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  "path": "/~eagle/reviews/books/1-917849-15-X.html",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-30T03:59:24.103Z",
  "site": "https://www.eyrie.org",
  "tags": [
    "Whatever blog",
    "didn't go that well",
    "introduction to the story",
    "Hench"
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  "textContent": "Review: The Cloak and Its Wizard, by R.Z. Nicolet\n\nPublisher: | UpLit Press\n---|---\nCopyright: | February 2026\nISBN: | 1-917849-15-X\nFormat: | Kindle\nPages: | 423\n\nThe Cloak and Its Wizard is a standalone (at least so far) urban fantasy superhero (sort of) novel. R.Z. Nicolet is the marketing pseudonym for Rachel Reddick. This is her first novel.\n\n> I'm picky about wizards.\n>\n> The wizards themselves will complain about that, but of course I'm picky. When I choose a wizard, barring utter abandonment of moral scruples, it's a till-death-do-us-part situation. (Their death, not mine. I'm the next best thing to indestructible.)\n\nThe Cloak of Sunset and Starlight is a major artifact, meaning that it has its own preferences and is capable of independent action. It has been sitting in a glass case in the wizards' library for about a hundred years, waiting for someone interesting. (Well, mostly sitting. Occasionally it sneaks out to eavesdrop or move the books around.)\n\nVeronica Noble is interesting. She's older than most initiates, thoughtful, observant, and clearly had some mundane career before joining the Order. Her aura is appealing, and her mental shields and resistance to influence are intriguing. Normally, the Cloak would take its time investigating a new potential wizard, but the Sword was making thoughtful rattling sounds, and no way is the Cloak going to let the Sword claim her first. Time to choose a new wizard!\n\n> It was nice, being draped over warm shoulders, and feeling a heartbeat again.\n>\n> I could tell she closed her eyes without even looking.\n>\n> She sighed. \"I just got picked by the intransigent one, didn't I?\"\n\nThe last time I picked a book from the Big Idea feature in Scalzi's Whatever blog, it didn't go that well, but if you're going to write a book specifically for me, I'm going to read it. There are very few tropes of SFF that I love more than intelligent companion objects, and Nicolet's introduction to the story was compelling. So I gave this book discovery method another chance.\n\nI'm glad I did, because this was exactly what I was in the mood for and a delight from cover to cover.\n\nVeronica Noble is not a typical wizard. She's a surgeon and was quite happy to be a surgeon until an unexpected encounter with a magical creature killed her brother. The forgetting spell that the wizards who came to handle the Cassandra wyrm didn't work on her, so she was dragged reluctantly into the secret magical world of the Order. This long-lived society of wizards quietly defends the world against magical intrusions from other planes of existence. Now she's a wizard with a magical cloak, which she is not at all sure she wants.\n\nVeronica is not the protagonist, though. The Cloak of Sunset and Starlight is. As far as it is concerned, its job is to assist its wizard, enjoy watching interesting feats of magic, and look fabulous doing so. It's protective, dramatic, rather vain, endlessly curious, easily bored, and intensely loyal. When it becomes clear that the Order has some serious problems, the Cloak knows what side it's on.\n\nThis sounds a bit like urban fantasy, so I was surprised when the first superheroes showed up, although given the explicit Doctor Strange inspiration I probably should have expected them. The Order and the superheroes do not mix, at least at the start of the novel. The wizards view the superheroes as a loud and irritating intrusion and hide magical activities from them the same as they do the rest of the world. Veronica's opening opinion on superheroes is based on being a trauma surgeon in a hospital dealing with the aftermath of their fights (which makes me wonder if the author has read Hench, although the idea is older than that book). As with the Order, the role of superheroes in this world gets more complicated as the plot develops.\n\nThere is a surprising amount of plot and some very nice world-building here, including multiple twists that I was not expecting. Veronica is the sort of stubborn and deeply ethical person who will not leave a problem alone if she has the ability to fix it, which is a good recipe for getting deeper and deeper into a complex plot. She's believable as a surgeon: somewhat taciturn, calm in emergencies, detail-oriented, methodical, and not at all dramatic. This makes the Cloak a perfect foil and complement. Watching their partnership develop was very satisfying.\n\nThis is a sidekick novel, and like the best sidekick novels it makes the not-protagonist more interesting and more relatable by showing them from an outside and skewed perspective. Piecing together what Veronica must be thinking is part of the fun, as is sharing the Cloak's protectiveness towards her as it becomes clear how much she's been through and how good of a person she is. The Cloak's personality was a little too much like a cat for me — I would have preferred a more unique viewpoint, fewer cat-coded shenanigans, and a bit less of the running laundry machine joke. But that's a quibble. Its endless curiosity drives the plot forward and uncovers more of the world-building, and I just love reading stories from the perspective of this sort of loyal and protective magical creature.\n\nI had so much fun with this book. It's a popcorn sort of book, and I thought the ending sputtered a little, but overall it was great. Parts of it could have been designed in a lab to appeal to me specifically, so I'm not sure if other people will enjoy it as much, but its hit rate with my friends so far has been good.\n\nHighly recommended, and I will be watching for any further novels from Nicolet.\n\nThe Cloak and Its Wizard reaches a satisfying conclusion and doesn't advertise itself as part of a series, but there is room for a sequel. If Nicolet ever writes one, I'd read it.\n\nRating: 8 out of 10",
  "title": "Russ Allbery: Review: The Cloak and Its Wizard",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-30T02:46:00.000Z"
}