Lena Vasik was a hospital pharmacist in Cleveland. Then she woke up in a medieval world where chemistry is illegal.
Three hundred years ago, the last alchemist "nearly unmade reality." Alchemy was banned. Knowledge was burned. Now the continent runs on Resonance -- crystal magic controlled by a ruling caste that decides who gets healed and who doesn't. The common people pay what they can't afford, or they suffer.
But Lena has a PharmD and eight years of clinical experience. She knows why willow bark kills pain. She knows how to purify water, sterilize a wound, and isolate active compounds from raw herbs. In her world, this is basic science. In this one, it's the most dangerous knowledge alive.
When a plague sweeps through the village that took her in, Lena faces a choice: stay hidden and let people die, or brew what she knows and paint a target on her back. She brews. People live. And the authorities start hunting.
Armed with a notebook, a mortar and pestle, and the stubborn precision of someone who measures medicine to the milligram, Lena sets out to rebuild a lost science from first principles -- one experiment, one patient, one carefully documented result at a time.
- A pharmacist who solves problems with chemistry, not swords
- Cozy workshop crafting with real science underpinning the magic system
- Found family: a skeptical apprentice, a disgraced soldier, a village healer who remembers
- A world where knowledge itself is contraband
- The satisfying crunch of figuring out how things work
First Principles is the first book in The Last Alchemist, a cozy crafting fantasy series for readers who love Legends & Lattes, Beware of Chicken, and The Crafting of Chess.
This book was written with the assistance of AI.
Genre: Fantasy
Three hundred years ago, the last alchemist "nearly unmade reality." Alchemy was banned. Knowledge was burned. Now the continent runs on Resonance -- crystal magic controlled by a ruling caste that decides who gets healed and who doesn't. The common people pay what they can't afford, or they suffer.
But Lena has a PharmD and eight years of clinical experience. She knows why willow bark kills pain. She knows how to purify water, sterilize a wound, and isolate active compounds from raw herbs. In her world, this is basic science. In this one, it's the most dangerous knowledge alive.
When a plague sweeps through the village that took her in, Lena faces a choice: stay hidden and let people die, or brew what she knows and paint a target on her back. She brews. People live. And the authorities start hunting.
Armed with a notebook, a mortar and pestle, and the stubborn precision of someone who measures medicine to the milligram, Lena sets out to rebuild a lost science from first principles -- one experiment, one patient, one carefully documented result at a time.
- A pharmacist who solves problems with chemistry, not swords
- Cozy workshop crafting with real science underpinning the magic system
- Found family: a skeptical apprentice, a disgraced soldier, a village healer who remembers
- A world where knowledge itself is contraband
- The satisfying crunch of figuring out how things work
First Principles is the first book in The Last Alchemist, a cozy crafting fantasy series for readers who love Legends & Lattes, Beware of Chicken, and The Crafting of Chess.
This book was written with the assistance of AI.
Genre: Fantasy
Used availability for Dominic Hale's First Principles