Rating: 
Summary: Trudi Canavan is definately worth your time!
Review: As i live in Australia i have read and enjoyed all three of her books. I have been trying out new Sci-fi/Fantasy authors for awhile and i am usually dissapointed so it was a very nice suprise to find myself really enjoying the TBM trilogy. I even found myself staying up till 4:30 in the moning to finish the last book.My only complaint is that the third book could have had a better ending, which is the reason i gave 4 stars instead of 5. It was rushed and left me with unansered questions plus i would have liked a better outcome for Akkarin. I'm really looking forward to more books from Trudi Canavan. :o)
Rating: 
Summary: Big miss
Review: Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy trilogies. But this was dreadful: trite, boring, poorly written. The characterization is lamentably bad. A big disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, plain and simple.
Review: I actually really enoyed this book. It hasn't gotten stellar reviews, but this can really be a fun book to read. I think the problem many people are finding is that the book is unpretentious. A lot of fantasy/sci-fi books come off very complex and involved, with names of people and places you can't pronounce. And while you're trying to remember who is who of the unpronounceable names, you've got to climb your way through a couple hundred years of foreign politics. What Trudi gives you is a good book, a good plot, and characters that you can see are still developing- as it should be in any series. I've read the second book in the series and it only gets better. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a good fantasy read and just that.
Rating: 
Summary: Raw and Needs Editing
Review: I agree with the opinion of other reviewers that "The Magician's Guild" lacks enough material to make for a book (and the rest of the story is not enough to make a trilogy). This work is, and reads like, a first-time novel for a debuting author. Canavan has restricted herself to staying within the generally accepted and widely used boundaries of fantasy work: medievalism, magicians and thieves.
The story is a coming-of-age of Sonea, a slum girl who accidentally unleashes her magical powers when she and a group of friends try to obstruct the work of the Magician's Guild who are purging all the poor from the city. They throw rocks that bounce off the invisible barrier held up by the magicians. Except that Sonea's rock gets through when she wills it to, and strikes the temple of Lord Fergun.
Mass confusion ensues among the magicians, and they end up accidentally killing a boy standing near Sonea. Sonea herself is confused by what's happened to her. She runs and hides from the magicians who have identified her magical potential. The problem is, the longer she hides, the less controllable her magic becomes and the more destruction she creates to those around her. Even the Thieves are unable to protect her. Inevitably, Sonea ends up at the Magician's Guild.
The book tells the tale of how Sonea ends up at the Guild, and her apprenticeship. The plot focuses around the High Lord (the one that rules the Guild), whom Sonea accidentally observes practicing black magic. She and a few others who know about this, lie in wait but know that eventually they must do something about the High Lord. Meanwhile, Sonea is often troubled by Regis, a school bully, since she is the only slum girl in a school full of upper class students.
The details of Sonea's tough existence, frankly, are boring. This book comes in two parts, but in my opinion, they needed to be edited down to a quarter of a book. Books two and three could have formed the rest of the book. As one piece, the work would have been snazzy, snappy and sweet. As a trilogy, it is drawn out and somewhat stilted, suffering from too much information of banal aspects of the characters' lives that are of no interest to the reader.
However, it does have its merits. This book might interest some younger readers or those whose interest in fantasy are exclusively to magic. Once into the story, it becomes easier to ignore the glaring rawness of the writing. Happily, Canavan obviously becomes more comfortable with her characters, and the second and third book flow more easily than this one, although trite details still poke through excessively. The story, nevertheless, becomes more interesting, and because of this, it deserves three starts.
Rating: 
Summary: Unfinishable
Review: I have to admit at the outset that I haven't finished the book. I read the first 70 pages or so, hoping that it would get interesting, but it hasn't. The characters are bland and nearly identical; I had an extremely hard time telling them apart. The dialogue tends to do the bare minimum job of conveying plot information without having much wit or spark. Plot, magic system, and setting alike seemed disappointingly generic. Avoid.
Rating:
Summary: Great story, despite a slow start...
Review: I read TONS of fantasy books - ranging from George R. R. Martin to Stephen King. Having read Martin's books, finding GOOD, grown-up fantasy novels has been a chore. The Magician's Guild, Book One, started off a little slow as the characters and plot was introduced in great detail. Once a couple of chapters go by, the action begins and the lead character, Sonea, is running from house to house, fearing for her life. By the end of the book, I found myself eager for more. I opened the wallet and very eagerly paid for the next two books. Great story, I highly recommend it. -- Anthony (and Danielle)
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!!!
Review: I took a chance on an author I have never heard of and man oh man am I glad that I did! The first book in this trilogy has well drawn characters, rich story line and her imagry is superb. I have not run across a new author that I have liked so well in a long time. I highly recommend that you pick this book up and be prepared to not put it down until the last page. I do, however, suggest that you go to the back of the book first and read Lord Dannyl's slang terms so that you are not lost when certain terms are used and you are left piecing together what you think the characters really meant. Other than that?? Sit down and read this book and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Formulaic and disappointing
Review: I wish I had gotten this from the library instead of paying money for it. Formulaic, boring, predictable, and downright dumb in the end. There's much better fiction elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Slower than syrup in January flowing up hill ...
Review: I'm on page 315 of 365 and have kept reading because I'm stubborn. I also kept thinking, "something's got to happen." Unfortunately, it never did. With all the good fantasy out there, please don't make the mistake of starting this trilogy. I was constantly asking myself, "where is this going?" Maybe that will be answered in the last 50 pages, but come on, what's up with making me wade through 315 pages with no real goal or direction? Sad, sad, sad. Very mundane, vanilla fantasy. This book adds nothing new, unique or exciting to the genre. If you're looking for good fantasy, read the Fionavor Tapestry trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay, anything by Salvatore, Illium by Dan Simmons was wonderful and unique (Sci-Fi that reads like fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: What a charming book!
Review: I've read so many fantasy novels lately that I'm on the run for new authors...I'm so glad I found Trudi Canavan! This book just flew, and left me panting for the next. Sonea is a slum girl who, accidentaly during the yearly 'purge' of unwanted poor folk from her city, throws a rock at a magician and breaks through the barrier. This sends both the slums and the Magicians into chaos as Sonea seeks to control her new found powers and hide from the magicians and the magicians squabble amoung themselves about what to do about this. They never test people from the slums for magic. A good half of the book is this cat and mouse chase between Sonea and her allies and the magicians...and the rest...well I won't give the plot away. Canavan is excellant at creating characters. Sonea is vivid in her terror and her stuborness and the loyalty of her friend Cery is touching. The Thief she hides with for a while is an intriuginig character as is the head of the Magicians, Akkarin. There are good magicians and not so good ones, but they are all so colourfully created that I know them well in my mind. Her two most central magicians, Rothen and Dannyl, so remind me of excentric proffessors at a universit...they certainly made me smile. In anycase, this is a charming, wonderful book. I would highly recommend it to anyone.
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