Uprooted

[Duke John]

The best SF&F thing I've read recently is UPROOTED by Naomi Novik, set in a kind of mythologized sixteenth-century Poland, with magic.  I was pretty sure I was going to like it, since it won a bunch of major awards -- the Nebula for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Fantasy, the Holdstock Fantasy Award, and the Mythopaeic Fantasy Award.  But I wasn't really prepared for how good it is.  What can I tell you about it?  Not much, without spoiling plot points.

And if you like audiobooks, the production narrated by Julia Emelin is superb.

John Bob says check it out.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

What kind of magic is it? Like is it a setting where magic is everywhere, or very rare?

[NRB]

whoa that king dude is here? now? that's crazy, yo!

[Duke John]

What kind of magic is it? Like is it a setting where magic is everywhere, or very rare?

There are a few sorcerors around, but most people don't have much to do with magic.  Except that there's a threatening forest to the east, full of Bad Things that occasionally break out, at which times the peaceful villages require the services of a sorceror.  (Who may or may not be able to do anything about it.)