Wizard’s Tower
by Gregory Allanther
Neman Fargus is a half-elf who is a half-elf mage living in human society. He is a little tired of this and feels some angst over being essentially immortal in comparison to the humans he lives around, and the fact they die so soon, relatively speaking, in terms of his lifespan. He decides it is time to separate himself from the humans, essentially to protect his own feelings from the pain of loss, and determines to set himself up in isolation in a wizard’s tower. His mission is doomed from the start, as first, he ends up taking one assistant, then another, then the sister of one of the assistants. And even when he gets to his tower, his social sphere keeps expanding exponentially until he has a small town’s worth of people around him.
I was concerned when I first began to read these books because the main character is already uber when we start the series, and I wondered where it had room to go. In fact, it took me a while to realise the series is not about his growth of power at all, even though he does get significantly more powerful as the series progresses, and is obsessed with the quest for knowledge.
Neman Fargus is a pompous ass, vain, loves clothes and food, and private time. He is really petty and very self-absorbed and inconsiderate of those around him. He can be vengeful, excessively violent when angered, and somewhat unethical, and in fact, there were times that I wondered why I liked him. I loved a scene where he takes vengeance by lightning in book 3 and his literal overkill made me laugh. (I am so bad!)
However, he does have some redeeming qualities. He loves to share knowledge, he is a prankster, and he can’t help but do kind things when he becomes aware of the need. (He is not often aware!) Having been an orphan, he has a very strong desire for children to be safe and given the opportunity to grow in power. Whilst he has all but squashed his interest in sexual relations, he does yearn for a lifelong companion.
We have quite a few characters that come into the story. There is a lot of room to give them more space. The books contain a couple of “interlude” chapters, which give a glimpse into the other characters, but only because I think the author feels he needs to give more information and having written in first person it may be the only way for him to do so. I think that could have been pushed harder, as the potential of the other characters is great, and it would be amazing to see a little more of them in the tale. This is a case of culling everything that doesn’t drive the story, but in a brand new world, with amazing and interesting characters, this genre would allow a lot of space for developing the others more. I think this is one of the pitfalls of writing in first person.
Whilst the story takes us through some threats to the Kingdom, including war and also monsters, with the odd cameo by gods, and whilst there are a lot of threats to Neman Fargus and those around him, this is a stale of a character who believes he is alone due to his longevity, yet his actions bring more and more people into his sphere, with them proving how valuable they consider him by the end of the tale despite it being clear that his interpersonal skills are really quite rubbish!
I enjoyed reading this three-book series. I feel like the ending was a little underwhelming in that, although there were some major foes to overcome, the closure of the threats was not fulfilled to their potential in my opinion, and I felt there were some loose ends. However, I still recommend this series and wish there were more to follow.
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