The Gossamer Mage

Written by Julie E. Czerneda

Narrated by Lesley Livingston

From an Aurora Award-winning author comes a new fantasy epic in which one mage must stand against a Deathless Goddess who controls all magic.

Only in Tananen do people worship a single deity: the Deathless Goddess. Only in this small, forbidden realm are there those haunted by words of no language known to woman or man. The words are Her Gift, and they summon magic.

Mage scribes learn to write Her words as intentions: spells to make beasts or plants, designed to any purpose. If an intention is flawed, what the mage creates is a gossamer: a magical creature as wild and free as it is costly for the mage.

For Her Gift comes at a steep price. Each successful intention ages a mage until they dare no more. But her magic demands to be used; the Deathless Goddess will take her fee, and mages will die.

To end this terrible toll, the greatest mage in Tananen vows to find and destroy Her. He has yet to learn She is all that protects Tananen from what waits outside. And all that keeps magic alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Aug 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781721366200

Julie E. Czerneda

Julie E. Czerneda is a biologist and writer whose science fiction has received international acclaim, awards, and best-selling status. She is the author of the popular "Species Imperative" trilogy, the "Web Shifters" series, the "Trade Pact Universe" trilogy and her new "Stratification" novels. She was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her stand-alone novel, In the Company of Others, won Canada's Prix Aurora Award and was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished SF. Julie lives with her husband and two children in the lake country of central Ontario, under skies so clear they could take seeing the Milky Way for granted, but never do. You can find her at www.czerneda.com.

Reviews for The Gossamer Mage

[Billie · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Gossamer Mage
by Julie E. Czerneda
High Fantasy Myth
Scribd audio

Mages write spells, and they come to life as gossamers, animal or plant like creations but they must pay the price that the Deathless Goddess, the Goddess they worship, requires for these 'intentions'; some of the mage's life. Besides taking their lives little by little, growing old within a few years, they can't help themselves, because this power is addictive.

But one mage wants to put a stop to the Goddess, but during his quest to find the right spell/intention, he finds that there is something else that wants to end her, but if it does, it will end everything.

This was a very interesting story, but too bad the audio narrator didn't do that good of a job. She didn't give any pause between the changing of characters, and there were a lot of characters. I'd hope that in the book there would be an extra space singling a change of some sort, but the narrator did not pause, she went right into the next section and I was left trying to figure out what was going on, and what I missed, and I jumped back the audio to figure it out. Luckily I was doing the dishes at the time, but I couldn't keep doing that because most of the time I'm driving while listening, so I spent most of my time hoping I would figure out what was going on before something else changed. But there were times she would pause right in the middle of someone's dialogue, and there were weird times when I thought it had shut off, but then she starts talking again.

There were 'chapters' in the book about the 'history' of this world, but for me they weren't that telling, thus leaving me with more questions about this world, and sadly the narrator didn't change her 'tone' so it sounded like more of the story thus leaving a period of confusion of what it had to do with the character that was just talking.

Her narration style also made it hard to tell some characters apart. The 'master mages' had the same last few letters on the end of their names, and some of the names sounded way too much alike. Yes, if I'd been reading it I would've been able to sight the difference, but sadly the narrator didn't take the similar sounding names into consideration as she read, and because I listened, that is what I am rating my review on.

The story was original, and spells having to be written in order to be cast was a new idea instead of the usual storyline, plus the spells became something instead of being cast for flying or the such.

I'm thinking that if I had read this story I could've given it a higher rating, but the audio version leaves my rating as...

2 Stars

[Lisa Johnson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found it too be well written and engaging with very good narration. :)

[humouress · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

{Standalone, fantasy}Magic has been lost to the world except in the carefully isolated land of Tananen which is guarded by an entity her people call the Deathless Goddess or the Lady. Only some women can hear the Lady and speak Her Words and they safeguard them for the mages in case they are lost. Only some men can write those words with intent and create magic but the Deathless Goddess exacts a price with each creation and mages age a little each time. Maleonarial, the foremost amongst them, does not enjoy seeing loved friends and young students age and die before their times and, twelve years before the beginning of the book, left the mage school at Alden to wander Tananen and find a way to avoid that cost.Now there is a magic that works in a different way, creating abominations and the hermit mage must be found in time to stop it doing more harm.Czernada has created a cohesive world with hold lords in charge of holds with other towns and villages under them. Hold Daughters are the representatives of the Lady; there is one Daughter to each hold but she has many other ladies in the hold who can also hear the Lady. Similarly, each town and village has their own daughters who report back to their own Hold Daughter as necessary.This one made me cry; she writes the mother-child bond beautifully, not with sentimentality but with a no-nonsense love. Absolutely spot on. Leksand ducked his head, giving his mother a worried glance. Kait carefully didn’t smile. “Go on, then,” she advised her son. “It’ll be a longer trip if you don’t talk.”Some issues with half sentences, but I can live with that. And while I love the tattoo-like curlicues they unfortunately obscure several of the words in my library e-book.5*****

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating magic system is breaking down, as detected by a few of it's practitioners. This is much more of a plot driven book than character involved, and the rapidly altering viewpoints continually scattered my connection to the story. It still has much to recommend it, but wasn't an absorbing read.