By Mason Winfield
“I’m a humble wizard,” confides Eric Hawthorn Wood, “next to the ones of fantasy.” Still, he’s as close
to the real thing as you’ll ever get. Set in 2019, The Elven Smith continues the saga of the arcane cold war Wood revived in The Prince of the Air.
A rookie member of a long-lived occult community nicknaming itself “the College,” Wood has a role in a black economy. (“Even wizards need money,” he says.) Wood is a cross-continental security agent who escorts precious and sometimes enchanted artifacts from buyer to seller. The significance of most of his deliveries is “above my pay grade,” he concedes, but his trade is dangerous.
An unusual adventure, this second book of memoirs deep-dives us into mysticism, symbolism, occultism, shamanism, world spirituality, and intrigue.