Magnetic Magic (Final Retrospective, Part 3) - Worldbuilding
Hello, all. Welcome back to our Retrospective series for Magnetic Magic.
This part will exclusively focus on the worldbuilding across the series. If you’d like to read by breakdown of the series-wide plot arcs, please see Part 1, while a discussion of the characters can be found in Part 2. If you’re all caught up (or don’t really care about those parts), let’s dive right into it.
STATS
Series: Magnetic Magic
Author(s): Lindsay Buroker
Genre: Fantasy (Urban)
First Printing: January 2025 through August 2025
Publisher: Self-published to Amazon
Overall Series Rating: 6.5 / 10
SPOILER WARNING
Heavy, unmarked spoilers will be provided for the entirety of the Magnetic Magic series. I’m also going to assume that you’ve already read my reviews for the individual books.
TERMINOLOGY
The names of the books in this series are all rather similar, so we’ll be abbreviating them as follows.
Way of the Wolf (Book 1) = Way
Relics of the Wolf (Book 2) = Relics
Kin of the Wolf (Book 3) = Kin
Quest of the Wolf (Book 4) = Quest
Curse of the Wolf (Book 5) = Curse
Triumph of the Wolf (Book 6) = Triumph
Also, I will be referring to the werewolves in this setting who are capable of assuming a half-human, half-wolf form as “hybrids”.
WEREWOLVES
Every conflict in this series in directly or indirectly tied to the werewolves. There were the most important thing for Buroker to get right. So: how did she do?
I’d say she did very well. I’m hardly an afficionado of werewolf lore, and based on my exposure to wider werewolf pop culture, I can’t claim that what she did was groundbreaking. Still, she sets consistent rules and sticks to them. That’s one of the most important things for any Fantasy to work.
Shapeshifting Rules
Up-front, we are told that werewolves feel a call to transform during the full moon, when their magic is strongest, but that the transformation can be triggered during times of heightened emotion or danger.
On the matter of clothing, other worn objects, or held items being destroyed during the transformation, while I have issues with how Buroker employed these mechanics, the only reason I’m able to have an issue in the first place is because Buroker is acknowledging and paying off the consequences of the rules she set.
The nakedness gimmick, while usually being played for sexual tension between Luna and Duncan for, “Oops! I’ve been caught naked,” moments that read like exhibitionist fantasies, can only be employed because circumstances of the plot force transformations at inconvenient moments. The gimmick rests purely in the framing of the nudity after the consequence has taken effect. Buroker is not breaking her narrative to create these situations, merely working with situations that flow naturally from the story being told.
The fact Luna’s phone keeps surviving her transformations by slipping out of her hand (and at least once from her pocket, if I remember correctly) at the last second is farcical. However, I’m only about to complain about that because Buroker paid attention. As best I can recall, every single time that Luna didn’t have time to remove her clothing and safely store her phone before transforming, Buroker remembered to tell us how the phone survived. It’s a dumb contrivance that ultimately shows that Buroker thinks through the consequences of her scenes.
Wolf Traits
A werewolf in wolf form displays the intelligence of a natural wolf. Even the hybrids (more on them in a moment) are mostly animalistic. Something I haven’t covered over the reviews of the individual books is that Buroker supports this through narrative voice. Whenever Luna transforms into wolf form, she mostly forgets the names or people around her or the details of what she’s doing or why. Her entire thought process is reduced to biological urges like feeding, defeating enemies, and reproduction. There are a few odd moments where she remembers things she theoretically shouldn’t, yet this never compromises the scene in question. At worst, it reads like a minor editing mistake.
Werewolves are more resilient and heal more quickly than natural wolves, and these traits carry over to their human forms. This includes things like more graceful aging and a longer fertility window. A werewolf in human form also benefits from enhanced strength, stamina, and senses. “Enchanted” silver compromises these traits. We never get a clear explanation of why that is, whether normal silver would have this trait, or what the enchantments are, but again, consistency compensates for this. Enchanted silver is consistently treated as a genuine threat whenever it appears in the story.
Hybrids
I’m a bit more mixed on the handling of hybrids in this series, though in this case, it’s less an issue of lore and more an issue of execution.
Hybrids have faded from this setting do to diminishing magic in the world. We are also told, as early as Way, that a union of human and werewolf will only product human offspring. There are also magical relics that can grant a human physical prowess to revival a werewolf in human form (at least, if the human in question is the child of a werewolf). What this all implies is that the weakening of werewolves and loss of hybrids over time is due to external factors, rather than the werewolf bloodlines being watered down be intermarriage.
I’ve already picked at the idea that Duncan can somehow be a hybrid just because he’s cloned from old genetic material back in the review of Relics. What I haven’t covered, though, is Buroker not paying off lore she set up.
See, early in the series, Buroker leans pretty heavily into the idea that Luna is a latent hybrid. The main reason Luna’s mother wants Luna to return to the pack and assume ownership of the pack’s secret relic is because she hopes that Luna’s magical potential, coupled with said relic, will transform her into a hybrid. This is doubled down upon when Luna’s mother comments on Duncan strengthening the pack.
The setup is clear: Luna will become a hybrid by the end of the series.
Only … that never happens. The setup is never paid off.
Luna does indeed inherit the magic of the pack relic (such that it is). She and Duncan even have their relationship (or, at least, their having sweaty, animalistic sex to conceive a child) blessed by the magic of the pack’s sacred site. With the established rules, it really seems like Luna should have been able transform into a hybrid at the end, at least in the climax. It’s just it never happens.
In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal. It’s just that this is a series that is usually very good about consistent execution of the werewolf magic. This is a rather glaring inconsistency in otherwise solid lore.
URBAN FANTASY
All right, that’s the werewolves. What’s up with the rest of the setting?
How is any of this secret?
This is honestly the weakest point of this world’s lore.
At first glance, the answer to this question sits in the same hazy area as most Urban Fantasy stories do. It’s easy to write off strange disappearances as the work of natural phenomena rather than supernatural ones, evidence of the supernatural gets easier and easier to fake (and, thus, easier for the public to dismiss) as technology advances, and sometimes people don’t just believe the evidence.
The problem is that, throughout the series, Luna and other supernatural individuals are exposed multiple times, to various parties of people.
She transforms in broad daylight, at her own apartment complex, multiple times.
In Kin, she transforms in a convenience store during a robbery, where she is not only seen by the robbers but also caught on camera.
In Curse, she and Izzy fight in wolf form while in a room that is fully visible to a party full of local elites. Yes, the door is closed for most of the fight, but the partygoers hear the fight, and they are witness to sudden nudity of at least Luna in the aftermath.
The robbers from Kin are part of a gang that knows exactly where she lives, and the whole gang sees werewolf transformation in action by the end of Curse.
At least one cop, Dubois, not only sees Luna in wolf form but recognizes Luna’s eyes.
Luna’s son - and, perhaps more importantly, his friends - get front-row seats to the supernatural when Radomir holds them hostage in Quest.
Chad is aware of Luna’s true nature, and when he is aiding a developer in trying to steal Luna’s pack’s land, he makes a big deal about the werewolves that supposedly live in the area. The developers are getting fed this information while also being chased off the land once by a pack of wolves and have their cars trashed by a hybrid (who, even if they didn’t see Duncan, they would see the damage) in another instance.
All of these incidents surround a small number of supernatural individuals in the span of a couple of months. Extrapolate this out across all supernatural individuals that are supposedly living in and around metropolitan areas. Add into the mix that humans can indeed sense the supernatural, such as how Rue’s neighbors all knows that she’s involved with something unwholesome to humanity or how those wizards in Triumph lost business because the ghost hunters exposed them. On top of that, this story is set in the modern era, when identity politics would surely inspire some of these supernatural groups to seek public recognition and protection.
After reading the series through to the end, I’m convinced that the only reason the wider world isn’t fully aware that the supernatural is real is because everyone exposed to the supernatural collectively agrees to not tell anyone else.
The Can of Worms
In the review of Relics and Kin, I analyzed the fact that Buroker opened the door for the supernatural to be the literal products of Hell without ever properly closing the door on that possibility. While this stood out to me in the moment, the fact that she let the idea fade into the background mitigates the issue. I still think that raising the question without properly answering it was a mistake, but it ultimately doesn’t produce the mess that I’d worried it would. The issue is confined entirely to the perceptions of characters, rather than any confirmed objective reality of the setting.
That said, there is a can of worms that does link to the objective reality of the setting: dragons.
In Relics, we are told that dragons are the source of magic. Who are these dragons? Where did they come from? Why did they not stick around? We get no answers for this. This isn’t something that can be handwaved to the idea of all stories being true - that would only cover dragons that can be killed by humans (i.e. the dragons seen in stories). What Buroker has effectively introduced here are gods who showed up, changed the world from our own without triggering any historic divergence, and then vanished. This isn’t something one can casually mention and then forget about.
If Buroker ever does a sequel or spinoff series in this setting, I sincerely hope she explains the dragon situation. This is a question that demands some sort of answer, even if it’s only a vague one.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE SETTING
I’m not generally a fan of Urban Fantasy setting. Still, I think this this one is quite solid. Outside of a few oddities, Buroker sets clear rules, plays them consistently, and follows through on consequences. That’s a dying art in the modern Fantasy landscape.
CLOSING ARGUMENTS
Next Wednesday, March 4th, we’ll wrap up this retrospective with a review of the Romance and the Themes. These will be quick discussions. While I have my issues with the execution of both, the series was mostly functional in these aspects.
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Volume I of my first serialized Romantasy novel, A Chime for These Hallowed Bones, is now premiering over in Tales of the Five Worlds!
Kabarāhira is a city of necromancers, and among these necromancers, none are more honorable or respected than Master Japjot Baig. Yadleen has worked under him since she was a girl, learning how commune with bhūtas and how to bind these ancient spirits into wights. Her orderly world is disrupted, however, when a stranger appears with the skeleton of a dishonored woman, demanding that her master fabricate a wight for him.
To protect her master from scandal, Yadleen must take it upon herself to meet this stranger’s demands. Manipulating the dead is within her power, but can honor survive in the face of a man who has none?
Chapters 1 through 6 are now available! I hope you’ll join me on this new adventure.
