Spellwright by Blake Charlton has an interesting premise. The characters are decently written and motivated, but I just couldn’t get into the book. There is a reason why you don’t see a lot of fantasy reviews here, because I’ve just lost my appetite for the fantasy genre. There are occasional books that pique my interest (such as this one), but the fantasy genre has lost my interest. But how is Spellwright?

Charlton has done an interesting twist in this book. Magic here is similar to computer programming. There are various languages which can do different types of magic and the spell has to be logically created out of base sets of runes. The magicians must rigorously generate their spells rune by rune and if there is any mistakes, the spell won’t work.

This is what makes Nicodemus Weal’s life so difficult. He was once thought to be the coming of a great wizard, but Nicodemus has a problem. In his hands, spells become jumbled. He is a dyslexic force running through the magic. Because of this problem, he is apprenticed to a magician, but not allowed to become one himself. But when people start dying and a second prophecy arises where Nicodemus could be the person who destroys all magic, Nicodemus needs all the support he can get. But the magician he’s working with is the lead suspect in the deaths. Now Nicodemus has to save the world and his master and prove to the world which of the prophecies is really about him.

The plot is decent and the characters are fairly well defined. For a reader who enjoys fantasy, this is a different approach that generates some interesting ideas. Recommended for fantasy readers.