The Sorcerer's Academy

ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY DENISE LITTLE

This is a book about a school for students with magical powers.
No, no, not that school for students with magical powers ....
This school is set in Sedona, Arizona.

The Sorcerer's Academy is an anthology of 15 stories. It leads off with the arrival at "Sorcerer U" of three students in particular: Janice Rosa Redding, from New York; Barry Silverhorse, born on a Dine reservation in Arizona, but raised by an aunt in Los Angeles after being orphaned at 6, and Matt Johnson, of Dallas, Texas (where Sedona is known as the "Land of the Wild Woowoos," because of its apparently hefty collection of "New Agers, Crystal Worshippers and Tree Huggers."

The original three students are supplemented by others in the various stories and the authors have used the opportunity to bring in an international staff and multicultural curriculum (Slavic Sorcery, Oriental Sorcery, Totem Animals of North America). There is a student who is not what she seems and a parrot who is not what it seems.
Oh, and although electronics are highly sensitive to magic and must have protective wards, renewable weekly, there is also a course called Cyber-Magic. Where do I sign up?
The students come across as very realistic: they are by turns anxious and stubborn, frightened but determined to do what needs to be done ... they occasionally blow up sections of the school and have school dances at which one student berates another for dating a vampire ... okay, so maybe those last bits aren't all that realistic ....

I could have done with a little less realism in the case of one of student. Silva (we never learn her last name), who has a massive crush on a popular singer, constantly uses "so" as an emphasizer: "He just soooooooo deserves it." "It'd have been soooooooo worth it." "I soooooooo totally understand him."

I wanted to hit her with a silence hex until she learned some new adjectives and adverbs (or any at all, since "so" is neither). That aside, however, the story is still engaging ... she has dreams about meeting her idol but why do they cause her to scream half the dorm awake -- especially when she can't recall anything even remotely unpleasant about the dreams?

And the first story ends on a note of mystery: a shadowy room, peopled -- if that is the right word -- with beings who are particularly interested in the trio in the first story. Who are they? Do they wish the students well or are they malevolent? Their interest could be read both ways.

Add to that the fact the head of the school is named David Reynard ... and Reynard the Fox was medieval Europe's trickster figure ...

I have to add that I was mildly annoyed by the introduction, a segment of which came across as both smug and jingoistic. It is, however, a small gripe, and did not at all affect my enjoyment of the stories.