Book Review: A Wizard’s Forge by AM Justice
This book was an unexpected pleasure and I am going to recommend it highly. It's not going to be for everyone because it deals with some very dark subject matter. However, it's a story that I think benefits from dealing with different things than you normally see in a coming of age fantasy novel. These include slavery, sexual assault, and attachment to one's kidnappers.
Vic is the Logkeeper for her village in the far future where humanity has colonized a world after a starship crashlanded on it. Humanity has mostly forgotten this fact and embraced a local religion as well as superstition (except it's not nearly so superstitious as Vic believes). Vic and her friends are kidnapped by slavers early on before the depressingly realistic outcome of her never seeing them again. Worse, Vic is made into a slave.
The abuse treated almost entirely psychologically and is handled offscreen. However, the consequences for the act reverberate throughout Vic's life from that point on. Really, I would have appreciated more insight into this period because seeing Vic try to keep her sanity under the conditions she lives is in fascinating.
The rest of the novel is somewhat more conventional with her escape leading to her being adopted by a nearby royal family as a ward, taking up the art of war, and learning that wizardry is a thing. Despite being in the title, Vic doesn't do much magic and doesn't even learn magic is real until the end of the novel.
The book is interesting because it deals with its dark subject matter while squarely feeling like a Young Adult novel. Vic is a skinny and low self-esteem suffering woman who, nevertheless, attracts multiple Princes as well as other men to her side. She's also someone who eventually rises to be a chosen one. Seeing such a character deal with the struggle of being brainwashed as well as fighting those elements puts an interesting spin on it.
Obviously, given the subject matter, this is something that should be approached with care if you don't want to deal with these subjects. However, AM Justice handles it all very carefully and with no real graphic scenes. The damage and implications are handled tastefully and the story is genuinely interesting.
The book is full of excellent worldbuilding, action, and likable characters. I am interested in the sequel and where it goes. It's a dark story but one well worth reading. There's not much transformation into a wizard this installment but working to overcome the brainwashing our heroine experiences. She wants revenge but her former owner has done a really nasty job on her.
