Drosselmeyer: Curse of the Rat King
Did The Nutcracker need a dark and gritty YA prequel? Yes. Yes it did. And now we have one. Movie score composer, Twitter personality, and author Paul Anderson launches a new trilogy with Drosselmeyer: Curse of the Rat King, the story of a young boy named Fritz, who later becomes the mysterious godfather and wizard whom we later come to know as Drosselmeyer.
Deal alert: On the date of this review, Drosselmeyer: Curse of the Rat King is only $4.99 on Kindle!
The story
In the world of Five Kingdoms, Fritz and his younger brother Franz suffer a Dickensesque existence at Ivanov’s Home for Orphaned Boys. Knowing little of their lives before the orphanage, all Fritz has from their parents is a gold pendant which he keeps carefully hidden. One day, after being imprisoned in a wooden box as punishment, magic erupts from Fritz in a powerful explosion.
Days later he wakes up in a mysterious house full of clocks and under the care of the wizard Boroda. The older man explains that Fritz has snapped, unlocking his magical potential. If he wishes to train under Boroda’s instruction he may. Franz cannot stay. However, Boroda can arrange for Franz’s adoption by a duke, and he will forget everything about his brother. Should Fritz object they will both be sent back to the orphanage.
Fritz reluctantly accepts, and soon finds himself learning both magic and hand-to-hand combat. To Boroda’s surprise, Fritz (a late bloomer as wizards go) is an extraordinarily fast learner. Soon the boy is ready for St. Michael’s, a school where young wizards study side-by-side with the children of the royalty they will later serve. Like all schools, there is an urban legend about a student who died on the school grounds and now haunts the surrounding woods. Unlike most schools, it may not be just a story.
One day Boroda’s house is attacked by a giant ape. Wizard and apprentice barely escape. How the monster found the hidden fortress is another mystery in world filled with questions and deceptions.
Between homework assignments at school and grueling lessons with Boroda, Fritz soon falls in with his other wizard classmates and afoul of the Czar’s son. His trusted ally, Marzi Pan, accidentally lets slip that she and her master were also attacked in their home. A wizard’s house is a closely guarded secret. How did the creatures find them? Who sent them? And most of all, why? When a political assassination strikes, it becomes clear something big and dangerous is looming.
As if that’s not enough, Fritz falls in love with Marzi. And if that isn’t enough to further complicate his life, he’s repeatedly attacked by swarms of evil rats.
The characters
Fritz/Drosselmeyer may start out as a wide-eyed innocent, naive even in his strange circumstances, there is another side to the boy. As tensions rise Fritz discovers a side of himself that is iron strong, but chilling to the reader.
Boroda is secretive, like any good wizard. At turns he is cruel, deceitful, compassionate, and vulnerable. Through it all, he fights to maintain a steady control in difficult circumstances. The wizard carries a deep wound, which humanizes an already complex character.
Among all of Fritz’s classmates, none is more significant than Miss Marzi Pan. Like Fritz, she is a wizard-in-training with a good heart. She brings out things in Fritz even he never dreamed were there.
The world
This is Victorian style world of kings and czars, rich and poor. Some shopping districts are for magical items and some strictly mundane. There’s no school of wizardry, so students with a magical bent have to learn their academics by day and their dark arts at night.
The politics
For the most part, the Five Kingdoms seem to be autonomous. But there seem to be movements in the shadows that could launch a world war. Thankfully, there are no real-world analogs to distract us. Thompson just wants to tell a good story.
Content warning
Some of the battles get surprisingly graphic, even for a YA novel. Fritz takes a delight in vanquishing rats that Conan the Barbarian would respect. A key plot point also hinges on a homosexual trist. Otherwise, the romance is chaste and the language is tame.
Who is it for?
Longing for more Harry Potter, but wish it had a little more of an edge? This is for you. Perhaps no one was asking for a prequel to The Nutcracker, but sometimes we don’t know what we want until we see it, and this happens to be one of those times.
Why read it?
The characters are what really make the story here. Thompson has built his fantasy world for them, and we are invited to thrill in every new discovery with Fritz on his journey to becoming Drosselmeyer. There have plenty of stories about young orphans going off to school. This is the first one in quite some time to have strong male role models, which is only incidental to the narrative. There’s no agenda here. Just the pure, simple joy of storytelling.