{"id":57609,"date":"2026-01-16T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/?p=57609"},"modified":"2026-01-17T05:59:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:59:40","slug":"an-instruction-in-shadow-by-benedict-jacka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/non-fiction\/an-instruction-in-shadow-by-benedict-jacka\/","title":{"rendered":"An Instruction in Shadow by Benedict Jacka"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/a>Second books in series are the most crucial in terms of readership. Can the author build upon and surpass the first book? This is a question whose answers will dictate whether readers and publishers will continue onward. An Instruction in Shadow<\/em> answers that question with an emphatic yes. Benedict Jacka\u2019s second book in the Inheritance of Magic <\/strong>series enlarges the world of the first book; builds upon the mythology, stakes, and characters of An Inheritance of Magic<\/em>; and delivers an excellent story on its own. Stephen Oakwood returns with deeper problems and yet more agency as he learns how the drucraft world operates.<\/p>\n

In this world, magic is accessible to anyone with the money to have it crafted for them. Essentia, as magic is called, flows through everyone and everything. \u201cMy dad taught me that [essentia] makes up everything, a kind of universal energy,\u201d Stephen says in the first book of this series. \u201cYou can\u2019t create it and you can\u2019t destroy it, but with the right art\u2014and the right tools\u2014you can use it\u201d (Inheritance<\/em>, p. 13). Large, natural sources of essentia exist as \u201cWells.\u201d The rich and their corporations control these Wells, creating devices known as \u201csigls\u201d to use their magic. But Wells are hard to find. Flows of essentia are difficult to detect; corporations employ gig workers to look for them. But, this being a capitalist world, the corporations also sell devices to search for the wells, and, of course, those magical devices are priced such that the gig workers must take out loans to afford them. Magic in this world, then, is like technology in ours: Anyone with money can access it; the more money people have, the better magic to which they have access.<\/p>\n

Much of An Inheritance of Magic<\/em> revolved around Stephen\u2019s secret: He can use magic, which is called drucrafting, but he\u2019s not rich, not even middle class. Instead, he is special: He may be weak in using the magic, but he can see the essentia flows and can also make sigls without help. He lives hand-to-mouth as a temporary employee who exists on the fringes of the drucraft world and the quotidian. But a chance encounter with a member of one of the rich families, House Ashford, brings him attention he doesn\u2019t want. He barely survives and learns secrets that change the course of his life. The core tension of the first novel is simple that, in order to protect himself and his cat, Stephen must become stronger; but he may not be able to afford to\u2014literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n

At the end of that first book, Stephen was left still waiting for his mother, who left before he could form memories of her. It turns out that she\u2019d been in London, not far from Stephen, his whole life. Yet she had never contacted him. Why? Much of this book is dedicated to Stephen\u2019s family. He continues his search for his father; he learns more about his mother; and, by proxy, about the Ashfords, with whom he has become associated. Stephen and the readers learn about the strictures of the \u201cdrucraft\u201d world and how it chains people in obligation, in decorum, and in custom.<\/p>\n

An Instruction in Shadow<\/em> opens with Stephen confronting his absent mother at the airport. It doesn\u2019t go as he wants. It\u2019s clear that his presence means trouble for her, though they make plans to meet. Simultaneously, Stephen\u2019s economic position has been made even more untenable by the careless talk of a friend: He hasn\u2019t been fired from his position as a Well finder, but the corporation no longer allows him to do his job. As such, shadier work starts to come Stephen\u2019s way. He\u2019s forced into a position raiding Wells to earn income. Raiding is an illegal activity that the drucraft world knows exists and condones by not acknowledging yet paying for it. Stephen tries to stay away from the business, but his bank account keeps dwindling. In addition, Calhoun Ashford, the presumed heir of House Ashford, has a job for Stephen: He wants Stephen to be part of the security group that protects Calhoun\u2019s future bride and path to cement an alliance with another House. As with all things House Ashford, the request comes with inherent dangers.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a character from the earlier novel, Byron, attempts to recruit Stephen into the Winged, a society\u2014or cult, depending on who you ask\u2014that is as mysterious as Byron himself. Byron\u2019s attempts to woo Stephen to the Winged surround Stephen\u2019s attempts to find his missing father. Yet, as with anything in the drucraft world, Byron\u2019s attentions bring violence and pain to Stephen.<\/p>\n

In other words, An Instruction in Shadow<\/em> by Benedict Jacka delivers on a lot of the setup from the first novel while further complicating Stephen\u2019s life. When it comes to Stephen\u2019s mother, he finds that ignorance was bliss. Family plays a big role in these books. As well as navigating the politics of House Ashford and the other elite families, and reuniting with his mother, Stephen also searches for his father, asking whether his life improved by acting upon his longing for family? So far, Stephen\u2019s family has brought him nothing but pain and new burdens. An Instruction in Shadow<\/em> sees Stephen derive some benefit from his family through Calhoun, yet even this request will tie Stephen closer to the Ashfords than he\u2019s even been.<\/p>\n

As an outsider in House Ashford, Stephen is free of the strictures that govern the other Ashfords. For example, he gets to spend time with his half sister, Bridget, and her life sounds like a prison of privilege. She is treated more as a doll than a person. She isn\u2019t, however, a \u201cwoe is her, feel bad for the little rich girl\u201d character. Jacka is instead concerned with showing how societal position shapes a life. These concerns aren\u2019t just for society at large but are also present in sub-societies, like House Ashford or the Winged. While Bridget\u2019s boundaries are wider than Stephen\u2019s due to House Ashford\u2019s money, she is still bounded in ways that Stephen is not. Likewise, how she transgresses those boundaries is different: She can choose to be transgressive in her position with little consequence, whereas Stephen faces all of them.<\/p>\n

In a similarly complex way, Jacka also explores the dual faces of corporations. There is the outward, public facing corporate citizen, who obeys the law and is just trying to turn a profit. In An Instruction in Shadow<\/em>, however, Jacka looks at the hidden face of corporations, the one unacknowledged and denied. Corporate espionage, participation in black markets, and plausible deniability all show up in Stephen\u2019s world. His economic precarity pushes him into the dangerous world of raiding, and in his naivete, he believes it\u2019s only criminals that do this. Of course, it turns out that there must be a buyer for all the essentia stolen during a raid. And if that buyer happens to be a corporation, well, what\u2019s the harm, right? \u201cBy total weight, something like twenty per cent of the sigls sold in the Exchange are made from illegally acquired materials,\u201d we read (p. 132). With profit being their ultimate motive, corporations are forced into the essentia black market; yet, they have to act as if they don\u2019t participate. In public, corporations must follow the law; but in private, they will lose out to their competitors if they don\u2019t engage in the black market. This undercurrent is known among the elites and accepted as the norm.<\/p>\n

An Inheritance of Magic<\/em> read as an introduction to this new world. This second book in the series far surpasses it. It\u2019s packed with more: More action, more revelations, more essentia, and, even, more agency for Stephen. While he is bumped around by economic forces in the first book and for much of this one, he is also beginning to make moves for himself. He begins to understand that he can\u2019t just search for his father and be left alone by society at large. Whether he likes it or not, he\u2019s part of the drucraft world and part of House Ashford. In An Instruction in Shadow<\/em>, Stephen realizes that he\u2019s got to play the game. What he wants isn\u2019t a concern to anyone but him, and he must be more active in his self-protection. He\u2019s also realizing that he can\u2019t play the game alone. He needs allies, and in this novel he begins to make them.<\/p>\n

With all of this, An Instruction in Shadow<\/em> is a fast-paced book that pulls the reader in with action and a deepening of an already interesting world. In fact, the book is so fast-paced that the ending came suddenly and unexpectedly. It didn\u2019t feel like a conclusion in terms of story; it just felt like the story stopped. An Instruction in Shadow<\/em> ends on a cliffhanger that was frustrating because it felt like the middle of a storyline, not a crescendo within it. However, this isn\u2019t enough to put one off the series as a whole.<\/p>\n

Indeed, An Instruction in Shadow<\/em> cements the Inheritance of Magic<\/strong> series as an urban fantasy series to pay attention to. It\u2019s full of intrigue, action, and, of course, magic. Jacka explores interesting areas of family, economic relations, and the roles people play. Stephen Oakwood\u2019s world is a brutal one, and his journey in it is just beginning. For him, this means tough times ahead; for the reader, it means excellent reading in future installments.<\/p>\n
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In An Instruction in Shadow<\/cite>, Jacka looks at the hidden face of corporations, the one unacknowledged and denied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":57610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/aninstructioninshadowcover.jpg?fit=338%2C522&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82q22-eZb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57609"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58359,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57609\/revisions\/58359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}