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gorgonine 's review for:
Three Mages and a Margarita
by Annette Marie
Summary: Human college students accidentally wanders into a guild of magic-users and gets hired as bartender. She quickly makes friends with a trio of hot mages, and helps them solve Problems between magical guilds.
Pros: Aaron, one of the aforementioned hot mages, is a redhead with an unending repertoire of redhead jokes, pyrokinesis, and an unerring ability to get himself kidnapped and/or beaten up. He charms me. Also, most of the dialogue is genuinely smirkworthy.
Cons: Everyone except Aaron falls into strerotypes, and none of them get enough screentime to be distinguished from the ur-examples. Kai is hot, smart, aggressively cool and good with sharp objects. Erza is the sweetheart with the dark and mysterious past, and there are heavy hints about his possible Hulk-out tendencies. Tori is the protagonist whose primary character traits are competence, hotheadedness and her inexplicable ability to instantly make strong friendships with plot-heavy male characters. You know, standard UF protag fare, although I was pleasantly surprised by the degree of the competence.
Verdict: Mostly forgettable, but fun while it lasted. I also do want to see more of the world.
Pros: Aaron, one of the aforementioned hot mages, is a redhead with an unending repertoire of redhead jokes, pyrokinesis, and an unerring ability to get himself kidnapped and/or beaten up. He charms me. Also, most of the dialogue is genuinely smirkworthy.
Spoiler
I also really like how Tori's few months worth of Taekwando is enough to keep her on her feet in actual magic-battles. It's really refreshing to read something where the magical powers have limits and need to be used creatively. Someone give me stories about a psychic-only guild too, please.Cons: Everyone except Aaron falls into strerotypes, and none of them get enough screentime to be distinguished from the ur-examples. Kai is hot, smart, aggressively cool and good with sharp objects. Erza is the sweetheart with the dark and mysterious past, and there are heavy hints about his possible Hulk-out tendencies.
Spoiler
(Is anyone else thinking demon conjuring gone wrong? Because I am.)Verdict: Mostly forgettable, but fun while it lasted. I also do want to see more of the world.