3.5 stars.

I liked that this is a standalone and not a series, that's rare in fantasy. The village people's accent was difficult to understand a lot of the time and I didn't love the constantly changing POV. The system of magic was very interesting though and I loved Kait.

4 stars. There’s a lot to love in this one (shall we start with that gorgeous cover?). A unique magic system/religion and deity nudges readers to ponder the relationship between a religion and its god(s). I enjoyed the geography (especially the variation of cultures within the country, despite its very necessary closed borders policy). Some lovely family relationships also appeared in the text.

And the gossamers! Oh, those awesome, lovely, infuriating gossamers (and the singers and dancers—almost gossamers but not exactly. You’ll find out)! Read this for the gossamers, if nothing else.

On the other hand, I rarely say this about books, but this one needed to be longer. There were a lot of interesting concepts in here, but they felt disjointed. It felt as if the story was a cloth stuffed into a tiny box. I got a glimpse of its unfolded glory, but it was confusing and simply not enough. The book left me confused as to some characters’ motivations and intentions; in addition, the book’s structure was disorienting. Two of our earliest point of view characters are killed off quite fast, breaking the growing empathy/interest in their stories. There are quite a few POV characters, and, in places, the text switches between them too quickly. The little mini-chapters that give some mythical context also end up interrupting the story’s flow. Meanwhile, one character begins pretty much all of his POV sections (in the beginning, at any rate; I became too engrossed in the story to focus on this aspect later on!) with info-dumping, an approach I have mixed feelings about.

But on the whole I enjoyed the book a great deal. It’s a fairly clean book, too. (Content warnings include infrequent coarse language and some (occasionally graphic) violence, including suicide.) The gossamers ARE fairy-tale magic; nothing could describe them better. Watch out for the made-cats!

I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this, but it was just slow and the pacing didn't work. I actually think that I just don't jive well with her writing style, because I didn't finish one of her other fantasy books for that reason. I do think it's an interesting idea and definitely has an audience that will enjoy it, but sometimes you and an author just don't click! Also, thank you for writing a stand alone fantasy! They're so hard to find!

The Gossamer Mage is one of the more original stories I have read in quite a while. The story is interesting and has a twist at the end that I was not expecting. I found Maleonarial to be an interesting character - for much of the story you're not sure if he can really be trusted, especially given the circumstances surrounding his introduction to the story. I wasn't sure at first what I would think of Kait, but I quickly came to like her. I wish there had been more with Insom and Pylor to make their POV sections more integral to the story being told. The only thing I would change with this book was the formatting. Rather than having long chapters that switch between POVs I would have preferred there been 5 parts with POV chapters within each part. Sometimes seeing how much there was to read in each section/chapter was a little overwhelming and I could see some younger readers getting frustrated at how long it takes them to get through a chapter.

This is one of those books that you are going to have to take your time with to read. The writing in this one is very hard to get through and at times it is both very descriptive but also very lacking in detail. I know that must sound very weird. But I felt like this title went on and on about things that didn't move the plot or story along and was just descriptive with nothing else backing it. The characters were great and the story at large was wonderful. But really I wished someone would have fixed the issues with what I would generally call rambling. I wanted to love this one with this beautiful cover but sadly it just wasn't for me. This is a take it or leave it book for this reviewer.

Julie Czerneda starts a new fantasy epic with the Gossamer Mage. The Deathless Goddess protects Tanenen from outside influences and brings magic to the mages who write intentions in her language that no one understands. Every mage who uses her language gradually wears out and dies. A great mage decides to find and end the goddess, not knowing she is his country's only protector. Complications develop after the mage dies and the stage is set for volume two of the fantasy. Competent fantasy, but not her best.

Excellent world-building but uneven pacing

I enjoyed this book. Author Julie Czerneda did a great job of world-building and character development. The way she describes the products and costs of magic are excellent. The book does fall short in its pacing which was uneven and the frequent use of, at times, stilted language and unclear construction. Nonetheless, I recommend this book for fans of the genre. It is well worth reading and I want to read more by Czerneda.

The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda was an unexpectedly fun read. I asked to review this book from the publisher based on the description, but I had no idea what I was actually getting myself into. Czerneda introduces us to a world where Mages can write magic into being, but they grow older and older each time they do so. So with magic, there is always a cost.

The tales centers around a number of different plot lines that all converge towards the end of the book. I'm not going to give any specifics here because I don't want to spoil what happens.

For the most part, the tale centers on two main characters (in my opinion) are Maleonarial (a Mage) and Kaitealyon (a Daughter of The Deathless Goddess). Maleonarial is a mage who has seen many seasons and is trying to find a way that stops mages from aging every time they use magic. Kaitealyon is a new, and important figure, for the Deathless Goddess. In Maleonrial's view, the Deathless Goddess is an Old Hag who enacts her retribution for those who use magic by taking away part of their life force. For Kaitealyon, the Deathless Goddess is an important religious character that guides all of life. Ultimately, is there some viewpoint that exists between these two extremes?

As a whole, I really liked the book. I found the writing very dynamic and easy to follow. There are parts that are a bit over-detailed, which can cause there to be a bit of a slump in the action of the story. However, I definitely think the overall story moves at a pretty good pace. As a heads up, there are definitely a number of characters within the story, so it's important to keep track of everyone as you're reading along.

I was given access to a pre-publication version of this novel from the publisher. The opinions in my review are completely mine.

The Deathless Goddess provides select individuals with the gift of magic. However, they cannot use it to benefit themselves, only others, and the price is a portion of their lives. One mage seeks a way for others to use magic without paying this terrible penalty, but at what cost? I had previously read and enjoyed Czerneda’s science fiction trilogy “Species Imperative” but this is my first fantasy of hers. Darker in tone, but an interesting premise and enjoyable read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the world building in it. The characters were hard to follow in the beginning and the style of writing was a bit odd for me at first; I ended up enjoying the style the author uses to write and began to appreciate it as well. The book did start a little slow for me, but it picked up and I give it a solid 3.5 stars.

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a while to o start this book but once I did, I fell in love with the world building and the setting!

Standalone fantasy is a bit of a rarity. So often, whether because of Tolkien or other influences, we end up with trilogies or epic sagas spanning four or more books. I’m a huge fan of big epic series, but it’s also nice to enjoy a self-contained story from time to time. The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda scratches that itch perfectly. With world building that includes unique and engaging elements as well as an incredibly fascinating magic system, Czerneda’s novel is sure to please fantasy fans looking for a standalone read.

Czerneda’s story is filled with amazingly unique world building elements. The magic system in this world involves mages paying life in order to create made-creations of various sorts that perform certain tasks or otherwise do their bidding. The story doesn’t hesitate to explore the impact this has on the world. Magic is expensive because doing it shortens the life of the mage. This also results in a number of very well-off, geriatric mages. It’s rare for fantasy to explore the implications of powerful magic-users as they begin to lose their memory, their physical abilities, or their restraint. Czerneda, on the other hand, does an excellent job of fleshing out the very real negative effects of aging on the mages themselves as well as on society as a whole. The magic was outstanding because it played such a role in the lives of the characters affected by it. Incredibly well done! The religious system and mythology of the world are also interesting and there’s actually a good bit crammed into this novel, though it never felt shoehorned in or like it was dumped on the reader. Each bit was well integrated and felt important to the story and world building necessary for the story to have the impact it did. As the plot ramps up after the initial introductions the stakes quickly become epic and Czerneda does a good job of keeping the tension high. Initially this is done through a number of questions and mysteries surrounding the goals of the antagonists, but this is all handled in fresh ways that kept me engaged throughout. I can’t say that this is a fast-paced novel, but it is very well paced and an enjoyable read that kept me reading and gave me that “just one more page” feeling. Part of this was helped along by the range of emotions the novel elicits. There were moments that made me smile, moments of joy but also moments of sadness and intense emotion. This emotional range made the story shine.

In terms of criticisms, my main complaint with this novel is that the chapters are incredibly long, but in the midst of these we change perspectives back and forth between characters often. We might have a page from one character’s perspective, only to jump to a different character—in the same geographical area—for a few pages before jumping back to the first character before moving on to a character in a different location. I was never confused about which perspective I was reading, but to change perspective so often was a little jarring before I got used to it. The story also has a bit of a mythological feel to it and I never felt connected to a particular character. In the end, this didn’t end up as a huge negative. It almost felt like the characters were more legends than individuals. It’s a different writing style that perhaps isn’t as common in modern fantasy, but I think it turned out well here.

I can’t say enough about the magic, religion, and story itself. A fine standalone tale, I imagine The Gossamer Mage will be one I’ll return to often. A wonderful, hopeful fantasy, this is one you don’t want to miss.

8.5/10

4.25/5 stars.

5 – I loved this, couldn’t put it down, move it to the top of your TBR pile
4 – I really enjoyed this, add it to the TBR pile
3 – It was ok, depending on your preferences it may be worth your time
2 – I didn’t like this book, it has significant flaws and I can’t recommend it
1 – I loathe this book with a most loathsome loathing

I've now tried this book twice and just couldn't get into it. I was originally intrigued by The Gossamer Mage because I was fascinated by the premise. A Deathless God, magic fueled by your life-force, and a vague threat of total annihilation? Count me in!

Unfortunately, The Gossamer Mage hasn't grabbed me by page 100. While I've read many reviews that say it gets better if you stick it out, I need something to keep me intrigued before the grand reveal. I do think that some readers will enjoy this one, it just wasn't for me.

I wanted to read The Gossamer Mage because the cover was absolutely gorgeous and the blurb sounded fascinating. I was very excited for this book, but it didn’t really live up to my expectations. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one. On one hand it was incredibly slow and very easy to set down, but on the other it was also beautifully magical and the ending left me feeling so satisfied. It took me 6 days to finish this book, and with the amount of time I had to read I should have finished it a lot sooner than that.

For most of the first third of the book I wanted to DNF the book. It felt as if the plot had no real direction and I kept setting it down to do anything but read. While the book was written in third person it switched to focus on so many different characters that I found myself frequently forgetting what was going on with the characters when the book finally came back to them. I kept reading because the magic system really intrigued me and I was hopeful that the book would pick up its pace and that the plot would begin to feel like it was going somewhere.

While the pacing remained very slow for the entire novel, about a third of the way in it started to feel as if the plot finally had a direction. I think that this book was so slow for me because the writing is so dense. The way it is written feels overly wordy, but it is also incredibly vivid and truly brought the world to life. The world building is exquisite and really brings home the fact that in this world magic has a price and that price is death.

Once the plot brought the characters to The Mage School I found myself absolutely loving the book. While we had heard so much about magic, up until this point we didn’t see very much of it. This part of the novel was where Julie Czerneda’s dense writing brought magic to life in beautiful and fantastical ways.I found myself fascinated with all of the different creations that the mages made and since I was so engrossed I found the book moving faster for me. But I never did find myself attached to any of the characters. I think the character development was lacking a bit and the constant change in perspective made it hard to connect to any one character.

Overall I’m pleased with the ending and left feeling satisfied, but not sure if I will return for any of Julie Czerneda’s other books. It was magical and beautiful, but far too slow paced for me. If you like dense vivid writing then you should give this book a shot.

Book Review Posting for Blog Tour Today, 8/6

Gossamer Mage by Julie Czerneda has much to love for a fantasy novel. The world building is in done in extraordinary detail. The magic system is incredibly well defined. Everything is built up in a way that gives readers buy-in and plausibility.
However, for me, it was very difficult for me to really love this book. It felt very weighed down in almost too much of everything it needed. If you simplified some of that information and gave the story more room for the story to breathe? It would have gone a long way to helping the story along.
Secondly, the characters titles are all very confusing. There are many books, especially fantasy books, that have a lot of characters thrown at you up front, all at once. If I can get through that initial push and move forward it can work.

The problem with the characters in Gossamer Mage is that there is not just a huge cast of characters. There are a huge cast of characters with multiple names and titles each. That becomes really confusing, really quickly. The hard part again is that if you simplify that piece, Czerneda has to be applauded for the dimensionality of the characters. They are not flat, surface characters. They are all well developed and interesting to read about throughout the story.

Lastly, goes back to a well thought out and intricate magic system. I loved how it was unique and again well explained so you don’t have the issue of readers lacking plausibility. This is a wonderfully set-up system that gets bogged down in technicalities like how many types of gossamer’s are there and what they are utilized for. That takes the fun out of it because it goes too far and bogs it down.

Czerneda has so many foundational parts down for a brilliant fantasy story with Gossamer Mage. However, everything that is done really well, often gets tripped up in becoming over complicated and clumsy. Simplify technicalities like the need for numerous character names/titles, number of gossamers and the abundance of research that muddies the plot, and you have a really promising story.

The nitty-gritty: I adored the magic system in this story, but I wasn't as excited about the plot.

I have such mixed feelings about this book, which makes me a little sad. From the moment I saw the magical cover, I knew I wanted to read The Gossamer Mage, but I have to admit I struggled to get into it, and I’ll explain why in this review. This is my first Julie E. Czerneda book, so I can’t speak for her other works of fiction, but I have heard other reviewers say that this story is much darker than some of her other books.

One of the things I struggled with was the plot, but I’ll try to give you a short recap. The story is told from two main points of view. Maleonarial is a mage scribe who interprets the sacred words of the Deathless Goddess into intentions, written spells that produce various magical creatures and objects. For every spell written, however, there is a steep cost: the Goddess takes away a mage’s life bit by bit, and the mage ages at an impossible rate, until he finally dies. Unfortunately for the mage, he doesn’t have a choice. He must write down the words of the Goddess. Maleonarial, though, has had enough. He wants his youth back, and so he sets out to destroy her.

At the same time, a hold daughter named Kaitealyon has just found out that her son Leksand has heard the voice of the Goddess and is destined to become a mage scribe himself. Devastated and knowing the horrible life in store for him, Kait is asked to accompany him on his journey to the mage school, where he will train.

But on their way, they discover something evil is trying to destroy the magic of the Goddess. Kait and Maleonarial join forces to try to stop it, even as Maleonarial is still determined to kill the Goddess.

By far, my favorite part of this story was the idea of gossamers, the “mistakes” created by mages when they write the incorrect words of a spell. Mages do not want to make gossamers, so they almost become objects of shame. But a gossamer is a wild and unpredictable construct, a creature set free from the constraints of a spell to fly away and live its own life. It’s a delightful idea, but it wasn’t as developed as I wanted it to be. Czerneda gives us examples of gossamers throughout the story, but they aren’t the main focus until the very end. Then several events come together in the last few pages and a lot of the story finally fell into place for me.

I also loved the descriptions of how the mages create spells. Czerneda has a wonderful talent for vivid description, and she’s clearly spent a lot of time designing her magic system, from the pens the mages use to write with, to the ink pots full of incredible inks that make up the spells, to the parchments. The results of spells are called “made” objects: made-horses, made-cats, etc. If a traveling party needs fresh horses for their carriage, for example, a mage scribe could write a spell for them. When made things have served their purpose, they disappear in a burst of ash.

But despite my love of the magic system, I had issues with the plot and the writing style. Czerneda’s sentence structure in this book is oddly formal but choppy, and I often came across sentences that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. This caused me to go back and reread the sentence to see what I had missed, but that ultimately pulled me out of the story. Some of the characters speak in hard to read dialects, and if you’ve ever tried to read Scottish brogue, for example, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

As for the plot, I struggled in the beginning, wading through all the many characters and trying to see how they fit together. There is a fair amount of information that needs to be conveyed, but Czerneda mostly spends time giving us the details of her magic system, while the drive and focus of the characters was pushed to the side until later in the story. The main thrust of the plot is the journey to the magic school, but the author takes her time getting there, and for me, this journey seemed to drag on and on. I also kept getting the characters mixed up, especially since the mages had such similar, hard to pronounce names.

At the end of the day, I just wanted to fall into a good story, and plot wise, The Gossamer Mage just didn’t deliver in that respect. I think if I’d enjoyed the writing style more, this would have been much more enjoyable to read. However, despite my grumblings, I am very curious to read more from this author. Julie E. Czerneda has a wonderfully vivid imagination, and I do look forward to seeing what other worlds she can create.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

This might have been a good book, but to be quite honest, I couldn't tell. The writing style was utterly confusing that I couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on.

There is very little explanation for anything going on, we just get dumped head-first into this other world of magic and terms and places and just *STUFF* with no idea what any of it is. Which, to be clear, is FINE if we can pick up on context clues as the story goes on and figure out the world as we go. But this book also has a POV shift every 3-4 pages which means just as soon as I'm starting to follow what's going on WHOOPS BAM NOPE HERE'S SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. I just couldn't get invested in the story enough to carry on with reading it, alas. Maybe if I'd read the author's previous works and had some goodwill built up to trust it was going somewhere I'd feel differently, but this was my first Czerneda book so I'm just going to move on instead.

I tried to get into tgis book twice. After reading it I felt it needed something more. Perhaps a better storyline that wasnt bad After all. Perhaps the character development took longer to develop? Perhaps the book was great but I felt short to love it.
You judge it. For me it was just fine.

The Gossamer Mage, by author Julie E. Czerneda, is a story that takes place in a fantasy land called Tananen. The world’s only remaining magic is in Tananen, where only women can speak the Deathless Goddess language, and only men can write her spells – both at a terrible cost. But now something dangerous and dark has come into Tiler’s Hold, destroying magic creations, and silencing the Goddess. Meanwhile, there is a mage on a mission to destroy said Goddess not knowing that with her death, an even larger threat may rise.

The two primary characters in this book are Maleonarial, a so called mad mage who has been away from civilization for 12 years. Sick of the premature aging aspect of magic, the mage scribe decides that he is going to find the Deathless Goddess and end her. But, the Deathless Goddess isn’t the only being on the scene. Kait (Kaitealyon) Alder is one of the Daughters of the Goddess who can no longer hear the Goddess, but she can hear an evil that is seeping into every crack in Tiler's Hold and elsewhere. Since women can understand the Goddess and men have the ability to write her words but not understand them, they must team up in order to figure out what exactly is happening and stop it.

Fairness in reviewing, this book to a lot of stamina for me not to toss it aside, and to move on to something better. But, since I am unstable when it comes to finishing books even if I have to jump over several dozen pages at once, I persevered. Julie Czerneda is a new to me author therefore I had not expectations of what to expect while reading her story. The ending to me was an abstract failing. There was no real indication that the story was wrapped up, or what really happened to the characters were are supposed to care about. There’s a lot of shifting narratives in this book, which has around 6 chapter total, which makes it more difficult to keep track of the characters and the plot.

A little over six years ago, Julie E. Czerneda made the transition from science fiction to epic fantasy with A Turn of Light. It was a book that stood apart from the grimdark movement as something bright and vibrant. It was a happier sort of story, one with a deep mythology, an epic sort of pastoral world-building, and a traditional take on magic.

The Gossamer Mage marks an entirely new foray into realms of fantasy, and while it still has a sense of magic and wonder, Tananen is definitely more grimdark than Marrowdell. This is a story of loss, of sorrow, and of sacrifice . . . set in a world where magic demands a toll . . . with a Mage of the Deathless Goddess who seeks to break her hold and a Daughter who seeks to restore her voice.

Czerneda has crafted a fascinating world with a simple, yet intriguing mythology that blends religious and secular authority through magic. It is magic with geographic limits and gender boundaries, which is curious in and of itself, but it is the gossamer of the title that is key to the entire book.

This is a book that has the feel of something mythic or legendary. Not only is it heavier in tone than the stories of Marrowdell, but it is a heavier read as well, its language and style demanding both patience and attention from the reader. The Gossamer Mage is very much like Czerneda's science fiction, in that it's not a story to be breezed through or glossed over - not if you want to take anything significant away from it. Personally, I found it best digested one long chapter at a time, leaving me time to think about what happened, and to consider what it all means. It's worth the time, especially as you start making connections between themes and ideas in the final third, but you need to be patient before that appreciation sets in.

Maleonarial (Mage) and Kaitealyon (Daughter) are the two primary characters here, with the story told largely from their points of view. I liked both immensely and thought their development from very different embodiment of the Deathless Goddess' influence on Tananen to human beings with personalities, motivations, emotions, and needs was exceptional. What started out as a story with a cold sort of mythological feel becomes warmer and deeper as the story moves forward, and their mutual respect lays the foundations for saving the land and altering the fabric of magic.

While I didn't enjoy this as much as I did A Turn of Light or A Play of Shadow, I do think I appreciated it more, especially in considering the final pages and what they have to say about the themes of intent and sacrifice, and how they are so suggestive of conflicts and issues we face in the real world today. The very idea of a gossamer is wonderful, and the more you understand of what they are and why, the brighter hope shines through the darkness of the book.