A Quest to Restore Magic

Seawriter
Seawriter
105627
 

Jack Damian is the Outsider. He protects the world from supernatural evil. His job makes him a real outsider. He walks alone and unattached to anyone or any organization. Then he meets Amanda Fielding.

“For Love of Magic,” a fantasy novel by Simon R. Green, opens with Jack Damian called to London’s Tate Gallery by Britain’s secret Department of Uncanny Inquiries. His services are required.

Twenty-two people disappeared during the premier viewing of a new painting, “The Faerie War.” It is a newly discovered work by a brilliant, criminally insane artist of the previous century. Although it is a world of science, magic keeps leaking in around the edges and through the cracks. Jack seals those cracks.

This proves the case this time. The painting swallowed the twenty-two missing gallery visitors. Jack rescues them, extracting them from the painting. The painting strikes back. Except for timely intervention by the gallery’s art expert, Amanda Fielding, he could have been trapped by it.

She is extremely attractive and Jack goes out for drinks with her afterward. It turns out she has an agenda. She wishes to restore balance between science and magic and hopes to recruit Jack’s assistance.

Initially reluctant, Jack decides to join forces with Amanda after being threatened by a Man In Black, an enforcer for those suppressing magic and discovering the Department of Uncanny Inquiries has its own secrets. It is taking the world in a direction Jack does not want to see it go. Miriam Patterson, the department’s second-in-command and future director leaves Jack uneasy.

To learn why science has displaced magic, Jack accompanies Amanda on a series of quests through time and space. The answers to his questions are scattered in several places.  Jack and Amanda visit Boadicea’s Britain, King Arthur’s Camelot, Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest, and Frankenstein’s manor house.

At each place, he gets some of the answers needed to solve the puzzle, right wrongs, and make friends, allies, and enemies. It culminates in a climactic battle between the forces of good and evil. The fate of the world, of course, hangs in the balance.

“For Love of Magic” is a delightful book. Green mixes romance, epic fantasy, history, and myth with a deft hand. He tells a fast-paced story that engages the reader from the first page to the last. The ending is such that you end up wishing it could happen in the real world.

“For Love of Magic,” by Simon R. Green, Baen Books, 2023, 240 pages, $25.00 (Hardcover), $9.99 (Ebook)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.

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  1. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival
    8:36 PM EDT ⋅ May 21, 2023

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    • #1
  2. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter
    Post author
    9:16 PM EDT ⋅ May 21, 2023

    Percival (View Comment):

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    Or maybe not.  It was written by an Englishwoman.

    • #2
  3. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival
    9:24 PM EDT ⋅ May 21, 2023

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    Or maybe not. It was written by an Englishwoman.

    I’m trying to remember the book. Doesn’t Victor inherit the ancestral pile and head back to the Old Country?

    • #3
  4. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter
    Post author
    9:28 PM EDT ⋅ May 21, 2023

    Percival (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    Or maybe not. It was written by an Englishwoman.

    I’m trying to remember the book. Doesn’t Victor inherit the ancestral pile and head back to the Old Country?

    Or maybe not.  Or maybe, despite the novel Shelly wrote it is somewhere else. Note I referred to it as a manor, not a castle.

    • #4
  5. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue
    3:30 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2023

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    Or maybe not. It was written by an Englishwoman.

    I’m trying to remember the book. Doesn’t Victor inherit the ancestral pile and head back to the Old Country?

    Or maybe not. Or maybe, despite the novel Shelly wrote it is somewhere else. Note I referred to it as a manor, not a castle.

    The real thing, Burg Frankenstein, is up near Darmstadt. According to the Evangelical Sisters of Mary (not a typo), the local occult crowd has tried to make it a for-real site for some of their …doings. It hosts a Halloween festival every year. There`s also a restaurant: https://www.frankenstein-restaurant.de/die-burg 

    • #5
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival
    4:16 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2023

    Hartmann von Aue (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    Or maybe not. It was written by an Englishwoman.

    I’m trying to remember the book. Doesn’t Victor inherit the ancestral pile and head back to the Old Country?

    Or maybe not. Or maybe, despite the novel Shelly wrote it is somewhere else. Note I referred to it as a manor, not a castle.

    The real thing, Burg Frankenstein, is up near Darmstadt. According to the Evangelical Sisters of Mary (not a typo), the local occult crowd has tried to make it a for-real site for some of their …doings. It hosts a Halloween festival every year. There`s also a restaurant: https://www.frankenstein-restaurant.de/die-burg

    Not as far south as I thought.

    • #6
  7. Internet's Hank Contributor
    Internet's Hank
    @HankRhody
    5:09 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2023

    In the novel the Frankenstein family home was in Geneva. Does it need to be somewhere else?

    • #7
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival
    5:24 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2023

    Internet's Hank (View Comment):

    In the novel the Frankenstein family home was in Geneva. Does it need to be somewhere else?

    I may well have the 50+ times I saw the Universal flick crossed up with the one time I read the book.

    • #8
  9. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant
    7:15 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2023

    Percival (View Comment):

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    Hesse?

    • #9
  10. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue
    1:06 AM EDT ⋅ May 23, 2023

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    I thought Schloss Frankenstein was in the Alps somewhere.

    Hesse?

    Yup. Südhessen to be precise. We could see it from Kanaan bei Darmstadt when we visited the Evangelical Sisters of Mary in 2014 and again in 2016.

    • #10
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