Title: Twice Magic
Author: Cressida Cowell
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 384
Rating: 4/5
This is the second book in Cowell’s Wizards of Once series, which I believe is actually a trilogy and so I’m already almost at the end. That’s a shame, because I’ve enjoyed this world a lot, perhaps even more so than I’ve enjoyed her How to Train Your Dragon series.
There are a few reasons for that. I like the idea that it’s set on the British Isles, long before recorded history began, and I also love the fact that the narrator is one of the characters, although it’s yet to be revealed who that narrator is. My money is on the crow.
The idea here is that there are wizards and there are warriors, and never the twain shall meet. Wizards and warriors have never got along with one another, if you ignore the big surprise that’s in store about halfway through the book, and that then sets things up nicely for our two protagonists.
That’s because we’re following a young wizard and a young warrior who’ve been thrown together by fate to put their differences aside and to tackle a greater evil. In this case, it takes the form of witches—terrifying things with huge claws that are pretty much invincible unless they’re confronted with iron.
Cowell’s plotting and writing are both on top form here, and they’re supplemented by some fun visual tricks like what I presume are the author’s own illustrations and some excerpts from the fictional magical book that the characters are carrying around with them.
All of this comes together to make a cracking read that’s a lot of fun even when you’re a bloke in his mid-thirties without any kids. If you were a kid, or if you were reading this to one, you’d like this one even more.
And so it’s definitely not a victim of second-book syndrome, and it actually does a great job of telling a standalone story while still bridging the gap from the first book to the third. I was also super pleased to find that I fell straight back into the world, despite the fact that it’s been a year or so since I picked up the first book. Happy days!
