Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Deadly Education | 2020 | Naomi Novik | Buy |
| 2 | The Last Graduate | 2021 | Naomi Novik | Buy |
| 3 | The Golden Enclaves | 2022 | Naomi Novik | Buy |
The Scholomance is a school for wizards with no teachers, no holidays, and no way out until graduation. Monsters called maleficaria infest the building, picking off students in hallways, bathrooms, and cafeterias. The school was built to protect young wizards from the even worse dangers outside, but the mortality rate is still around 25 percent. Graduation day is the deadliest part.
El Higgins is a student with an affinity for mass destruction. Her spells tend toward apocalyptic power. She could wipe out entire armies. The prophecy says she’ll destroy the enclaves, the protected communities where wizards live. She’s trying very hard to be a good person instead. It’s not easy when everyone assumes she’s a future dark lord.
Naomi Novik had already written the Temeraire series (nine novels of Napoleonic Wars with dragons) and the standalone Uprooted and Spinning Silver before starting the Scholomance. The trilogy is told in El’s voice, which is sharp, angry, and frequently funny. Novik built the school as a closed system with its own ecology. The monsters, the mana economy, the social hierarchies among students from different enclaves all follow internal logic.
The series deals with class, privilege, and how institutions distribute resources. Enclave kids have better supplies and allies. Indie kids, like El, survive on scraps. The books question whether the system is worth preserving. Novik completed the trilogy in 2022.