Book: The Silicon Mage
June 9th 2004
The Silicon Mage, by Barbara Hambly.
I have long been a fan of Hamby, especially her Darwath Trilogy. I recently read Stranger at the Wedding which is set in the same universe as The Silicon Mage and it was amusing so I decided to give this series a try. I read The Silent Tower in March (that review will be up soon) and it was good enough that I decided to read the sequel and find out what happened.
Set in the 1980s, the technology is somewhat dated (as Johanna runs around with a floppy computer disk in her backpack) and the programming terminology seems really quaint as well. But the big strength of this book is that the characters are really interesting and believable. You want Johanna and Antryg to succeed.
The only other quibbles I have are some implausible events, and some science that unravels a little, but if you take this as a straight fantasy book, it’s not bad at all. Definitely worth a summer afternoon.