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bookshopcat's review
5.0
It was a large surprise to find out that this existed. The last book had an air of finality to it, though it did leave some questions unanswered. This one, however, is a definite end. The stakes are placed ever higher but at the end Thea triumphs and comes full circle, revisiting old friends, dealing with old mistakes and confronting her own magic and that of the world's.
**spoilers ahead**
It begins with a sense of something wrong. Much like the previous books, Thea is going through the motions of her life, such as it is at the moment, now exposed to the world as an Elemental and going to Amherst, but not fully fitting in place. Then gets a call that a paper she had wrote for a class has been graded. Even though she had not even heard of that class.
The class turns out to be about temporal studies and taught by a professor who sent herself a year into the future but ended up being stuck there. However, this was only a catalyst for Thea’s concern. An early warning indication for her to start paying attention. Other signs start appearing. Magic spells breaking in random times and Cheveyo himself tells her to meet with Grandmother Spider. Thea finds out that another big problem is coming. Something she eventually finds out is called Lackmagic. Pretty uncreative name but it pretty much sums up what was happening.: magic is disappearing. At the same time, the Alphiri are pulling back as well. It's pretty obvious when that was pointed out that these two are connected with each other.
In order to figure out how to fix this, Thea calls on her friends, Cat, Kristin and Terry for backup and resources. She also calls back Tesla, and unexpectedly Corey the Trickster, to help her find and return the core. They figure out that the core of humanity, the core that allows humanity to wield magic was stolen, bought by, you guessed it! The Alphiri. The search forces Thea to confront her greatest fears and actually enter into the center of the Alphiri stronghold. Once there, a vessel was needed to actually take the core from the Alphiri castle which ends up being Tesla himself. Thea ends up giving the Alphiri Queen her Elemental powers, except for her cyber magic, to stop her from following them and to make her understand just what kind of power she had tried to steal from humanity. She herself takes Tesla’s Quad Elemental powers so he would be able to take the core for himself. She returns to Earth with the core and succeeds in returning it to its secured spot but then realized she had one last thing to do: go back and time to the beginning of the world so that all this was possible to do in the first place.
Everything is resolved and things go back full circle. Thea comes out with a new level of power and insight to all that had happened to her, and she becomes the first Quint-Elemental mage. (Fire, Water, Air, Earth and Cyber) Tesla was right from the previous book, she is an entirely new kind of mage.
As always, Alexander weaves a marvelous world. The way she shows just how magic is obviously a large part of the world and is a significant part of how it works was incorporated in the details and in the plot without being too over-explained. The plot was also well constructed taking not only disparate threads from this story but also from the overall saga together. The issue was sufficiently large, about the presence of magic in the whole of humanity itself, and the pacing matched the urgency of their mission. Finally there is a definite feeling of an end to this story, that finished the whole series much better than Cybermage.
Alexander succeeds in incorporating details from the previous books and he new ones she established at the beginning and having it pay off by the end. The use of the Nothing in taking the core. Diego’s part in the Alphiri’s theft. The plight of the Alphiri and their ruthless Queen. All details and characters laid down by Alexander in the previous books and wonderfully used in this one. It's why I believe this is a better end because we get to revisit these characters, in some cases, like with Diego, and see the consequences of what Thea did affect the issue she is facing now. I still think she could have really delved into what Thea could do as a cybermage, not just alter reality by typing words on a screen, so that was a but disappointing but the deeper look at Elemental magic itself was interesting enough in this book.
Furthermore there was the continuing evolution certain characters. First there was Humphrey May. He was introduced in the second books and hints of his frustration and manipulation became ever more apparent by the end of the third book. This was built up in this story, in a good way I think, as we see why Thea was right in being cautious and distrustful of him. He means well but he will never understand what Thea has, what Elemental magic is, and his need for control would not have been the thing Thea needed to figure put this latest mystery. The way he is portrayed makes him seem a bit of a controlling zealot at times but the explanation for his actions and the way he is contrasted with Thea really adds to the character and to the idea of magic Alexander had for this world.
Thea herself gets more development. Grandmother Spider and Tawaha gets a diminished role so this time its their turn to ask Thea for help and time for her to truly take up her mantle as an Elemental and flex her powers and resources. As a student, it finally seems like Thea has outgrown her teachers and that was a great thing to read even though she herself is still uncertain of her powers.In this story, she started to get assertive and pushes for the solution. She faces down the Alphiri Queen! In her own castle! Her gifts and friendship with Tesla helps save the core and humanity’s magic and I love how Alexander ties that up. She also gets the answers to the important questions from the beginning, especially in why she apparently kept herself from doing magic for most of her life. She is definitely the protagonist, the trope of the Chosen One, but I appreciate how she kept focus on the mission, how she kept fighting and stands up for her instincts even though May and other adults still try to limit her and treat her with kid gloves.
Tesla is also another character to look at, as because of the nature of the mission we find out more about his research for when he was alive, magic or otherwise. He gets fleshed out and becomes a good conduit for the nature of magic in this world, particularly the nature of Elemental magic. He becomes a colleague of sorts to Thea, the only one who really could as a fellow Elemental and seeing the divide between him and other people, especially May, adds a certain bittersweet indication of what Thea has to look forwards to for therest of her life. She has her family and her treasured friends but there will always be a certain divide between her and the world because of what she is.
I do however, dislike how Thea’s old friends were pretty sidelined for this adventure. There would have been a certain poetry to the having all of them involved. They were a large part of the other books and I would have loved to see them support Thea in this last one. Even having all of them feature in the book! Only Terry, Cat and Kristin really appeared in this story, and only then in small side roles. There are moments where they interact and its clear that they have drifted some but I really wanted to see what happened to their relationship ever since Thea left the Academy for Amherst. Really the 5 man group was replaced with a trio of Thea, Tesla and Corey which did not really mesh well with me.
Which brings us the last major character. In the previous stories, Corey was the antagonist, the one working against Thea, either indirectly or not. Here he is actively helping her, knowing that he is affected should Thea fail. I was not sure how to take him. He is still the Trickster and he espouses on his nature as a creature of chaos several times in the narrative. Altogether it adds to the mythos of Thea’s world. Its also amusing to see people like May and Terry who had to deal with him in the past have to work with him now. He would have been an interesting addition, both a source of info and power as well as a possible point of contention within the group. Except their interactions were so lukewarm and not really believable for me. I realize Thea was more focused on other things, but her interactions with Corey and Corey’s interaction with her friends lacked a certain something. Then there was also his attempts to relate to Thea and his apparent attraction. His assertion about their shared affinity to chaos was another cool tidbit about Elemental magic and it maked sense. However, his attempted romance or at the very least companionship with Thea that had apparently been his main reason for his previous actions did not sit well for me. I did not like their kiss at the end as well. It just did not add up for me as it was such an unnecessary detail that I felt it took away from Corey as a character. He loses some of his mystique as a god and becomes one of those stupid extra suitors that I always hated in stories instead of the agent of Chaos that seemed so unpredictable yet defeat-able in the previous books. It also made Terry jealous, who was already cast as Thea’s possible interest in the previous book. This one could have built that up instead of relegating Terry as a smaller character and insinuating a small love triangle that included Corey so close to the end. The romance itself, or at the very least attraction, was already a pretty small part of the overall story, so it feels unearned and silly even being there. Finally there was the introduction of the class of Temporal magic, the professor stuck in the future, even the two new friends we are very briefly introduced that also takes that class. It sounded so interesting! And while they DO have their place in the book's plot line, I felt it was mishandled. It ended up being more of a side detail than having anything to do with what was happening. A bit disappointing and feels kind of wasteful of the characters.
I breezed through this book. I have loved the first three and was really unsatisfied by the third so this was a dream come true. It also delivered the kind of story I would expect for a series ending. Despite the issues I found with the characters, this was wonderful and deserves its 5 stars.
**spoilers ahead**
The class turns out to be about temporal studies and taught by a professor who sent herself a year into the future but ended up being stuck there. However, this was only a catalyst for Thea’s concern. An early warning indication for her to start paying attention. Other signs start appearing. Magic spells breaking in random times and Cheveyo himself tells her to meet with Grandmother Spider. Thea finds out that another big problem is coming. Something she eventually finds out is called Lackmagic. Pretty uncreative name but it pretty much sums up what was happening.: magic is disappearing. At the same time, the Alphiri are pulling back as well. It's pretty obvious when that was pointed out that these two are connected with each other.
In order to figure out how to fix this, Thea calls on her friends, Cat, Kristin and Terry for backup and resources. She also calls back Tesla, and unexpectedly Corey the Trickster, to help her find and return the core. They figure out that the core of humanity, the core that allows humanity to wield magic was stolen, bought by, you guessed it! The Alphiri. The search forces Thea to confront her greatest fears and actually enter into the center of the Alphiri stronghold. Once there, a vessel was needed to actually take the core from the Alphiri castle which ends up being Tesla himself. Thea ends up giving the Alphiri Queen her Elemental powers, except for her cyber magic, to stop her from following them and to make her understand just what kind of power she had tried to steal from humanity. She herself takes Tesla’s Quad Elemental powers so he would be able to take the core for himself. She returns to Earth with the core and succeeds in returning it to its secured spot but then realized she had one last thing to do: go back and time to the beginning of the world so that all this was possible to do in the first place.
Everything is resolved and things go back full circle. Thea comes out with a new level of power and insight to all that had happened to her, and she becomes the first Quint-Elemental mage. (Fire, Water, Air, Earth and Cyber) Tesla was right from the previous book, she is an entirely new kind of mage.
As always, Alexander weaves a marvelous world. The way she shows just how magic is obviously a large part of the world and is a significant part of how it works was incorporated in the details and in the plot without being too over-explained. The plot was also well constructed taking not only disparate threads from this story but also from the overall saga together. The issue was sufficiently large, about the presence of magic in the whole of humanity itself, and the pacing matched the urgency of their mission. Finally there is a definite feeling of an end to this story, that finished the whole series much better than Cybermage.
Alexander succeeds in incorporating details from the previous books and he new ones she established at the beginning and having it pay off by the end. The use of the Nothing in taking the core. Diego’s part in the Alphiri’s theft. The plight of the Alphiri and their ruthless Queen. All details and characters laid down by Alexander in the previous books and wonderfully used in this one. It's why I believe this is a better end because we get to revisit these characters, in some cases, like with Diego, and see the consequences of what Thea did affect the issue she is facing now. I still think she could have really delved into what Thea could do as a cybermage, not just alter reality by typing words on a screen, so that was a but disappointing but the deeper look at Elemental magic itself was interesting enough in this book.
Furthermore there was the continuing evolution certain characters. First there was Humphrey May. He was introduced in the second books and hints of his frustration and manipulation became ever more apparent by the end of the third book. This was built up in this story, in a good way I think, as we see why Thea was right in being cautious and distrustful of him. He means well but he will never understand what Thea has, what Elemental magic is, and his need for control would not have been the thing Thea needed to figure put this latest mystery. The way he is portrayed makes him seem a bit of a controlling zealot at times but the explanation for his actions and the way he is contrasted with Thea really adds to the character and to the idea of magic Alexander had for this world.
Thea herself gets more development. Grandmother Spider and Tawaha gets a diminished role so this time its their turn to ask Thea for help and time for her to truly take up her mantle as an Elemental and flex her powers and resources. As a student, it finally seems like Thea has outgrown her teachers and that was a great thing to read even though she herself is still uncertain of her powers.In this story, she started to get assertive and pushes for the solution. She faces down the Alphiri Queen! In her own castle! Her gifts and friendship with Tesla helps save the core and humanity’s magic and I love how Alexander ties that up. She also gets the answers to the important questions from the beginning, especially in why she apparently kept herself from doing magic for most of her life. She is definitely the protagonist, the trope of the Chosen One, but I appreciate how she kept focus on the mission, how she kept fighting and stands up for her instincts even though May and other adults still try to limit her and treat her with kid gloves.
Tesla is also another character to look at, as because of the nature of the mission we find out more about his research for when he was alive, magic or otherwise. He gets fleshed out and becomes a good conduit for the nature of magic in this world, particularly the nature of Elemental magic. He becomes a colleague of sorts to Thea, the only one who really could as a fellow Elemental and seeing the divide between him and other people, especially May, adds a certain bittersweet indication of what Thea has to look forwards to for therest of her life. She has her family and her treasured friends but there will always be a certain divide between her and the world because of what she is.
I do however, dislike how Thea’s old friends were pretty sidelined for this adventure. There would have been a certain poetry to the having all of them involved. They were a large part of the other books and I would have loved to see them support Thea in this last one. Even having all of them feature in the book! Only Terry, Cat and Kristin really appeared in this story, and only then in small side roles. There are moments where they interact and its clear that they have drifted some but I really wanted to see what happened to their relationship ever since Thea left the Academy for Amherst. Really the 5 man group was replaced with a trio of Thea, Tesla and Corey which did not really mesh well with me.
Which brings us the last major character. In the previous stories, Corey was the antagonist, the one working against Thea, either indirectly or not. Here he is actively helping her, knowing that he is affected should Thea fail. I was not sure how to take him. He is still the Trickster and he espouses on his nature as a creature of chaos several times in the narrative. Altogether it adds to the mythos of Thea’s world. Its also amusing to see people like May and Terry who had to deal with him in the past have to work with him now. He would have been an interesting addition, both a source of info and power as well as a possible point of contention within the group. Except their interactions were so lukewarm and not really believable for me. I realize Thea was more focused on other things, but her interactions with Corey and Corey’s interaction with her friends lacked a certain something. Then there was also his attempts to relate to Thea and his apparent attraction. His assertion about their shared affinity to chaos was another cool tidbit about Elemental magic and it maked sense. However, his attempted romance or at the very least companionship with Thea that had apparently been his main reason for his previous actions did not sit well for me. I did not like their kiss at the end as well. It just did not add up for me as it was such an unnecessary detail that I felt it took away from Corey as a character. He loses some of his mystique as a god and becomes one of those stupid extra suitors that I always hated in stories instead of the agent of Chaos that seemed so unpredictable yet defeat-able in the previous books. It also made Terry jealous, who was already cast as Thea’s possible interest in the previous book. This one could have built that up instead of relegating Terry as a smaller character and insinuating a small love triangle that included Corey so close to the end. The romance itself, or at the very least attraction, was already a pretty small part of the overall story, so it feels unearned and silly even being there. Finally there was the introduction of the class of Temporal magic, the professor stuck in the future, even the two new friends we are very briefly introduced that also takes that class. It sounded so interesting! And while they DO have their place in the book's plot line, I felt it was mishandled. It ended up being more of a side detail than having anything to do with what was happening. A bit disappointing and feels kind of wasteful of the characters.
I breezed through this book. I have loved the first three and was really unsatisfied by the third so this was a dream come true. It also delivered the kind of story I would expect for a series ending. Despite the issues I found with the characters, this was wonderful and deserves its 5 stars.
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