Mage of Fools
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In the dystopian world of Mafinga, Jasmin must contend with a dictator's sorcerer to cleanse the socialist state of its deadly pollution.Mafinga's malevolent king dislikes books and, together with his sorcerer Atari, has collapsed the environment to almost uninhabitable. The sun has killed all the able men, including Jasmin's husband Godi. But Jasmin has Godi's secret story machine that tells of a better world, far different from the wastelands of Mafinga. Jasmin's crime for possessing the machine and its forbidden literature filled with subversive text is punishable by death. Fate grants a cruel reprieve in the service of a childless queen who claims Jasmin's children as her own. Jasmin is powerless—until she discovers secrets behind the king and his sorcerer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bacon (The Road to Woop Woop) delivers a gorgeously told but somewhat derivative fantasy. Young mother Jasmin lives in the dystopian world of Mafinga, a clearly delineated, if at times familiar, totalitarian socialist state where the cruel monarch, Magu, keeps his power via a false promise of equality. In the wake of an environmental catastrophe that causes mass death among Mafinga's men, the newly widowed Jasmin turns to the now-forbidden story machines created by her late husband, looking for solace and hope in reading. When she's discovered and arrested for possessing one of the machines, Jasmin faces a punishment worse than death—until she learns a secret of King Magus that might enable her to save both herself and her family. Through poetic, fast-paced narration, Bacon draws readers into her dangerous and exciting world to showcase the power of stories, art, and individualism. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but Bacon renders her ideas well; fans of old-school SFF will find plenty to enjoy .
