over all good but just a little off

loved the story and the world as it began to unfold here. Nick read a bitnto fast for my liking so I had to slow it down but that's not anything to shy away from. the story was great but most assuredly an adult themed book. can catch you off guard it your not expecting that kind of content

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Sooo long before it gets good. but it's good

Long before it gets good but i really want to listen the 3 others !

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Love it!

Easily captured our interest and look forward to hearing the whole series. NP is an excellent narrator and makes the different characters easy to recognize.

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YA author thinks gore and sex make an adult novel

This book is essentially YA, except for some gore and sex. There's even the classic bullied underdog at a magic school storyline. There's a chapter or two where characters have sex 7 or 8 times, but if you took those out you wouldn't really miss anything important. The author uses made up curse words that seem rather unnecessary and ruin the immersion. Most characters are pretty one dimensional as well, with some of them feeling rather racist. At least there is a strong thread of racial determinism in the writing. It's a real shame because the concept for the story is really cool, as well as some of the world building/magic systems. I finished this first book on the strength of the concept and narrator (nick podehl can do no wrong really) but I won't be continuing te series.

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Brilliant!

An amazing story with some really great characters. The magic is exciting and things get pretty damn brutal. The narration is really well done. I can’t wait to start the next one!

GET THIS!!!

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I’m not sure

The story in general is good, but as an audiobook I can read the names and we were yoinked all over the lace into so many different storylines that I was often confused and hard to work hard to figure out what was going on and with whom. I am hesitant to get the next book, though of course I want to know how it ends. I will think on it.

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Nick Podehl is superb

The author is a psychopath and has terrible characters. Nearly every one of his main/good characters are mewling, whining, annoying and I can't stand any of them. If not he kills them off. The best characters he writes are bad and I was rooting for them because they weren't annoying or stupid.

I think I tried to read the books once and had to put them down 100's of times and never made it past 1.5. I erased all memories of the good characters and only remembered the bad ones. So when I picked up the audible series I was so very disappointed that Gurvon wasn't the main character.

I absolutely loathe Elena ****born. By all the gods she's dead about 20 times over in this series and is the most Mary-sued character I've ever had the misfortune of knowing. I ended up just skipping chapters with her in it, to save myself from the pain and suffering.

When you create a world of magic with clear distinct levels of power for your magic users and one character consistently doesn't play by your own rules, you're a psychopath. He also emasculates his best male characters in many ways or kills them off and none of his female characters do anything but make huge mistakes.

I would never have continued beyond this book if Nick Podehl wasn't narrator.

I hate David Hair. I will toss his books and never again attempt anything which is tragic because his magic building was amazing. The way he used the Latin word for Knowledge as Gnosis and Mage/Magister/Magi/Magus all well organized.

I know the type of writing he was going for, to torment the characters, but he ended up tormenting the reader.

GRR Martin mastered this, but I was never angry or upset because it was clear what he was doing. Versus what David did and likely continues to do in his next series.

Again, Nick's work is immeasurable. 1000's of voices, it's beyond genius level talent. I've started to search for book narrated by him just to listen.

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sci-fi Really?

Wow 14 hours of political/ relationship intrigue . Brutal , nothing consequential happens until the last two hours of the book and it is very unfullfilling. Let's not mention the accents used. We'll I guess we should. the narrator uses three main accents which would be very insulting to the East Indian, Hispanic, and sesame street's Dracula.

It is a good thing I listen prior to going to sleep cause that is exactly what the story does. It droans on and on and the characters are extremely predictable and boring.

And what the "ruck" really ? Just use the word. How childish, you describe sexual acts and throats getting cut among other things, but can't say the word.

I do not recommend this story to any one, it is one of the most anti-climactic stories I've ever suffered through.

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