A review by ladyofways
Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm

5.0

This was a really reassuring fantasy read, even though it's the first time I've encountered the book. It's a traditional, mid-80s early urban fantasy by Robin Hobb when she was still writing under her real name, with heavy anti-war themes and a TON of nostalgia for 80s Seattle. The premise is basically that this guy came back from the Vietnam War mentally and physically broken, primed for violence and death, and has turned himself into a peace-keeping homeless wizard. He refuses to remember anything he used to be, including his name, and instead rides the bus around Seattle, feeding pigeons, telling people Truths (captial T), and protecting the Emerald City in a vague magical sense. But when a great evil comes to the city, focused on him, he has to face all the things he's buried, which mostly means himself.

Since I used to work in Pioneer Square, although much more recently (the King Dome was demolished when I was a kid, so I barely remember its existence), the first couple chapters felt like a rare opportunity to wander my old stomping ground again. I loved each mention of the waterfront, the Market, the old Ride Free Zone, the Underground, the way the monorail station at Seattle Center used to be before the EMP was built; even the reference to the Sinking Ship parking garage just caught me right in the feels.

The whole thing just has so much love: for Seattle, for peace, for magic, that it was easy to get swept up in it. There's evil in the world, sure, but eventually the unlikely hero can learn to stand up to it

with a heavy dose of his lady's magic backing him up, tbf, and because he's Merlin I guess???

A friend of mine who lived through the Vietnam War recommended the book to me, and I could feel her experiences at the war protests and the war's aftermath soaking through the pages.

Granted, it's an old book. There are antiquated notions of relationships, "fierce" women, normalized abuse (though it's not approved of, there's a "well, what can you do?" attitude), some gender essentialism in the scenes with Lynda (

not just the sex scenes, but the "man's" bar she takes him to and kind of her whole "I'm a giver" character

) and the constant mention of Cassie's "woman's" magic being about healing and plants. There's plenty of casual racism: the exaggerated descriptions of Rasputin's Blackness, when no white character is treated that way; Cassie showing up to Euripides dressed as a G*psy; Lynda bringing him "oriental" food. And the depiction of mental health issues is centered around 80s/post-war neglected PTSD stereotypes.

It's surely not a book for everyone. There's not much plot, mostly just watching Wizard's

slow decline as he grapples with his mental health

. It's very embedded in his mental state, memories, and early fantasy depictions of magic as feelings and swirlings and mentally pushing "power" around. To a younger reader, it would likely feel too antiquated; the problematic stuff would overwhelm the sweetness. But having been partially raised by someone who lived in and loved that era in Seattle, having grown up reading Lackey and McCaffrey and Huff, this honestly felt like coming home and I loved it. <3