Gooseberry Bluff Community College Of Magic

A wacky, unusual fantasy novel that's a lot of fun to read. Bluff's book features a diverse caste of odd, yet still charming, characters â all thrown together in a sort of community college the magically gifted.If you could take about every fantasy trope, toss in a bunch of eclectic college kids with magical abilities (insert comparisons to Harry Potter here), throw in action, covert operations, youthful angst, and a little bit of the X-Files, you'd get something approaching what Schwartz does in Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic. The book reads better than most indie fantasy â and it's actually a hybrid published novel â starting out as self published but now being published through 47North. The author too is not necessary a strictly indie author â he's been nominated (but didn't win) for a Nebula Award for his short book Superpowers in 2013. While this quirky book is ultimately a pretty good read, there are some major issues that hold the book back. The plot is scattered and jumps around frenetically and many of the characters in the book only seem to exist solely to provide "diversity" so the author can claim such on the book jacket description -- this may or may not be an issue, but I felt the author was trying too hard to create a politically correct novel and it comes off as unconvincing, and frankly, preachy as hell. The ending of the book is rough and not at all subtle.So yes, there are issues with the book, but the good far outweighs the bad here.This is a different sort of fantasy than you are used to, which is quite refreshing. All in all, Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic is a good read and a (former) indie fantasy novel that stands better than most of the indie fiction out there. Yes it's a flawed work with the flaws holding it back from being a great book, but it's still a good read and worth picking up if you want some non-standard fantasy.