Thrilling to see Eugen Bacon’s MAGE OF FOOLS on Tor’s Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for March and April 2022!
Dystopian states can abound with magic just as easily as they can with science. In Eugen Bacon’s novel Mage of Fools, a dictator has made use of uncanny abilities to devastate the environment. The novel’s protagonist must find a way to end their reign using suppressed literature and the possibility of a better life for all.
Tobias Carroll, TOR.COM
Mage of Fools
| In the dystopian world of Mafinga, Jasmin must contend with a dictator’s sorcerer to cleanse the socialist state of its deadly pollution. Mafinga's malevolent king dislikes books and, together with his sorcerer Atari, has collapsed the environment to almost uninhabitable. The sun has killed all the able men, including Jasmin’s husband Godi. But Jasmin has Godi’s secret story machine that tells of a better world, far different from the wastelands of Mafinga. Jasmin’s crime for possessing the machine and its forbidden literature filled with subversive text is punishable by death. Fate grants a cruel reprieve in the service of a childless queen who claims Jasmin’s children as her own. Jasmin is powerless—until she discovers secrets behind the king and his sorcerer. |
