If there’s one thing I am sure of with Seanan McGuire; if portals are involved, you’re in for a good time. As the reintroduction to novels set into the ever-expanding Magic multiverse, I can’t think of any writers better suited to revisiting Strixhaven than McGuire. Omens of Chaos is a romp in the spirit of stories about school for young witches, wizards and magicians that serves both new readers and anyone eager to discover more about the Blind Eternities.
Eula Blue is a burgeoning shield mage wrestling with her family’s change in fortunes when she is invited to cross the bounds of reality and space to enroll in the prestigious Strixhaven Academy on the plane of Arcavios. To pursue her magical studies, Eula needs to leave her home of New Capenna — a criminally underrated plane of the multiverse and a personal favourite of mine — and leave her family to manage the ire and expectations of the ruling criminal family she had once entrusted her future to. From there, she falls in with the inaugural cohort of extraplanar students brought to Strixhaven from across the multiverse, including a minotaur, a merfolk, granddaughter of a famed planeswalker — a term for someone who can hop between worlds — and the justifiably paranoid scion of a murderous aristocracy. Classes, extracurriculars and spell work abound as Eula tries to find her place in a world where some students would have rather that she stayed on her own plane.
An early concern for any book set in the Blind Eternities is the sheer amount of history, lore, and proper nouns that need to be juggled to serve the game’s well-over thirty years of storytelling. Especially in the stories set at points of convergence between multiple planes, you can get lost in the weeds when every character exists in a tangled web of past relationships and plot details often found on slight square of cardboard. McGuire opts for a less-is-more approach, nodding to pieces of Magic’s history and little gems hidden for fans of the convoluted backstory, without leaving new readers behind. I also never felt like I needed to have my phone nearby, ready to look up esoteric easter eggs, and if there is a chance for future novels, they would be smart to take a similar approach. Again, as North America’s preeminent New Capenna fan, there was plenty to mull over on the machinations of the five families, but other readers don’t need to have a similar fixation.
Though most of the novel is told from Eula’s perspective, you’re treated to chapters from the other extraplanar students, giving you a better insight into their home planes and perspectives on Arcavios. McGuire juggles her cast well, as the plot zips along through the academic calendar as a mystery begins to grow among the students and their reasons for accepting enrollment.
After reading plenty of books in McGuire’s Wayward Children series — another work filled with magical portals and found families — the story of Omen of Chaos felt like an ideal fit. It’s hard to avoid comparisons to Percy Jackson or Potter, though McGuire is reinventing and remarking upon an established tradition rather than aping what made those other series successful. The academy has four distinct houses, though they are expressed through their various forms of magic and what they prize in academia rather being tied to vague, often morally troubling, personality traits.
The four campuses of Strixhaven are fascinating, whether it is the flashy chaotic energy of Prismari or the earthy decay of Witherbloom. Admittedly, I came back to playing Magic: the Gathering shortly after the original Strixhaven set, disregarding it as a less-problematic attempt at Harry Potter, but Omens of Chaos has me eager for the sequel this spring. The idea of four philosophies of magic intertwined at one academy is such an interesting approach rather than the amorphous arcane found in other stories. McGuire gives these schools and their students, even in the brief glimpses you get for some of them, a sense of depth that adds to the mystery and lived-in feeling of Strixhaven.
My one hitch with McGuire’s approach comes in the moments where it feels like she is too aware of the political climate Omens of Chaos is arriving in. Several sections veer into feeling like PSAs or after-school specials on accepting others and their differences, well-intentioned if a bit heavy-handed.
Following the tradition of other magical school stories, this reintroduction to Strixhaven leaves me hoping there is a sophomore year, along with the other potential stories across the Blind Eternities.