The spell of undoing is the first in a new series of books based in the magical city of Quentaris. It sets the scene for this whole series as it described the events that lead to Quentaris becoming a floating city, drifting through the sky and sucked through rifts into other worlds. Paul Collins and Michael Pryor continue as series editors and as with the first series, there will be a number of authors contributing.
Tab Vidler is an orphan who doesn’t really know her past. She lives in an orphanage and works with the Dung Brigaders cleaning the streets of, well, dung. But this is changed when she is recruited to attempt the theft of a valuable gem from the magician’s guild.
One things leads to another and the whole city of Quentaris is wrenched from the ground and becomes something like a huge ship floating in the sky. The same thing happens to the city of Tolrush, their arch enemies. The rest of the book sees them settle in to their new life, face attacks from Tolrush, and drift through a vortex into another world in time for the next book.
The first series of Quentaris was really good, and I can see that continuing with these books. They are easy to read, include a good amount of action, and are written by good, established authors. The bonus is that you really don;t have to read them in order. If you have a choice, I’d probably end towards published order, but each story does tend to stand well enough by itself.
There is also a Quentaris website which includes a couple of short stories that fill i some of the back story to The spell of undoing.
