The Magician's Apprentice

The Magician's Apprentice is a slow moving, poorly constructed prequel to Trudi Canavan's Black Magic Trilogy.

While I enjoyed Thief's Magic and Angel of Storms, I found it difficult to finish this book.

Every chapter has a different viewpoint character (the titular apprentice is only one of a dozen) and several are minor or inconsequential characters. 

Nearly every chapter is dominated by the viewpoint character trying to guess what other characters are thinking. While this shows that all the characters are empathic toward each other, it dilutes their personalities and eventually all the characters just kind of blend together, and you often forget who's viewpoint the chapter is supposed to be in. It also drags the story down, making the reader want to jump ahead to the next action scene. 

About two thirds into the book, the author adds a new subplot, which eventually results in the founding of a new city. I'm guessing this subplot was an origin story to some aspect of the Black Magic Trilogy.  (I haven't read those books) But it was unnecessary for the story in the Magician's Apprentice's, and didn't fit with the primary story.

If you're a fan of the Black Magic Trilogy, you might find The Magician's Apprentice a little interesting. But otherwise, don't waste your time.

The Ark

Since the cancellation of Stargate SG-1, the Sci Fi channel's programming has deteriorated considerably. It's gotten so bad that I quit looking at the channel's listings. So I nearly missed The Ark.

Unfortunately, this show's is off to a poor start.

The Premise

The Earth can no longer sustain human life. So mankind builds arks, puts the best and brightest in suspended animation and sends them out to colonize new worlds.

Still a year from their destination, something strikes Ark 1, killing the command crew and forces the junior officers out of suspended animation prematurely. With another year in their journey, little food, little water, and a barely functioning ship, the junior officers have to step up and save themselves. 

Except that the crew, supposedly comprised of Earth's best and brightest young people, immediately devolve into petty high school-like rivalries and arguments over who's in command. The dialog also often contradicts the 'best and brightest' premise. Angus, the chief agriculturalist says he's not a scientist, in spite of having a degree in agricultural science. Alicia, a computer genius who was originally assigned to work in waste management, has to explain basic astrophysics concepts to the new captain and the navigator. 

In the third episode. The ship is in danger of colliding with an asteroid. In spite of the water shortage,  no one asks for an analysis of the asteroid's composition until they see from their window that the asteroid has a tail. This is very bad science. In the real world, even a comet totally composed of ice wouldn't have a tail this far from a star.

The show starts to improve in the seventh episode, where they find Ark 3 disabled and the crew dead, They also discover that in the years since they left Earth, the ark program developed faster than light travel, and the later arks can travel faster than Ark 1. They later find video records showing that Ark 15 had attacked Ark 3, surmise that probably attacked Ark 1, and is racing ahead to their destination. 

The poorly written dialog and all the petty dramas often made me cringe. But each episode so far has ended on a cliff hanger that made me want to watch the next one. And starting with episode 7, each episode has revealed a bit more of a potentially complex fictional universe. This gives the viewer the impression of something bigger come. So in spite of the poor start, this show has potential. I'm going to keep watching, hoping it continues to improve.