of course, continue to the end of the tale. Not in Nameless Magery. A bit of politics and suddenly he's out of her life.

Again and again Delia Marshal Turner breaks the rules of these fantasy, making something very original and fun. I look eagerly forward to her next novel and plan to put Nameless Magery in my re-read shelf (if I ever get out from under the current pile).

Read Henry's QuickLooks column for this month.