The Enchanter's Counsel by Thalib Razi

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All compasses point to Fridheim, a holy city at the north pole of a spinning, coin-shaped planet called Quatrain. A hundred years after the millennium-long “Old War” between the coin’s faces over its sacred and gemstone-rich rim, the city’s “New Peace” is threatened by earthquakes, extremists, and tensions between its goblin, elf, and dwarf inhabitants. The son of immigrants who run a café in Fridehim’s goblin quarter, Mizan al-Wasati has just graduated with a degree in gemstone enchanting and is determined to prove to himself (and his overbearing parents) that he’s worthy of a job in that prestigious, modern field of magic. But his journey home in search of work and love ends up putting him in the middle of his hometown’s postcolonial politics, a religious feud between mystic traditionalists and violent literalists, an awkward reencounter with his childhood crush – and a strange magical disaster that suddenly falls upon him and his friends to fix. The debut fantasy novel of Sri Lankan American Muslim writer and singer-songwriter Thalib Razi, The Enchanter’s Counsel turns the tropes of the high fantasy genre on their heads (or tails, if you will) and explores a world where East and West literally cannot see eye to eye, where the epics of good versus evil are just biased accounts from a forgotten era, and where people rely on convenient magical devices instead of the power in their bones. Nothing like our world, of course… Turn the pages to find out more!