It’s time once again to go Tough Travelling with Fantasy Faction,  On the first day of each month, with a pre arranged theme in mind, we will all come up with out own individual selection of books that take us travelling through the tropes of fantasy.  This month’s theme:

The Tough Guide defines an ADEPT as ‘one who has taken what amounts to a Post-graduate course in Magic. If a Magic User is given this title, you can be sure he/she is fairly hot stuff. However, the title is neutral and does not imply that the Adept is either Good or Evil.’

Granualle – is the initiate of Atticus in The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne.

Yelena – starts the series sentenced to death, becomes a food taster and then discovers she has magical ability and goes to school to train.  Maria Snyder’s Study books.

Tiffany Aching – a young wee witch, friend to the Wee Free Men and highly entertaining to read about.  Terry Pratchett.

Shallan Davar of Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings.  A young woman of strange magical ability who becomes apprentice to Jasnah Kholin.

Tonmerion Hark is a young boy, sent to live with his aunt after his father is murdered.  He discovers that he has a strange inheritance – blood magic.  Probably a bit of a cheat this one but I figured that Merion’s aunt was teaching him the ways of his magic so I’d have it on my list.  Bloodrush by Ben Galley.

Nona – I had to have Nona on the list.  Mark Lawrence’s Red Sister – Nona becomes an adept at the Convent of Sweet Mercy – where she learns the way of the assassin – but there is so much more to Nona.

Now, dare I mention Harry Potter?

Finally – next month:

STRONGHOLDS.

The Tough Guide offers information on various kinds of fantasy strongholds. For example,  you might be looking for CASTLES, complete with ‘frowning battlements, slit windows and multiple defensible spiral stairways inside’ and which ‘occasionally adorn the heights for pictorial effect’. Or perhaps TOWERS, which ‘stand alone in WASTE AREAS and almost always belong to wizards.’ Towers are often ‘several storeys high, round, doorless, virtually windowless, and composed of smooth blocks of masonry that make them very hard to climb. The Rule is that there is also a strong no-entry SPELL, often backed up by a guardian DEMON.’