The Incandescent

Well that was fun. There is some serious politics, and indeed some serious reflection on the profession of teaching, in The Incandescent, but it is by no means as weighty as Some Desperate Glory. What it is, is highly enjoyable.

As you are probably aware, the basic concept behind the book is a school for magicians story told from the point of view of one of the teachers. My school days are a very long way behind me, but kids certainly got up to some dodgy stuff, mostly involving sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. These days things seems to be much more complicated, with kids bringing knives to school, starting OnlyFans accounts and getting recruited by far-right groups from America. Add to that the fact that teachers are no longer allowed to be as cruel as they were in my day, and it has gotta be tough.

Consider now how much more difficult the job of teaching would be if some of your older pupils had the knowledge of how to summon powerful demons, but not power to control them, nor the wisdom to avoid getting possessed. And bearing in mind that a school full of magically gifted children is a literal smorgasbord for demons. Safeguarding, anyone?

Thus is life for Dr. Walden, the Director of Magic at Chetwood, a private school in the south of England where parents with lots of money can send their magically gifted children. There are a few scholarships for children from poorer backgrounds as well, but only those whose gifts are so extreme that they are judged a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Thus Nicola Conway, a Black girl from London whose entire family was wiped out in a demon-related incident when she was just seven.

There are other kids in Walden’s upper sixth Invocation class as well. There’s Aneeta, the sensible and competent daughter of wealthy Indian parents; Will, a rich kid who knows he will fail upwards all his life so can’t be bothered to apply himself; and insecure Matthias, who has been rescued from parents who were religious extremists who abused him terribly.

(I note in passing that the spoiled rich boy in Emberclaw was also called Will. Calling naughty schoolboys William is a bit of a thing in the UK.)

If all of this reminds you a little of a certain school for gifted youngsters in update New York, you would be onto something. Walden teaches at Chetwood for deeply personal reasons, but she is one of the best demonologists in the world. She turned down a job offer from the Pentagon. She has a pet demon, bound into tattoos on her arm. It calls itself Phoenix. You can see where this is going, can’t you. Oh dear.

The other central element of the plot is a love triangle. Walden has to choose between Mark Daubery, a independent Magical Security Consultant employed by the school after a demon attack (and also Will’s uncle), and Laura Kenning, the dashing Chief Marshall (Marshalls being descendants of a mediaeval order of demon-hunting knights who these days do security for places like Chetwood). You can probably tell how that will turn out too.

So yes, it is all quite predictable, but the way in which things play out will keep you reading, especially when things start to go seriously badly wrong for our heroine.

In the meantime Emily Tesh keeps us entertained with bits of fun. Walden is known as Saffy to the rest of the staff. The obvious assumption for anyone from the UK is that her actual name is Saffron, which is both a nod to the cruel naming habits of British parents, and an invocation of the wonderful Absolutely Fabulous sitcom. But you’d be wrong, as I was, if you thought that. Her name is Sapphire. Which brings to mind a very different Joanna Lumley character, gives us a very different sense of Walden’s character, and reminds us of a certain Greek poet from Lesbos.

I also appreciated the scene in which Mark arrives at the school in an Audi, showing off his fancy driving skills. That, I suspect, is intended to bring to mind the outrageous piece of product placement in Avengers: Endgame in which Tony Stark does the same thing in an Audi E-Tron. Which in turn tells us who Tesh would want to play Mark in the film of her book.

Something else worth noting is that the first few chapters are a masterclass in worldbuilding without boring your readers. I particularly liked the chapter in which Walden sits in on a class on magical ethics and the kids get to discuss whether demons are people. Is that relevant to the plot? You bet it is.

It is possible that non-British readers might be a little lost with all the background of the British class system, at which Tesh is poking sharply, but my suspicion is that most of you will have seen and read enough to be almost as familiar with it as we are.

Anyway, I hope most of you will enjoy this book as much as I did. Yes, the plot is predictable, but you read along, nodding to yourself, and thinking, “oh, you did that, of course you did, but I loved the way you did it”.

Title: The Incandescent
By: Emily Tesh
Publisher: Orbit
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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