The March North – Graydon Saunders

I read this book, then read the two sequels, then reread the two sequels, then reread the trilogy - so, retrospectively, five stars.

The main attraction is the world-building: Take our world, add magic that lets a small number of people be Evil Overlords - and let a quarter-million years pass. The resulting world is not a medievaloid world with a thin patina of plot device. It’s a world that’s had a long time to evolve, and societies that have had a long time to learn how to survive a toxic mix of whatever long-dead sorcerers left behind them. It’s a sophisticated world, whose scientific understanding appears to be slightly ahead of ours.

The author doesn’t club the reader over the head with his world-building. The story retains center stage, and it’s up to the reader to notice the strands connect the story to the world in which its embedded.

“The March North” is, frankly, not as engaging as the next two books. It is useful to think of it as the prequel that introduces the Commonweel, its world, and some important characters. Still well worth the ride. The Commonweel is a society that trying to live without sorcerous overlords, and it’s been doing so for half a millenium. (Five centuries is a drop in a bucket of a quarter-million years. We have no reason to believe that this is the first such attempt.) Now the sorcerous overlords next door are paying a visit.