EMILY TESH The Incandescent. Reviewed by Robert Goodman

Emily Tesh’s magical fantasy is as much about the art of teaching as it is about dealing with demons.

There are so many magical academy books now that they have become a definable sub-genre. While the first fantasy book to feature a magic school was Ursula K Le Guin’s The Wizard of Earthsea in 1968, the current trend can clearly be traced back to the Harry Potter series. Since then there has been a flood of books about magic schools, dragonriding schools, vampire schools and so on. The majority of books in this sub-genre are pitched at the YA market and are about children and young adults surviving school and its strictures – in particular, in spite of the adults that inhabit it.

Thankfully, for those of us who have grown up, there is now a corner of this sub-genre that is pitched at adults. Lev Grossman’s Magician series started this more mature trend, and since then we have also had Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House – a dark journey into the ancient student societies of Yale. In her new novel The Incandescent, Hugo winner (and clearly: teacher) Emily Tesh flips the script a little further. This is a magical-school novel in which the protagonist is a head teacher and the secret to defeating the demons that threaten her school is being a great teacher.

When The Incandescent opens, Dr Saffy Walden, Director of Magic at the prestigious Chetwood school in the UK, is writing up a risk assessment for a demon-summoning practical that she is conducting with her A-level class the next day. Even here, Tesh is more interested in the universal mechanics of school bureaucracy than the fantasy aspects of this task:

It was supposed to lead you gently, bullet point by bullet point, through every enormously dangerous and dim thing your students might decide to do … There was a colourful box at the bottom with a quick banishment cantrip, a basic shielding charm, and the extension number for the infirmary.

Everyone hated it. Even Walden hated it. The last thing you wanted to do at ten o’clock at night when you were teaching first thing tomorrow was fill in the bloody risk assessment.

Unfortunately, being senior management meant you had to stick to your own procedures or live with the knowledge that you were an unspeakable hypocrite.

That practical, and the consequences of it, will echo through the rest of the book. Chetwood, an exclusive private school, is a magnet for demons attracted by the use of magic. Most of them are small and manageable and live in the school’s electronics, but there are bigger, more dangerous creatures in a shadowy other world that are summoned and used for their power, and these can be extremely dangerous:

‘Teenage magicians attract demons. A beginner is a natural target for a magical predator, and a child beginner more so – all that power, none of the common sense. Teenage magicians without protection, without any adult support get eaten by demons.’

Saffy’s job is not just to teach the students at Chetwood but to keep them safe, a job that is made increasingly difficult by school bureaucracy, failing ancient protections, or, potentially, something mysterious and more sinister.

Saffy Walden is a great central character to carry this story. In some ways she epitomises the trap for teachers – educated at Chetwood, scarred by her experiences there as a teenager, but back as a teacher, she carries that history with her:

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in work-life balance. It was just that her career was her life.

As a result, Saffy is an amazing teacher but is not so good at other parts of life, such as romance or relationships. Her belief in the protection that her knowledge provides is a blind spot and her journey in this story is a unique and fascinating one.

Tesh is just as interested in the art and magic of the teaching profession as she is in the world of demons. There is plenty of commentary about how best to relate to teenagers in a way that makes them want to learn, and about what makes a good teacher. There is a whole chapter where Walden is required, despite her reticence, to give careers advice. Here is just one example of the many observations:

After all, there were very few surprises involved in good teaching. Different people had different styles, but the fundamentals were consistent across all age groups, across disciplines, across all different types of schools: Know your students and Know your subject.

But Tesh is also interested in interrogating the whole private school system in the UK (reflected very much in the Australian education system). And, in particular, the role of expensive boarding schools like Chetwood in the educational ecosystem and the advantages they give:

Almost no one was paying for magical boarding school because of the magic … The magic was an interesting quirk, a historical curiosity … [A]n elite education was an investment in power. Magic was the least of what you gained at Chetwood. What mattered was the power to walk the walk and talk the talk, to have your resumé picked out of the pile and the interviewer already speaking your language … A few could afford that power. Most could not … You could never completely future-proof your children. But power would keep them safe from the bitter grind of survival in a way that nothing else could.

Tesh also does this through Saffy’s interaction with those who were not academically trained in magic, particularly one of the Marshalls (think: magic police force).

The Incandescent is a great fantasy book with plenty to say about the real world that it is mirroring. Readers will come for the mystery and mayhem and the detailed world-building of a school for magicians that attracts demons. But they may well come away with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the teaching profession and questions about the way education is organised and what it is for.

Emily Tesh The Incandescent Orbit 2025 PB 432pp $34.99

Robert Goodman is an institutionalised public servant and obsessive reader, who won a science fiction short-story competition very early in his career but has found reviewing a better outlet for his skills. He is a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and reviews for a number of other publications – see his website: www.pilebythebed.com

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Tags: boarding schools, demons, education, Emily | Tesh, fantasy fiction, magical academies, teaching