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Salamander
Magister Coelus, the College’s young and brilliant theorist, finally has a student capable of learning theoretical magery at the level at which he can teach it. He invites her to help him with his current research project, which promises to funnel through the hands of one mage more power than any mage has ever had. Ellen, who knows more about both the theory and practice of magic than a first year student should know, refuses, arguing that the Cascade will do more harm than good.
When news of the project reaches Prince Kieron, brother and heir of the king and Royal Master of Mages, he insists that it be completed in secret and employed, if at all, only under royal authority. Word has also reached Lord Iolen, Kieron’s competent, cold-blooded, and ambitious nephew, with his own ideas of how and by whom the Cascade should be used. Ellen and Coelus must together face the conflicting threats and demands of two arrogant and powerful men, the peril posed by the very existence of the Cascade, and their feelings for each other.
Forty years earlier Olver, a founder of the College, took the first steps in converting magery from a craft to a science. It is for his successors to deal with the consequences.
When news of the project reaches Prince Kieron, brother and heir of the king and Royal Master of Mages, he insists that it be completed in secret and employed, if at all, only under royal authority. Word has also reached Lord Iolen, Kieron’s competent, cold-blooded, and ambitious nephew, with his own ideas of how and by whom the Cascade should be used. Ellen and Coelus must together face the conflicting threats and demands of two arrogant and powerful men, the peril posed by the very existence of the Cascade, and their feelings for each other.
Forty years earlier Olver, a founder of the College, took the first steps in converting magery from a craft to a science. It is for his successors to deal with the consequences.
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First published March 21, 2011
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About the author
David D. Friedman
20 books145 followersfrom amazon.com:
I am an academic economist currently employed as a law professor, although I have never taken a course for credit in either field. My specialty, insofar as I have one, is the economic analysis of law, the subject of my book _Law's Order_.
In recent years I have created and taught two new law school seminars at Santa Clara University. One was on legal issues of the 21st century, discussing revolutions that might occur as a result of technological change over the next few decades. Interested readers can find its contents in the manuscript of _Future Imperfect_, linked to my web page. Topics included encryption, genetic engineering, surveillance, and many others. The other seminar, which I am currently teaching, is on legal systems very different from ours. Its topics included the legal systems of modern gypsies, Imperial China, Ancient Athens, the Cheyenne Indians, ... . My web page has a link to the seminar web page.
I have been involved in recreational medievalism, via the Society for Creative Anachronism, for over thirty years. My interests there include cooking from medieval cookbooks, making medieval jewelery, telling medieval stories around a campfire creating a believable medieval islamic persona and fighting with sword and shield.
My involvement with libertarianism goes back even further. Among other things I have written on the possibility of replacing government with private institutions to enforce rights and settle disputes, a project sometimes labelled "anarcho-capitalism" and explored in my first book, _The Machinery of Freedom_, published in 1972 and still in print.
My most recent writing project is my first novel, _Harald_. Most of my interests feed into it in one way or another, but it is intended as a story, not a tract on political philosophy, law or economics. It is not exactly a fantasy, since there is no magic, nor quite a historical novel, since the history and geography are invented. The technology and social institutions are based on medieval and classical examples, with one notable exception.
I am an academic economist currently employed as a law professor, although I have never taken a course for credit in either field. My specialty, insofar as I have one, is the economic analysis of law, the subject of my book _Law's Order_.
In recent years I have created and taught two new law school seminars at Santa Clara University. One was on legal issues of the 21st century, discussing revolutions that might occur as a result of technological change over the next few decades. Interested readers can find its contents in the manuscript of _Future Imperfect_, linked to my web page. Topics included encryption, genetic engineering, surveillance, and many others. The other seminar, which I am currently teaching, is on legal systems very different from ours. Its topics included the legal systems of modern gypsies, Imperial China, Ancient Athens, the Cheyenne Indians, ... . My web page has a link to the seminar web page.
I have been involved in recreational medievalism, via the Society for Creative Anachronism, for over thirty years. My interests there include cooking from medieval cookbooks, making medieval jewelery, telling medieval stories around a campfire creating a believable medieval islamic persona and fighting with sword and shield.
My involvement with libertarianism goes back even further. Among other things I have written on the possibility of replacing government with private institutions to enforce rights and settle disputes, a project sometimes labelled "anarcho-capitalism" and explored in my first book, _The Machinery of Freedom_, published in 1972 and still in print.
My most recent writing project is my first novel, _Harald_. Most of my interests feed into it in one way or another, but it is intended as a story, not a tract on political philosophy, law or economics. It is not exactly a fantasy, since there is no magic, nor quite a historical novel, since the history and geography are invented. The technology and social institutions are based on medieval and classical examples, with one notable exception.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
didnt-finish
July 14, 2021I read the first ~20% of this, but it didn't really grab me. The magic system seemed to be the focal point, but it wasn't actually all that fleshed out. It was pretty abstract. Of course that could get better later, but I just wasn't having fun with the book.
September 10, 2020
One of the best books I read in quite a while.
Set in a magical college (totally not Hogwarts!) the story follows Ellen, a brilliant student, and Coelus, one of the college magisters. While developing slowly, the story evolves without you noticing it into containing politics, treachery, invasions and a magical take-over of the world... and does so very believingly.
That's the main beauty of Friedman's work: you can just believe the story! The characters are lovingly rendered: Ellen's circle of friends have their negative characteristics, which does not stop them from being friends. The evil guys are evil, but with different, personal motivations and their own characters.
Friedman completely avoided cliché plots: very early in the book, everything seemed set-up for the run-of-the-mill fantasy plot: " fighting the evil super magic user who tries to take over the world". And even before you really get annoyed... the story turns away from this in one sentence. Likewise you identify early the typical "shallow and callous son of rich parents, used to getting his way" and you know that he will turn out a major helper of the evil guys before he meets his just desert.... only that he does not and does not. No, he is just background and the story ignores him as do our protagonists. The end result is a book which kept dragging me along with its story, because I really did not know what might happen next.
I like authors who assume that people are intelligent enough to follow plots. And Friedman does this: he sets the scene, let the actors speak and trusts you to remember the last 20 pages to know how they might feel about things without spelling them out.
Ah, yes, romance. It was there, tasteful, believable, appropriate to the characters and the plot and he did not have to write about a single kiss. Well, there might have been one, I'm not sure.
"Salamander" contains a lot of the good elements I liked in his previous novel "Harald", but it is just way more beautifully written.
June 11, 2022
One of the best books I read in quite a while. Set in a magical college (totally not Hogwarts!) the story follows Ellen, a brilliant student, and Coelus, one of the college magisters. While developing slowly, the story evolves without you noticing it into containing politics, treachery, invasions and a magical take-over of the world... and does so very believingly.
That's the main beauty of Friedman's work: you can just believe the story! The characters are lovingly rendered: Ellen's circle of friends have their negative characteristics, which does not stop them from being friends. The evil guys are evil, but with different, personal motivations and their own characters.
Friedman completely avoided cliché plots: very early in the book, everything seemed set-up for the run-of-the-mill fantasy plot: " fighting the evil super magic user who tries to take over the world". And even before you really get annoyed... the story turns away from this in one sentence. Likewise you identify early the typical "shallow and callous son of rich parents, used to getting his way" and you know that he will turn out a major helper of the evil guys before he meets his just desert.... only that he does not and does not. No, he is just background and the story ignores him as do our protagonists. The end result is a book which kept dragging me along with its story, because I really did not know what might happen next.
I like authors who assume that people are intelligent enough to follow plots. And Friedman does this: he sets the scene, let the actors speak and trusts you to remember the last 20 pages to know how they might feel about things without spelling them out.
Ah, yes, romance. It was there, tasteful, believable, appropriate to the characters and the plot and he did not have to write about a single kiss. Well, there might have been one, I'm not sure.
"Salamander" contains a lot of the good elements I liked in his previous novel "Harald", but it is just way more beautifully written.
That's the main beauty of Friedman's work: you can just believe the story! The characters are lovingly rendered: Ellen's circle of friends have their negative characteristics, which does not stop them from being friends. The evil guys are evil, but with different, personal motivations and their own characters.
Friedman completely avoided cliché plots: very early in the book, everything seemed set-up for the run-of-the-mill fantasy plot: " fighting the evil super magic user who tries to take over the world". And even before you really get annoyed... the story turns away from this in one sentence. Likewise you identify early the typical "shallow and callous son of rich parents, used to getting his way" and you know that he will turn out a major helper of the evil guys before he meets his just desert.... only that he does not and does not. No, he is just background and the story ignores him as do our protagonists. The end result is a book which kept dragging me along with its story, because I really did not know what might happen next.
I like authors who assume that people are intelligent enough to follow plots. And Friedman does this: he sets the scene, let the actors speak and trusts you to remember the last 20 pages to know how they might feel about things without spelling them out.
Ah, yes, romance. It was there, tasteful, believable, appropriate to the characters and the plot and he did not have to write about a single kiss. Well, there might have been one, I'm not sure.
"Salamander" contains a lot of the good elements I liked in his previous novel "Harald", but it is just way more beautifully written.
September 30, 2021
I enjoyed a lot of elements in this story. I particularly liked how you could tell an academic wrote this book, and how the rules of magic seemed to follow the same theoretical lines you would find in a hard science (like...physics!). I definitely appreciated that Ellen had strict principles on not seizing other mages' power without their consent, and that she used persuasion and her commitment to her principles to influence outcomes (such as the final schema exercise!) The use of the salamander was also an interesting concept. Notably, this book had several fleshed out female characters beyond Ellen, including Mari, Elise, and Amelia. The romances didn't particularly work for me, but I also didn't hate them - just not my cup of tea.
Note: I listened to the audiobook version of this novel.
Note: I listened to the audiobook version of this novel.
June 16, 2018
This book mocks Jesus Christ
July 3, 2020
I enjoyed the world-building and the characters; the latter had the right historical 'feel' to them, which is difficult to explain. I look forward to reading more of David Friedman's books.
June 23, 2011
I found this book through Jerry Pournelle’s site, Chaos Manor. David Friedman had written in to say that he’d had his agent publish it as “a Kindle”, just to see what would happen. After checking out the first two chapters (and seeing that it was priced at just $2.99), I decided to give it a shot.
I’m glad I did, as I really enjoyed the book. Friedman has constructed a magical system in which magic can be studied, experimented with, and controlled much as physics can be studied, experimented with, and controlled in our own world.
Magic spells and phrases are built up of smaller pieces, each with its own effect. By combining the sounds and words of the magical language, mages can create new spells with the desired effects. Although a mage may not be talented in one area, he can often achieve the desired result through a clever usage of an area of magic that he is talented in. It’s a very ingenious system and offers many possibilities for creativity—and for reflection about how science works in our own world.
The story centers around Magister Coeler and his efforts to create a new magical spell: the Cascade. He’s initially naïve, believing the spell will be used only for good. Eventually, through subsequent events and the arguments of his student Ellen, he realizes the terrible destructive power of his own spell. Together they struggle to protect their world from the spell and the power hungry mages who would seek to use the spell for evil. It’s true that a genie can’t be stuffed back into a bottle. But maybe he doesn’t need to be either.
I found the book to be entertaining, humorous, and thought provoking. Friedman uses the story to communicate the importance of thinking over brute force and to celebrate the triumph of those who are clever, realizing that victory doesn’t always have to go to the strongest. There are many clever uses of “small” magics and it’s fun to see the creative ways that a determined person can go to in order to resist coercion.
January 17, 2014
A brilliant young woman works with her mentor, a clever but unworldly theoritician of magic, to foil dynastic plots and ensure that a powerful new way of doing magic doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
Overall, I enjoyed this. I'm a fan of the growing "magic school" subgenre, I like clever protagonists, and the writing was reasonably competent.
I say "reasonably" competent because, while the author mostly knows where to put his commas, he occasionally gets apostrophes wrong with plural nouns ("magister's wing" when there's more than one magister, for example). He's also sloppy with his quotation marks. These are minor issues, though, given that I didn't notice any homonym errors, the bane of indie (and, increasingly, traditionally-published) books.
What I didn't like was the infodumping of theory of magic, literally in the form of lectures (both from faculty at the magic school and also from the clever young woman to her friends at lunchtime). Infodumps are dull at the best of times, and this particular author uses a dry dialogue style without contractions - which also leaves most of his characters sounding the same. Also, the first three chapters consist largely of these infodumps (at least, that's how it felt), and there were one or two more later in the book.
It's true that much of the content was relevant to the resolution of the plot later on, but there are better ways of presenting this background information than in big lecturing chunks.
I mentioned that the characters mostly sound similar (though one of them, a farmer's son, does drop words out of his sentences, which makes him distinctive). At least one of them, Edwin, also turns up without introduction or description and never seems to do much. The remainder, though, are distinct in their personalities and I found it easy to keep them straight in my head.
I picked this book up because the author talked about it in a comment on someone else's blog and it sounded interesting (yes, that does occasionally work, authors). It was good enough that I'd read another in what I assume will be a series, though I'm really hoping for less infodumping next time.
Overall, I enjoyed this. I'm a fan of the growing "magic school" subgenre, I like clever protagonists, and the writing was reasonably competent.
I say "reasonably" competent because, while the author mostly knows where to put his commas, he occasionally gets apostrophes wrong with plural nouns ("magister's wing" when there's more than one magister, for example). He's also sloppy with his quotation marks. These are minor issues, though, given that I didn't notice any homonym errors, the bane of indie (and, increasingly, traditionally-published) books.
What I didn't like was the infodumping of theory of magic, literally in the form of lectures (both from faculty at the magic school and also from the clever young woman to her friends at lunchtime). Infodumps are dull at the best of times, and this particular author uses a dry dialogue style without contractions - which also leaves most of his characters sounding the same. Also, the first three chapters consist largely of these infodumps (at least, that's how it felt), and there were one or two more later in the book.
It's true that much of the content was relevant to the resolution of the plot later on, but there are better ways of presenting this background information than in big lecturing chunks.
I mentioned that the characters mostly sound similar (though one of them, a farmer's son, does drop words out of his sentences, which makes him distinctive). At least one of them, Edwin, also turns up without introduction or description and never seems to do much. The remainder, though, are distinct in their personalities and I found it easy to keep them straight in my head.
I picked this book up because the author talked about it in a comment on someone else's blog and it sounded interesting (yes, that does occasionally work, authors). It was good enough that I'd read another in what I assume will be a series, though I'm really hoping for less infodumping next time.
August 22, 2025
This is a mediæval fantasy similar to other mediæval fantasies you may have come across, except that it uses a system of magic that is original and quite interesting. The magic has its own rules and limitations, which I approve of; some authors write about magic that can do anything without limits, which is silly and uninteresting.
The plot, the characters, and the writing style are all quite serviceable without being wonderful. Overall it makes quite a good story that I enjoy rereading occasionally, although it’s not one of my favourites.
Friedman is a highly intelligent man who expects his readers to be able to keep up with him. Of his three novels, this is the shortest and the easiest to follow, but my understanding of his magic system is a bit blurry, and in his extensive character list I sometimes forget who is who and how they relate to the others.
Quite often I have mixed feelings about a book, which may have parts I like and parts I dislike. This isn’t one of those: it makes pleasant reading throughout, and I can’t think of anything I dislike about it. Mediæval stories in male-dominated societies can be difficult for feminists to enjoy, but Friedman does what he can to give women a voice in this one.
The plot, the characters, and the writing style are all quite serviceable without being wonderful. Overall it makes quite a good story that I enjoy rereading occasionally, although it’s not one of my favourites.
Friedman is a highly intelligent man who expects his readers to be able to keep up with him. Of his three novels, this is the shortest and the easiest to follow, but my understanding of his magic system is a bit blurry, and in his extensive character list I sometimes forget who is who and how they relate to the others.
Quite often I have mixed feelings about a book, which may have parts I like and parts I dislike. This isn’t one of those: it makes pleasant reading throughout, and I can’t think of anything I dislike about it. Mediæval stories in male-dominated societies can be difficult for feminists to enjoy, but Friedman does what he can to give women a voice in this one.
March 5, 2012
I thought that the world and the theory of magic was quite well-crafted, but the main problem that I had was just that the main characters were too smart... a bit ridiculously so. They were so much smarter and trickier and better at magic than everyone around them that there was very little tension: I knew that they would always be fine, and outsmart the bad guys, and that nobody would be really hurt. It also bothered me a little that some of the storylines were never wrapped up, and that we never got to see the two main characters interact in anything OTHER than discussions of magic... so their chemistry was a bit lacking for me.
April 7, 2012
Not a bad book, a bit confusing though. Time skips along from chapter to chapter, in rather large chunks, and you might have to reread a bit to understand it fully. Still, not a bad book to spend some time on. Focuses more on the mechanics of magic than the magic itself, which makes the universe more fleshed out than it could have been.
April 7, 2013
A classic fantasy story, with the modern twist of wizards researching how magic works to learn how to create better spells. Then they have to deal with the question of what to do when they find a spell that's too powerful for anyone to be trusted with it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews