Elysium

All over the world people are getting magical powers. Oscar Britton, military officer, and his unit are told to take part of an operation to take down two Selfers (who use magic unsupervised) at a local school. Britton is not happy when he discovers that they are hunting two teenagers and to his horror the girl is executed in front of his eyes. So when he manifested magical ability after the operation, he’s convinced that they will kill him on the spot and decides the best action is to run. The book is very action packed from the start but it still moved little slow when Britton was on the run. It did pick up pace when he was in training and learned to control his powers.At first I was bit overwhelmed with all the military terms and acronyms but I soon gave up trying to memorize them. It’s a very good thing there’s a glossary at the end of the book and I would have been totally lost without it. I just wish I had noticed it from the start because I was about half way through when I saw it.I’m in two minds how I feel about Oscar Britton. At times I couldn’t follow he’s reasoning and he couldn’t make his mind if the SOC are bad guys or not going from one opinion to another. He seemed to make huge amount of collateral damage and seemed indifferent to it. But I did like seeing how he grew and changed when he tried to adapt to his new life and trying to learn to use the magic. This was out of my comfort zone with all the army stuff but it’s still great debut from the author. My struggle with the terms and acronyms lessened my enjoyment little bit but I’m happy I got a chance to read this. It was definitely different from what I’ve ever read.