Review by Ian Keogh

Jax Epoch is to most intents and purposes an ordinary teenage girl. She does well at high school, gets on with her mother and has a boyfriend she puts up with despite his unsatisfactory nature. Her escapism has always been fantasy and in a resolutely science-based world she still believes in magic. It turns out she has a point. Jax takes a tumble through an inter-dimenstional portal, and while there borrows an ancient book and magical armour before finding her way home.

Dave Roman characterises Jax well. She’s easily understood from her narrative captions, likeable and perhaps uniquely qualified not to freak out with what happens to her and to cope with how her world changes. Roman moves that on rapidly, with the appearance of a dragon in the city, experimentation with what Jax has acquired and the appearance of some scientific researchers who prompt the larger plot. Frequent insertion of childhood incidents is an enjoyable touch while reinforcing Jax’s curious personality.

It’s rare an artist as good as John Green is seen on a project by relative newcomers, but that talent is why he’s gone on to become the creative brain behind the great all-ages series InvestiGators. There’s an innate talent for laying out a story clearly while also maximising the possibilities, and the cast that count are easily differentiated. The more interchangeable folk are identified via clothing or accessories. The plot smushing together reality, fantasy and SF requires adaptability, and so Jax following a rabbit around what looks like the corridors of Wolfenstein is conveyed as strange, but understood.

Despite the authorial confidence, some aspects of Borrowed Magic do betray new creators, and darker events toward the end might have been better meshed with cheery adventure of the earlier chapters. Also, given as it forms part of the title, there’s precious little explanation of the Quicken Forbidden. There’s a brave ending to this volume, though, as Jax realises events have spun beyond her control or capability to handle. As Separation Anxiety continues her story it’s presumably only a temporary loss of confidence.

A colour version of Borrowed Magic has been archived online.