James Nicoll Reviews

2016’s Fix is the third and final (?) volume in Ferrett Steinmetz’ ​‘Mancer series. 

Paul Tsabo did his best to talk America into abandoning its draconian anti-’Mancer ways. Alas, Paul is a bureaucratomancer, not a oratoromancer, and his pleas fell on deaf ears. Persuasion having failed, Paul, his family, his friends and their allies dug in for a long campaign aimed at changing America’s mind. 

What Paul’s efforts do succeed at is convincing SMASH (the organization charged with protecting America from the ​‘Mancer menace) that their conventional methods for dealing with domestic threats isn’t going to work with Paul. SMASH is the sort of organization whose answer, when a hammer fails, is to get a much larger hammer. 

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2015’s The Flux is the second volume in Ferrett Steinmetz’s ​‘Mancer trilogy. 

Paul Tsabo has a remarkable talent for tracking down ​‘Mancers, the magic users whose talents make them Public Enemy Number One. That’s why he’s serving on New York City’s anti-’Mancer task force. True, lately his hit rate has been off a little, but that is not because he has lost his edge. It’s because he lost his enthusiasm for hunting ​‘Mancers when he realized that he himself is a ​‘Mancer.

As is his beloved daughter Aliyah. 

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Ferrett Steinmetz’ debut novel Flex is the first volume in his ​‘Mancer trilogy. 

The good news is that magic is so easy any idiot can try their hand at it. The bad news is that a lot of idiots do, which is why Europe is a howling wasteland of reality holes and why the authorities react to magical outbreaks with overwhelming force. 

Rewriting reality always comes at a cost … but it’s not just the ​‘Mancers who have to pay. Former cop turned investigator Paul Tsabo and his daughter Aliya survived a magically triggered gas-main explosion that left young Aliya horribly burned. Reconstructive surgery will cost a half million dollars ¹, which insurance company Samaritan Mutual is loath to pay. 

Lucky for Aliya, her father is a bureaucrat par excellence. In fact, he is one of Samaritan’s own, using his obsession with paperwork to track down rogue ​‘Mancers. Less luckily for Aliya, obsession is the stuff of magic. Paul isn’t just a bureaucrat. He is a full-fledged bureaucromancer. Paul is afraid it might have been the backlash from his own magic that set off the gas main. 

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