2020 fantasy, first of a trilogy. Dr Kira Aist was brought up not to
use magic, because of the attention it would bring; after she breaks
that rule and Bad Things happen, she creates a House that will be a
sanctuary, and travel anywhere she needs it to. After all, Baba Yaga
is an old friend of the family…
It's no compliment to Schwartz to say that this reminded me of
Timothy Ellis's Spacemage series, but the way I mean it is that it
takes the same core idea—someone whose magical power is basically
limited only by their imagination, travelling about and righting
wrongs—and treats it in a vastly more interesting way. Perhaps I
should mention Howl's Moving Castle instead, though Schwartz doesn't
rise to that kind of height; this is much more about the travel, and
about the people picked up along the way.
Kira has very little knowledge of just what she, or the House she has
created, can do, or how these things are done; the House provides
food, but does it create it or just steal it from somewhere? And she
got very little briefing on how to be the sorcerer that she now is,
but revealing that to anyone is likelly to be taken as an admission of
weakness.
It's a bit found-family, but without the same pressure to achieve
things that one would find in other stories; Kira could choose to lock
herself away where nobody could find her for the rest of her extremely
extended life. But she still has a moral sense and feels a need to use
her powers to do good, not just to take what the universe has handed
her.
Very lightweight stuff, and it springs a sudden cliffhanger as it
breaks off in mid-scene, but there's a complex system of multiple
worlds here as well as several sympathetic characters, and I look
forward to reading more.