Monday Musings \\ The Relic Master Series BR

The Relic Master Series by Catherine Fisher

Premise: The only hope for the world Anara lies in a Relic Master, his apprentice, and the ancient relics they've dedicated their lives to searching for and protecting. As Anara's political order crumbles to chaos and everybody is spied on by the Watch, Galen and Raffi will be tested to their limit. Hunted, watched and betrayed at every corner, can they survive long enough to bring peace back to their world?

Language: Some mild cursing, and possibly one above-mild curse word name.

Content: Fighting, sorcerery-like powers, minor injuries, mutants, talk of experiments, and animal/alien-creatures/humanoids.  

Stars: 4

Wow… How to start this review…?

This is possibly one of the most bizarre series I've ever read. It was incredibly written, the characters were suburb and very believable, the action as well, the underlying premise itself very intriguing, the back story great, and the actual plot well played out, but everything in between… just bizarre.

 The book begins with the main characters--a young apprentice (Raffi) and his Master (Galen)--who are dedicated to an order that finds and preserves relics (objects left by the "Makers") both for the relics sake, and for the protection of the people of Anara, who aren't trained to handle these things. I won't give the whole story behind all that away, because it is one of the biggest supporting beams for the story plot, but basically the books start out with Raffi and Galen almost worshipping these Makers. As the series progresses, they come to stop thinking of the Makers as gods, and stop giving them that sort of attention, if you will.

I really would not have enjoyed this series if it weren't for one character: Galen.

Seriously, one of my all time favorite characters of any series.

And that's saying something.

Galen is just, in a word, awesome. Not in a swashbuckling, clever-repartee' sort of way. He gets angry easily, he's dark and moody, but he's sharp and he's never fooled. His relationships with the other characters are also very good, and I really loved the different ways Fisher played out the tension or the love and loyalty between them and used it to build him.

The other characters, though, were also very well done. There were developments in each of them, and each development was well done and not overplayed.

Age-Range: I'd say 14+ (but only because of the one curse-word name, in which case it'd be 12-13+)

Basically, if you don't mind animal-humanoid-aliens, unexplainable powers, and a weird religion that eventually resolves itself into just an order of moralistic values, and you like spies, hunts, freaky-awesome mind powers, beautiful descriptions, a city made of shadows, betrayal and redemption, check this series out. 

Sincerely, 

~The Scribbler in the Attic