Russ Allbery: Review: The Cloak and Its Wizard

Review: The Cloak and Its Wizard, by R.Z. Nicolet

The Cloak and Its Wizard is a standalone (at least so far) urban
fantasy superhero (sort of) novel. R.Z. Nicolet is the marketing pseudonym
for Rachel Reddick. This is her first novel.

I’m picky about wizards.

The wizards themselves will complain about that, but of course I’m
picky. When I choose a wizard, barring utter abandonment of moral
scruples, it’s a till-death-do-us-part situation. (Their death, not
mine. I’m the next best thing to indestructible.)

The Cloak of Sunset and Starlight is a major artifact, meaning that it has
its own preferences and is capable of independent action. It has been
sitting in a glass case in the wizards’ library for about a hundred years,
waiting for someone interesting. (Well, mostly sitting. Occasionally it
sneaks out to eavesdrop or move the books around.)

Veronica Noble is interesting. She’s older than most initiates,
thoughtful, observant, and clearly had some mundane career before joining
the Order. Her aura is appealing, and her mental shields and resistance to
influence are intriguing. Normally, the Cloak would take its time
investigating a new potential wizard, but the Sword was making thoughtful
rattling sounds, and no way is the Cloak going to let the Sword claim her
first. Time to choose a new wizard!

It was nice, being draped over warm shoulders, and feeling a heartbeat
again.

I could tell she closed her eyes without even looking.

She sighed. “I just got picked by the intransigent one, didn’t I?”

The last time I picked a book from the Big Idea feature in Scalzi’s
Whatever blog, it
didn’t go that well, but if you’re going to
write a book specifically for me, I’m going to read it. There are very few
tropes of SFF that I love more than intelligent companion objects, and
Nicolet’s
introduction to the story was compelling. So I gave this book discovery
method another chance.

I’m glad I did, because this was exactly what I was in the mood for and a
delight from cover to cover.

Veronica Noble is not a typical wizard. She’s a surgeon and was quite
happy to be a surgeon until an unexpected encounter with a magical
creature killed her brother. The forgetting spell cast by the wizards who
came to handle the Cassandra wyrm didn’t work on her, so she was dragged
reluctantly into the secret magical world of the Order. This long-lived
society of wizards quietly defends the world against magical intrusions
from other planes of existence. Now she’s a wizard with a magical cloak,
which she is not at all sure she wants.

Veronica is not the protagonist, though. The Cloak of Sunset and Starlight
is. As far as it is concerned, its job is to assist its wizard, enjoy
watching interesting feats of magic, and look fabulous doing so. It’s
protective, dramatic, rather vain, endlessly curious, easily bored, and
intensely loyal. When it becomes clear that the Order has some serious
problems, the Cloak knows what side it’s on.

This sounds a bit like urban fantasy, so I was surprised when the first
superheroes showed up, although given the explicit Doctor Strange
inspiration I probably should have expected them. The Order and the
superheroes do not mix, at least at the start of the novel. The wizards
view the superheroes as a loud and irritating intrusion and hide magical
activities from them the same as they do the rest of the world. Veronica’s
opening opinion on superheroes is based on being a trauma surgeon in a
hospital dealing with the aftermath of their fights (which makes me wonder
if the author has read Hench, although
the idea is older than that book). As with the Order, the role of
superheroes in this world gets more complicated as the plot develops.

There is a surprising amount of plot and some very nice world-building
here, including multiple twists that I was not expecting. Veronica is the
sort of stubborn and deeply ethical person who will not leave a problem
alone if she has the ability to fix it, which is a good recipe for getting
deeper and deeper into a complex plot. She’s believable as a surgeon:
somewhat taciturn, calm in emergencies, detail-oriented, methodical, and
not at all dramatic. This makes the Cloak a perfect foil and complement.
Watching their partnership develop was very satisfying.

This is a sidekick novel, and like the best sidekick novels it makes the
not-protagonist more interesting and more relatable by showing them from
an outside and skewed perspective. Piecing together what Veronica must be
thinking is part of the fun, as is sharing the Cloak’s protectiveness
towards her as it becomes clear how much she’s been through and how good
of a person she is. The Cloak’s personality was a little too much like a
cat for me — I would have preferred a more unique viewpoint, fewer
cat-coded shenanigans, and a bit less of the running laundry machine joke.
But that’s a quibble. Its endless curiosity drives the plot forward and
uncovers more of the world-building, and I just love reading stories from
the perspective of this sort of loyal and protective magical creature.

I had so much fun with this book. It’s a popcorn sort of book, and I
thought the ending sputtered a little, but overall it was great. Parts of
it could have been designed in a lab to appeal to me specifically, so I’m
not sure if other people will enjoy it as much, but its hit rate with my
friends so far has been good.

Highly recommended, and I will be watching for any further novels from
Nicolet.

The Cloak and Its Wizard reaches a satisfying conclusion and
doesn’t advertise itself as part of a series, but there is room for a
sequel. If Nicolet ever writes one, I’d read it.

Rating: 8 out of 10