I was born in the vicinity of Hadrians Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off Ancient history obviously and border history right on the edge of the Empire I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway there s so much room for imagination when people aren t writing down every last detail So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather not shining plate armour and Hollywood medieval manners The same applies to my sci fi really I prefer gritty over shiny Oddly then one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper later made into a terrible juvenile movie These days we would call Cooper s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it it influenced me a I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian s Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off Ancient history obviously and border history right on the edge of the Empire I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway there s so much room for imagination when people aren t writing down every last detail So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather not shining plate armour and Hollywood medieval manners The same applies to my sci fi really I prefer gritty over shiny Oddly then one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper later made into a terrible juvenile movie These days we would call Cooper s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it it influenced me a lot It has that mix of modern day life hidden history and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice Of course Cooper s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall and South East England and mid Wales In fact when I went to university in Aberystwyth it was partially because some of Cooper s books were set a few miles to the north around Tywyn I got into writing through roleplaying however so my early work was related to the kind of roleplaying game I was interested in I wrote high fantasy when I was playing Dungeons Dragons I wrote a lot of superhero fiction when I was playing City of Heroes I still loved the idea of a modern world with magic in it and I ve been trying to write a novel based on this for a long time As with any form of expression practice is the key and I can look back on all the aborted attempts at books and the successful short stories as steps along the path to the Thaumatology Series As of 2015 I have thrown in my lot with writing After thirty years of being a computer programmer I am making enough money to quit the day job and write full time Dreams occasionally come true My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett Susan Cooper and recently Kim Harrison Kim s Hollows books were what finally spurred me to publish something even if the trail to here came by way of Susan back in school several decades ago site_link It s a new year at the Taniyn Abayad Abyad Magic School New students flood in from all corners of Ardalamn hoping to become the next generation of powerful magicians Many of them won t make it out alive The Man Who Was Never Theregood readIt is a bit too much like death s hand maiden in the beginning for me but still a pretty good read The Man Who Was Never There What if Hogwarts was a really dangerous place 3. 5 starsKori is a new student at the best magical academy of the world Thing is Magic is really dangerous Do it wrong and people get hurt or killed and it is a lucky occurrence if even 50% of freshmen get to graduate With this in mind this feels very much as some of the previous books by this author A talented girl 14 years old gets to show of her magic powers make friends and help hem be better at magic themselves There are a few bully s who get their comeuppance and a mystery Overall this was a good book and a fine opening for new series I m looking forward to the next novel in the series The Man Who Was Never There pleasantLitRPG adjacent no stats or classes with an academy focus It has dungeons Khalals and magic with swords and alchemically power guns in addition to magic. While the usually breast centric descriptions are present there isn t anything lurid The Man Who Was Never There A nice story with an interesting group of characters however I was a bit confused if this a one off story or the start of a new series in which case will another book ever appear: A little thin in the world building but an interesting style of shadow magic: The author now has around twenty series on the go with some of them dating back ten years since the last book The Man Who Was Never There