Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780765342324
ISBN number: 0765342324
Label: Starscape
Manufacturer: Starscape
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: April 15, 2002
Publishing house: Starscape
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 614408
Studio: Starscape
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Kim doesn't hesitate when a stranger offers her a small fortune to break into the travelling magician's wagon in search of a silver bowl. Kim isn't above a bit of breaking-and-entering. Having grown up a waif in the dirty streets of London-disguised as a boy!-has schooled her in one hard lesson: steal from them before they steal from you.
But there is something odd about this magician. He isn't like the other hucksters and swindlers that Kim is used to. When he catches her in the act, Kim thinks she's done for.
Until he suggests she become his apprentice. Kim wonders how tough it could be faking a bit of hocus pocus.
But Mairelon isn't an act. His magic is real.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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It was no Enchanted Forest Chronicles, but it was a fun story, nonetheless. 17-year-old Kim, a girl disguised as a boy, is a thief in Regency England, until she gets caught burgling an actual magician's wagon. But instead of being arrested or turned into a frog, Mairelon the Magician invites her to become his apprentice.
What follows is a madcap adventure, reminiscent of, say, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with several different parties, each with their own motivation, racing to be the very first to collect the Saltash Platter and put together an entire set of magical artifacts. It's heavily flavored with 1800s English street cant, but it's easy enough to figure out once you've been reading for a while.
I've put the sequel on my list. Maybe I'll be able to talk my youngest into trying these, now that he's suddenly rediscovered reading.
Rated by buyers 
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Those weaned on Harry Potter will feel quite deprived with this book. Though written well ahead of that zeitgeist fantasy, Mairelon is not a good book to feed your need for magic while you take a break between Potter reading cycles.
Characters fly left and right in this book, with names too generic to remember well, and little description to stick out. Wrede suffocates the narrative by banding as many characters as she can into one scene, so that it's very hard to focus on who is who, and who is doing what, where.
Accents also mar the reading, since it takes a while to decipher what someone speaking thick Cockney is trying to say, rather than letting the reader hear the voice in their head.
There is little magic to be had here. The magic present is left un-explained - it's simply performed - and given no origin.
The silly plot begins well-enough, with the street urchin Kim invited to be a magician's apprentice, but Kim does little to no apprenticing besides learning to speak Proper English. She is presented as a main character, but the narrative and objective of the book stray farther from her as the pages turn, leaving Kim to do absolutely nothing at the end but flip a table on its end. She's without a wand, and without a compelling story.
The plot is wrapped up in the end by as many as fifteen people standing in a room revealing themselves to one another, with little action, and even less magic involved.
I would leave this book off the shelf.
Rated by buyers 
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It's getting so I can't read a Regency novel without becoming irritated by the author's endeavor at thieves' cant, fake French accents, and high-class drawls. Most of the authors seem to borrow from Georgette Heyer and Joan Aiken, so we have Regency toffs, coves, sharps, and trulls as filtered through at least three generations of authors (I'm assuming Heyer and Aiken got most of their patois from authors who actually lived during England's Regency period). It's hard on the ear and should be as dead as a Vaudeville sketch of some beleaguered minority.
Americans are particularly bad at trying to fake English speech patterns two hundred years dead. I wish they'd stop trying, especially the good ones like Patricia Wrede who can actually tell a story.
So, other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
"Mairelon the Magician" is an amusing comedy of manners--more dialogue than magic, and you have to memorize long lists of characters who keep showing up at the most inconvenient moments, such as in the midst of a burglary or an attempted elopement. The two main characters, Mairelon the magician and the street waif, Kim are sharply drawn and likeable. Everyone else is distinguished by a funny accent, or some sort of annoying habit such as chewing on the ends of their mustache. I was minded to lean across the campfire and club Hutch with a piece of firewood the subsequent time he put his mustache in his mouth.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln....
Well, I did actually enjoy reading this confection and now I'm reading the sequel. What can I say? It's cute and there is a modicum of plot, plus a happy ending. I love happy endings, but I do hope that Hutch shaves off his mustache for the sequel.
Rated by buyers 
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It's a great book about an orphan, Kim. She happens upon a "magic show" performed by Mairelon, and while he is busy doing the show, she tries to steal from him. He catches her and ends up teaching her what isn't just slight-of-hand tricks, but actual magic. It's a great alternate-earth book filled with adventure and excitement. I highly recommend it to all teens, because it is just one of those "great books."
Rated by buyers -
Kim is a street thief asked to spy on a "frogmaker" down in the marketplace for a few coins. This casual job turns Kim's world upside down as she is swept away into a world of conspiracies, illusions, the London gentry, grouchy men, magic, and silverware worth more than it's weight in gold. This book was something refreshingly different, what with Kim blurting thieves' cant whenever she lost control. The cant is quite clever in itself, and if you read it, you can make connections between the language and origins of certain words. Or maybe that was just me. In any case, a great read that I'd thoroughly recommend.
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