Colleen Mondor Reviews Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender

Infinity Alchemist, Kacen Callender (Tor Teen 978-1-250-89025-2, $19.99, hc, 400pp) February 2024.

In the annals of magical instruction, Kacen Cal­lender’s Infinity Alchemist should definitely be in the running for containing the worst bunch of adults ever. Supposedly a place to learn the science of alchemy, Lancaster College is more of a place to plot and plan to take over the world. Ash wants in because it’s the only way to get an alchemy license and since he already is a fairly decent self-taught alchemist, that official piece of paper would come in handy. (It would also save him from hanging MONDOR

for practicing alchemy illegally.) (FYI, they like to hang people a lot in this town.)

Ramsay is a proper alchemist, but her parents murdered a whole lot of people in pursuit of power and so she is widely hated, sorta feared, and a target for those looking for a fall guy. Meanwhile, Callum is not interested in alchemy (officially), but his father is in charge of the troops who execute everyone who breaks the alchemy laws, so he’s knee-deep in all the politics surrounding alchemy.

Finally, there’s Marlowe, who has been forced into an apprenticeship with a murderous alche­mist who might have motive to destroy Ramsay and is also Ash’s father, although hardly anyone knows that. (Not a spoiler, as readers learn this in the first few pages.) Marlowe doesn’t know any of this and doesn’t care, because her job is just to kill whoever she’s told to kill. Those targets often have something to do with alchemy. In fact, in this book either you want to be an alchemist, you are a secret alchemist, you hate all alchemists, or you are interested in controlling everything to do with alchemy. Also, every adult is a liar, killer, or despicable human being. Now, you are ready to understand just how complicated life is for Ash, Ramsay, Callum, and Marlowe.

Infinity Alchemist is equal parts soap opera and thriller, which means it is a very fun book to read. (I say soap opera with the highest respect in this instance; a lot of interpersonal drama is going on here!) First Ash gets in trouble with Ramsay, then he learns Callum is in trouble with Ramsay while Callum ends up being a whole lot of trouble for Ash, and Marlowe is trouble for everyone. Then Ash and Ramsay fall for each other, and he learns that Ramsay and Callum have a romantic past that went horribly wrong, and then Ash falls for Callum, and how will all this work? (No one falls for Marlowe – she is too busy trying to kill everyone for romance.) Well, just get to reading and find out if true love will prevail or the bad guys (who are pretty much everyone’s parents) will kill them all first.

In the midst of everything else, and there is a lot of everything else, Ash is also dealing with gender dysphoria. Callender’s deft handling of this issue, and description of gender differences in the world of New Angelia, is outstanding. (As someone who feels “uncomfortable” with gender as assigned at birth, Ash is perceived as a person who lived most of his past lives with a particular identity; in his case that would be male. Ramsay shifts gender at will and thus is thought to have lived “hundreds of thousands of previous lives,” experiencing many genders, and does not need to settle on one. Ramsay’s pronouns shift between he and she throughout the book.)

Getting to the end of Infinity Alchemist means getting through a lot of misunderstandings (Ram­say has serious trust issues), working a lot on com­munication skills, and learning to accept that a lot of adults can be terrible. (Ash, Ramsay, Callum, and Marlowe pretty much already know this when the book opens, but the message is hammered home.) There is some torture but also a happily ever after, and love conquers all! The best part is when Ash gets to garden again, although based on the final paragraphs, I’m a little concerned that the bad guys aren’t quite out of the picture. (There is a planned sequel, so my concerns may be justified.)

This review and more like it in the July 2024 issue of Locus.

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