To remedy this Captain Quel enlists her first-mate, Dai, to assist her and teach Aza. As Aza discovers later, they also have the ability to transform completely into birds.īut birds are not the only reoccurring theme in Magonia for every bird, there is a song. And Aza, after living among the humans and inhaling poor air, has not developed her song. The Rostrae are humanoid creatures with blue skin and wide black eyes, who work on ships and serve the Magonians. Firstly, Magonians are not the only residents of Magonia-there are also bird-human hybrids called “Rostrae” in Headley’s world.

As someone who dabbles in poetry myself this excited me, as birds have been used over the centuries as metaphors for freedom and flight. And if there is a question of whether she allows a slight tribute to a medieval text to give her fantasy world an ounce of realism, it makes me neither jaded nor suspicious.Īs per the book’s cover, birds are prominent symbols in the book. Headley skillfully manages to incorporate historical texts into Magonia, without being overwhelming or watered-down. Headley’s book mentions other creatures, like bat-sails and squall-whales, which aid in the ships’ flight but of course are not in the Annals. Written in the eighth century, the Annals of Ulster document people’s accounts of ships sailing the skies. Headley introduces medieval Irish texts called the Annals of Ulster by way of her characters.

The reason Aza could not thrive with the humans-or ‘drowners,’ as Magonians call them-was that their air quality was insufficient.Īlthough the fantasy world of Magonia is fictional, there is a historical basis. In Magonia, Aza meets her biological mother, Zal Quel, captain of the ship Amina Pennarum who requires her help to rescue Magonians from starvation. After she “succumbs” to her disease, Aza ascends to the heavens and enters Magonia: a mystical city of ships, where the skies are the seas. Described as Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Magonia tells the story of almost-sixteen-year-old Aza Ray Boyle, who suffers from a debilitating and mysterious respiratory condition which hinders her activity.

Magonia book