In all fairness, perhaps the worst thing the publicists could have done for this book, the debut novel by English vicar G.P. Taylor, was to market it as “hotter than Potter.” Shadowmancer may be many things, but it is not in the same league as Harry Potter, and the comparison only serves to highlight this book’s inadequacies and shortcomings. It has none of the rich and memorable cast of characters, none of the uniquely charming setting, none of the engaging plotwork, and very little of the right atmosphere. Harry Potter has a certain comedic tone and wry humor to it even in the darkest of times; Shadowmancer remains dark and brooding even at the best of times. Harry Potter is set in modern day, in a world most of us would find quite familiar, and even the magical elements bear a resemblance to things we know intimately; Shadowmancer is set in the 18th Century, somewhere in the English highlands and moors, and it’s a world that seems rather alien compared to our own. One certainly can’t even compare the protagonists and antagonists of the two books; there’s just no way to match up Lord Voldemort with Demurral the evil vicar, or Harry Potter with Thomas Barrick.
Usually by now, I’d have described the plot. Unfortunately, what I gathered from Shadowmancer is that Demurral, an English vicar who rules the countryside around him like a petty noble tyrant, wants to replace God with himself, and he needs a pair of magical artifacts to facilitate this transformation. There’s one spunky orphan, a feisty young girl with a corrupt father, and a faith-proclaiming teenager from Africa who may or may not have a direct line to God, and it’s these three who stand in Demurral’s way. Unfortunately, it’s hard to take seriously a villain who went from a God-fearing good man to a wholly evil would-be world conquerer in the same way one might flip a light switch. Nor can one really emphasize with teenage characters that remain ciphers at best.
If I was going to be generous, I’d say that the dark, thoughtful, and religious overtures of this book are almost reminiscent of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. But I suspect that would be a disservice to Pullman’s acclaimed work. Whatever virtues Shadowmancer might possess are lost, in part because it’s being billed as something it’s not.