Friday 19 March 2021

Review on Morgana Mage in the Robotic Age

 




Morgana’s magic doesn’t seem to work like everyone elses. In fact, Morgana’s magic doesn’t seem to work at all! Unsatisfied with her life in the woods, she decides she wants to explore the city, where technology is extremely advanced and robots roam the streets. However the city people hate witches and magic, and when Morgana starts school in the city, she is immediately shunned. Things go from bad to worse when Morgana discovers a secret that could threaten not only the city, but her family too. Morgana will need to use both magic and technology if she is defeat this most deadly of foes.

I entered this year in a bit of a reading slump so I’m really happy the first book I read this year was so good! I want to rant about everything I loved about this book, but I’m going to start with the plot which I thought was really unique! Usually, we come across books where technology doesn’t work around magic, so I found it really interesting that magic and technology were combined. When we think about having magic powers, we assume that everything can be achieved through magic, making technology obsolete, but what if the two could actually complement each other instead? I loved this approach and as someone who loves both fantasy and Sci-Fi, I loved how the two genres were cleverly combined.

 The book follows eleven year old Morgana Mage, a witch who hasn’t found her niche yet. The witches reminded me of the benders in Avatar, as their spell casting revolved around the elements, and every witch and warlock was expected to master one before moving onto the others. I don’t want to compare it to Avatar too much, but Morgana really reminded me of the Earth bender Toph, as like Toph she seemed to be the only person with the ability to manipulate metal. I loved that Morgana’s ability was unique, and although she couldn’t do what everyone else could, she was able to do something they couldn’t. I loved how it showed we don’t have to be good at everything, and it’s ok to manifest our talents in different ways to others.

 I wasn’t really attached to the characters, but I did love Morgana’s best friend Jonathan. Even though everyone shunned Morgana for being different, Jonathan was quick to befriend her and help her get started at her new school. I found it sad that none of the teachers were willing to help her, as it really shouldn’t have been up to Jonathan to provide Morgana with school supplies. For the majority of the book there isn’t really an adult Morgana feels she can turn to and rely on, and although I did love Jonathan’s role, I don’t think that every adult being against Morgana was a great message to give to readers. I think it’s important for children to have an adult they can trust, so I didn’t really like that Morgana didn’t seem to have that.

 I loved the idea of Morgana’s magic being able to change the robots. “What if robots were sentient beings” is a plot in a lot of Sci-Fi, but I loved how this question was approached a little differently in this book. We have a typical robot uprising which wasn’t all that unique, but what I loved about this was Proto, the robot Morgana and Jonathan built together. Proto somehow managed to go against his programming to help Morgana and her friends despite knowing what it will cost him. I loved how Morgana’s magic made the robots seem more human, and how they had their own thoughts and feelings. 

 I loved this book overall and thought it was really interesting and unique! The combination of magic and technology was brilliant and I loved the positive messages, especially the message that it’s ok to be different. Kids could worry that they’re not as good at certain things as their friends are, so I loved how it showed we don’t all have to be good at the same things, and often we’ll find something we enjoy that others find strange. Even book blogging seems strange to my family but it’s comforting knowing there’s a bunch of other people who enjoy doing the same thing! I would definitely recommend this book to fans of fantasy and Sci-Fi a there really is a bit of everything.






Morgana Mage in the Robotic Age is now available to purchase! 


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