"I'm a humble wizard," confides Eric Hawthorne Wood, "next to the ones of fantasy." Still, he's as close to the real thing as you'll ever get. Set in 2019, The Elven Smith continues the arcane Cold War Wood saga revived in The Prince of the Air. A rookie member of a long-lived occult community nicknaming itself "the College," Wood has a role in a black economy. ("Even wizards need money," he says.) Wood is a cross-continental security agent...