Spell Games (Marla Mason, #4) By T.A. Pratt
This book was kind of meh to me until the end. The con artist storyline wasn't all that interesting to me. The other plot lines were good. B's training sessions were great for explaining the various kinds of magic but also for bringing in the wizards of Felport. The villain was nothing I'd ever seen before. Very imaginative.
The end was where it really got good but for very bad reasons. What happened to B and Rondeau was a huge gut punch. Marla's reaction to it was both wrenching and completely in character for her.
The ebook version does have several typing errors. 9780553591361 It was good. Not great but good. I found it anticlimatic, all the rising tension just sort of resolved with a . Best parts were learning about Marla's past and the training montages with B. 9780553591361 Spell Games es la cuarta novela de Marla Mason y la última que pudo publicar en la editorial Spectra, que no estaba interesada en seguir con las aventuras de la hechicera.
Sin embargo, Pratt no se dio por aludido y continuó escribiendo historias sobre el Marlaverse. Escribió una precuela y varias historias cortas que incluso hoy en día se siguen pudiendo leer gratuitamente en su web. Es más, la quinta novela formal de Marla Mason, Broken Mirrors, fue publicada por capítulos estilo serial. El resultado final fue fantástico, las novelas se siguieron publicando y, de hecho, en marzo de este 2015 se llevó a cabo con éxito el proyecto de crowdfunding del noveno libro de esta saga. Claramente cuando Spectra decidió no renovar el contrato aún le quedaban a Pratt historias por contar.
En esta cuarta novela el pasado de Marla acude a su encuentro continuando con el cliffhanger de la anterior novela. La historia es relativamente sencilla ocupando Marla sólo parte del protagonismo (compartido por los habituales y un par de personajes nuevos de este volumen [como viene siendo normal en esta saga]). Aunque el argumento sea relativamente sencillo es imposible dejar de maravillarse ante el dominio de personajes y escenario de Pratt. Lo mejor, como siempre, los diálogos, que en este Spell Games son elevados hasta un estado de gracia casi divina. Reí y lloré con Marla y los suyos, ¡y tan sólo en 323 páginas de una edición de bolsillo particularmente pequeña!
El motor fundamental de la saga siempre ha sido Marla Mason. Tiene una personalidad muy fuerte que choca con todo y todos y una serie de reglas que cumple bajo cualquier circunstancia. En este volumen se llevan las cosas incluso más allá y me he visto sorprendido ante la humanidad de Marla y lo fiel que consigue Pratt que el personaje sea a sí mismo.
Aunque en otros volúmenes el final es lo que más le ha flojeado a la novela, este no es el caso. Spell Games tiene el final más sólido de la saga, aún cuando acabe en otro cliffhanger como la copa de un pino.
Sin duda seguiré leyendo las aventuras del Marlaverse, posiblemente con la novela precuela Bone Shop y el resto de relatos antes de enfretarme al quinto libro. 9780553591361 Marla Mason is Chief Sorcerer of Felport. She's got such a badass reputation that her older brother Jason, estranged since something bad went down between them as teenagers, hears about her and comes calling. Jason doesn't know that magic is real; he just assumes she's running a successful con herself, much like he does. He asks to use her name to help him fool an annoying wealthy would-be-sorcerer, and Marla is confident in her own abilities, happy enough to see him, and annoyed enough with the rich guy that she agrees. But alas, rumors of Jason's con filter into the magical community, and a nigh-unstoppable mushroom god storms to Felport looking for the imaginary spores he pretends to be selling.
So much of this book is threats building on each other, where Marla and Rondeau can't or won't see them, but we the reader see how the situation is compounding from bad to lethal. It made for a tense read. I was relieved when The mushroom magic was both cool and deeply icky, which is probably exactly how it should be. 9780553591361 By far my favorite of Pratt's Marla Mason novels. This pushed my squee buttons for confidence games (I dig a good long con, like in The Sting or Ocean's 11, or the BBC show Hustle), and the back and forth of this story kept me going all the way to the end. Marla also feels much more rounded in this story; not that she was in any way two-dimensional before, but Spell Games is a more personal story, not least of all because of the involvement of her brother Jason. (And though I cringed at first at the rhyminess of Jason Mason, I was pleased to see such a clever character share my first name.)
Apocalypse is threatened in the person of the mycomancer Bulliard, but the book doesn't feel quite so end-of-the-world as Pratt's previous books, which was a nice change. A smaller scale enables Marla to feel more like a real person, and her interactions with her brother are touching and honest and heartbreaking.
This seems to be the last Marla Mason book for a while, although I greatly hope it's not the end of the series. The book ends on a life-changing cliffhanger, and it honestly made me feel the same as the first time I watched The Empire Strikes Back, namely that I *really* wanted to find out what happens next. Each book has gotten progressively better, and Pratt's handle on the magical universe he's created has only increasingly solidified. I hope Spectra decides to keep the series going, because they've got a winner on their hands. 9780553591361
Brain-eating fungi, wannabe sorcerers, long-lost relations–does even a hard-core witch stand a chance?
Mad sorcerers, psychic vampires, an army of vengeful demons, Marla Mason would rather face them all than a flesh-and-blood ghost from her dysfunctional family past: her con artist brother, Jason. As Felport’s chief sorcerer, Marla would ordinarily consider it her duty to protect her town from such an unscrupulous ne’er-do-well. As his sister, things are a lot…trickier. Now, as Marla attempts to train an apprentice oracle whose magical wires have gotten crossed, Jason is setting up an elaborate sting and drawing her ever-so-corruptible partner Rondeau into the ruse.
Their patsy is a filthy-rich wannabe mage and their bait is something so valuable, so dangerous, so sought after, it probably doesn’t exist. But now word’s gotten out that the Borrichius spores do exist and instead of a sucker Jason and Rondeau have a much bigger–and much deadlier–fish on their line: a reclusive sorcerer whose devotion to the mushroom god and command of vegetal magic could bring a fungal apocalypse to Felport. It’ll be the mother of all bad trips unless Marla can pull off the ultimate magical switcheroo…and somehow live to tell about it. Spell Games (Marla Mason, #4)
Fourth book in the series, Marla Mason and I have come to an understanding: she is badass. In Blood Engines, the characterization wasn't the greatest, but she's since turned into my favorite female urban fantasy heroine.
Both B and Marla's no-good brother, Jason, hit Fellsport at the same time, with disasterous results. B's visits to the different sorcerers was far more entertaining than Jason's lessons in the grift-life to Rondeau (especially the meet with the Bay Witch, who manages to confound me as much as she does the characters in the book).
A great moment, though, when they take Cam-Cam out to the island, and Marla greets them standing sideways on the wall thanks to her new gecko boots.
Pratt didn't take the easy way out in the ending, and I applaud her for that even if I was left going NO! Marla's reaction to B's death at Rondeau's unwilling hands played out true to character, and her grief felt real. I take comfort in the fact that if there's a way to bring B back (and in this series, anything is possible), Marla will find it. And, as her husband, Death, confirmed, he's not actually dead... 9780553591361 6,75/10
Por ahora de los libros de Marla Mason creo que este Spell games es el que menos me ha gustado. Trama muy predecible y falta de chispa y sin un gran villano a la altura, secundario, a la altura de los personajes que ya conocemos.
A su favor, pues que su estilo narrativo está encaminado a facilitar la lectura, algunas situaciones interesantes durante la trama que supongo darán pie a las siguientes entregas, y como no, tanto Rondeau como Marla siguen en buena forma.
Seguiré con las siguientes lecturas. 9780553591361 It 's been a while since I read Dead Reign, but I remembered all too well how it ended, so it took me no time at all to get back in Marla's world.
And this book is yet another roller coaster of action. Marla has her hands full with trying to keep her beloved city from danger. A character from a previous book is back to help her, and he was just as cool as I remembered. And there's Rondeau of course, Marla's right hand man.
With each book there are new things added to this world, but in a way that makes you feel they've always been there. They just needed to be encountered. I liked the glimpse into the magic of the other sorcerers in the city, and of the mushroom god who sets eyes on Felport.
It was also good to see that with all her power Marla has her flaws and weaknesses. It makes it easy to root for her and her close friends.
The ending was gut wrenching and heart breaking. I need the next book! 9780553591361 Not my favorite Marla Mason story. Not bad, mind you. But certainly one the weaker stories in this series. Maybe it was because the stakes were not as high in stories past. Maybe I just didn't like Marla's brother and held it against the rest of the story. Or perhaps it was the plethora of typos and errors that were contained in the Kindle version that I read while logging miles on the treadmill. If the errors were enough to be distracting while I was running and sweating profusely, there is something wrong...
I didn't particularly enjoy the grift plotline either. It was so, um, unmagical? It felt like part of Gaiman's American Gods but without the grit and weaker characters. I love this silly series, though, so I will forgive T.A. Pratt for this one.
I will say that I enjoyed the ending. I didn't see that coming... I look forward to reading about how Marla is going to sort everything out and get her two friends back. 9780553591361 This was good, it took a while for me to get into it. The action wasn't as fast and furious. More of a slow burn. But dang, Pratt is mean to these characters! I need to get my hands on the next book to find out what happens! 9780553591361
