Castaways
Craig Schaefer
Magic school on the cheap
I often begin a new book by reading the Acknowledgements and Afterword. Craig Schaefer‘s Castaways has an Afterword that begins thus,
I was getting dinner with friends when the subject of magic school stories came up, which lead to the question of whether a school of magic could exist in the same multiverse as the Daniel Faust and Harmony Black series.
Thus, it appears that Schaefer has two other fantasy series, neither of which I have read. By starting with Castaways I am joining the party near the end. This can be perilous in Fantasy, since one never knows how much essential world-building one has skipped over.
The good news, though, is that I didn’t feel lost in the world of Castaways. Perhaps this is because the “magic school” genre has become so familiar. In fact, I enjoyed Castaways a lot and will continue with the series. Who knows, I might even go back to Harmony Black and Castaways is as good as this first book.
The story begins when our point-of-view character, Amy Nettle, is whisked away from a crime scene that would have ended badly for her to an island. There she meets a bunch of other students from alternate universes. What these students all have in common, as suggested by the title, is that they were kids in desperate circumstances on their home worlds, in desperate need of an escape.
The magic school, Saunders Academy, is run on a shoestring. There are about half a dozen named staff, including only three professors. Maintenance, cleaning, etc, are done by students themselves. It is a dangerous place.
It is thus a familiar story of misfits trying to survive in an environment that is trying to kill them.
It works. It works because the students -- Amy and her friends -- are distinctly drawn and fun. Recommended.