Shvartsman, Alex: The Middling Affliction (2022), Book one of the Conradverse Chronicles.
Magic divides the world into the magically gifted and the mundanes, and the monsters who attack everyone. The mundanes can't even see the monsters - their minds protect them by inventing normal explanations. The better and braver gifted people join the Watch, and work to protect the mundanes from the rest. It isn't something you choose, the talent is genetic, and the gifted can all see the magic in each other. But there is a third category, despised and abhorrent to the gifted, and that's the middlings. They look magical to the gifted, but they only have passive magic - they can see magic, they can learn to use amulets, but they can't do anything on their own. For some reason this severe handicap upsets the gifted and all religions have pronounced middlings anathema, to be destroyed. The gifted will die to protect a mundane, but will pay money for the chance to kill a middling.
Enter our hero, a middling who is passing, and in the most dangerous way possible - he's an active member of the Watch, using artifacts and cleverness to do the job, even training recruits. But now there's a new problem: someone has found a way to remove the gift, turning even the strongest gifted into middlings. Also, someone knows about his inability, and he's running out of gadgets.
Lots of action but not too gory, believable characterization, and acceptable writing, but I was a little disappointed by the ending. I think the story got away from him and built to a big conclusion that would have worked better as the end of a trilogy than as the introduction to a series. It's going to be a hard act to follow. Still, if I come across book two, I'll read it.
Magic divides the world into the magically gifted and the mundanes, and the monsters who attack everyone. The mundanes can't even see the monsters - their minds protect them by inventing normal explanations. The better and braver gifted people join the Watch, and work to protect the mundanes from the rest. It isn't something you choose, the talent is genetic, and the gifted can all see the magic in each other. But there is a third category, despised and abhorrent to the gifted, and that's the middlings. They look magical to the gifted, but they only have passive magic - they can see magic, they can learn to use amulets, but they can't do anything on their own. For some reason this severe handicap upsets the gifted and all religions have pronounced middlings anathema, to be destroyed. The gifted will die to protect a mundane, but will pay money for the chance to kill a middling.
Enter our hero, a middling who is passing, and in the most dangerous way possible - he's an active member of the Watch, using artifacts and cleverness to do the job, even training recruits. But now there's a new problem: someone has found a way to remove the gift, turning even the strongest gifted into middlings. Also, someone knows about his inability, and he's running out of gadgets.
Lots of action but not too gory, believable characterization, and acceptable writing, but I was a little disappointed by the ending. I think the story got away from him and built to a big conclusion that would have worked better as the end of a trilogy than as the introduction to a series. It's going to be a hard act to follow. Still, if I come across book two, I'll read it.
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