{"id":11358,"date":"2026-09-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=11358"},"modified":"2026-08-31T23:45:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T03:45:53","slug":"the-incandescent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/01\/the-incandescent\/","title":{"rendered":"The Incandescent."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stories set in magic school have become commonplace to the point of clich\u00e9; unless the author is willing to take the story in a new direction, like weaving parody into a genuine story (Lev Grossman\u2019s The Magicians<\/a><\/em>), the work is going to suffer from comparisons to the very popular books in the space, including those by she-who-must-not-be named. In The Incandescent<\/a><\/em>, Emily Tesh takes a different tack by setting her novel at a magic school, in an alternate-world England where magic is just part of normal life, while making her protagonist one of the teachers, as well as making at least two more significant plot decisions that set this delightful book apart from its peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Incandescent<\/em>, Saffy Walden is a senior teacher who works primarily with some of the oldest and most advanced students at Chetwood School, a day and boarding school outside of London where Walden herself was a student twenty years previously. One of her academic and practical specialties is dealing with higher-order demons \u2013 most magicians can handle the lower-order imps who love to occupy electronic devices like photocopiers or even wall clocks, but Walden is one of the few magicians in the world who can handle the most difficult, higher-order demons, which may turn out to be significant. And since Chetwood is full of young magicians learning to harness their powers, it attracts many demons trying to break through from their plane into ours, including a very powerful one nicknamed Old Faithful who has killed some students in the past. The threat of Old Faithful leads the school to bring in a Marshal, a sort of magical security agent, named Laura Kenning, who immediately rubs Walden the wrong way, so you can probably see where that\u2019s going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of The Incandescent<\/em> has multiple peaks, so if you were wondering, say, if the whole novel was heading towards a denouement where Walden fights Old Faithful, you may be surprised when the demon shows up before the book\u2019s midpoint. It\u2019s misdirection by adventure, as every subplot is interesting and intense, but Tesh\u2019s ultimate goal won\u2019t be apparent until quite close to the novel\u2019s end, when she finally reveals where all of this has been going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n