Review: Gifted and humorous
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 27, 2014
Christopher Nuttall is a gifted author.  Schooled in Magic is not a traditional coming of age boarding school story.  Is the heroine a young adult?  Yes.  Is most of it set at a boarding school for the magically talented?  Yes.  And there the books shifts.Schooled in Magic is a multi-textured, multi-level adventure fantasy on the level of Gulliver's Travels.  A satirical yet honest examination of the cultural mores of a class based society.  With a spoiled princess who sees others only as servants and guilds that seek to keep their craft esoteric to maintain their stranglehold on power.  There are obvious comparisons to the world of Harry Potter.And yet... balancing a heritage of science and technology against a feudal system with magic stands Emily, destiny's child.  Torn from a life of isolation and abuse she struggles with her options, her ethics.  She has been dropped into a world of her dreams and nightmares.Will she be the victim of the Necromancers or a hero for the ages?  Will she change the face of the world by introducing "small" tech advances?  After all she starts with bras and longs for a simple fountain pen.  But in a world where prepared hamster hair is important how important will a printing press be?