Denver author David R. Slayton has turned the trope of magical schools into something stylish, snarky and delightful.

His most recent novel, Rogue Community College, opens with a daring rescue and quickly turns reader expectations on their head. Isaac Frost rescues a bound elf, Vran, from having his blood (and subsequent life) stolen. This leads to an encounter with Argent, the elf queen, who “rewards” Isaac by installing him at Rogue Community College. The further the story goes, the more you will wonder exactly who was rescuing whom, and what the underlying motives really were.

David R. Slayton

Rogue Community College comprises a collection of young beings who aren’t quite certain how to wield the magical abilities they’ve inherited or developed. In addition to a decidedly different type of history and geography, students learn to explore, test and use their abilities, as well as how to work with their fellow students. The malleable, quasi-sentient, still-solidifying structure of the college is as much a character in the book as Isaac’s classmates and teachers.

Isaac Frost is a Phage—possibly the only one left in existence—who can temporarily assume another creature’s power by ingesting a bit of their blood. But this isn’t a vampire story—no more than a drop of blood is needed. Once consumed, Isaac can track the creature and sometimes access its feelings and memories as well. All good information for an assassin like Isaac.

But Isaac has entered the college under false pretenses. His mission is to find the beating heart of the school and destroy it. And as the various aspects of his new environment slowly alter how he perceives the world and himself, which fate will he choose for himself? Will he become his own person or follow the path set for him by his brutal master, the Undertaker?

In his first days at the college, Isaac continues to see every problem through the eyes of an assassin. He constantly surveys his surroundings, looks for strengths and flaws in others, all while debating which one of his new classmates he’ll take out first if they turn on him. In a slow and gradual process, Isaac absorbs the friendships, and more, that build despite his best efforts to stay cold and distant. He begins to separate himself from what he was raised to be, becoming instead the person he wants to be.

There’s a precarious line to be walked in fantasy novels. Too many fantastical elements, too much convoluted conniving, and the author risks losing the reader in a welter of unsortable details, confusing names and unfamiliar terrain. But too much basic explanation dumped all at once leaves the reader bored. Slayton knows how to balance the right amount of detail while keeping the plot moving (sometimes galloping) forward, all interwoven with humor and humanity.

Slayton’s worldbuilding is solid. He deftly weaves in Isaac’s backstory, including his cold and brutal training (from an impossibly young age) to be an assassin, under the tutelage of the Undertaker, in a place outside our space and time known as the Graveyard. We travel with Isaac as he learns, and earns, his place at Rogue Community College, discovering the truth about his deeper past as he uncovers the layers and deceits that hide his true origins.

Fans of Slayton’s Adam Binder series will recognize some of its characters making an appearance in Rogue Community College. But this isn’t a continuation of Adam’s story; it belongs fully to Isaac and his friends, who together bring a fresh, nonhuman, perspective to the rules of magic previously introduced in the Binder novels. Seeing magic from the perspective of beings who accept it as a fact of life, rather than as a rare talent or an oddity, is one of the novel’s most fascinating dimensions. Another is Slayton’s depictions of the history, politics and machinations of the elves.

At times, this book skews a little younger than the Binder stories, with younger characters in a setting that sometimes feels like high school. But part of the appeal of a community college is that it’s populated by all sorts of people, including those who, for whatever reason, didn’t fit into traditional high school. There’s just something beautiful about a group of young people finding the place where they truly and fully belong.

If you’ve seen or heard any of the pre-release publicity for this book, there’s only one thing left to say. Dinosaurs: Can confirm.