Saturday, October 6, 2018

The Innocent Mage and the Awakened Mage by Karen Mills


Just listened through the two pleasant books The Innocent Mage and The Awakened Mage from the
Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series written by the Australian author Karen Miller.

Its a story about a Kingdom magically sheltered from the corrupted world outside and a prophecy on the verge of coming to pass. A rough young fisherman by the name of Asher leaves his home village of Restharven and heads for the royal city of Dorana to make his fortune. He soon finds himself reluctantly drawn into the intricacy and danger of politics, royalty and magics.

I found the story while sorting through audiobooks on YouTube looking for something to break me away from podcasts and informational audiobooks for a while. I've always had a soft spot for fantasy and was aiming for something off the mainstream of that genre, so these suited me fine I thought.

The books are about twenty one and twenty four hours long respectively, in paper form over six and seven hundred pages, so you are in for a long treat if the story is to your liking.

Now you might be wondering why I bring up how long the books are, well there's a reason. Although I like the books and especially some of the characters, fabulously portrayed by the narrator Kirby Heyborne in the audiobooks, the story feels long-winded and drawn out. A lot is revolved around dialogue and the drama surrounding it, which in itself is good, no fault there. The problem is that most scenes does not directly move the story forward or impact it in a significant way. Looking back after reading half of  the first book I noticed that not much had really happened.

The great thing about the book though is that it really shines when it comes to dialogue and the colourful characters. For instance the main character which has a fisherman's background always curses or blurts out lines in relation to the ocean or his fishing heritage."Sink me bloody sideways!" and the likes. The characters also call to the highly revered late magician Barl as a deity: "Barl save me!". Now and again it made me smile while I listened, small details that makes the listen so much better. It is easy to get invested in the characters. Sometimes though, they are, some of them, a bit childish and immature. Making decisions a ten year old would have enough sense to avoid or them being stubborn to a fault.

Also some scenes are played out from different characters viewpoints which is interesting and entertaining. Another character can for instance be referred to as "the worm" instead of its correct name or rank because of personal preferences of the beholder. The description or interpretation of what happens is also flavoured, it made the story come alive even more and it was a pleasant surprise.

All in all I found the books entertaining and had a hard time pausing the audiobook to do something else. If you want a on the edge gripping and heartfelt and devastating book, this isn't the one. But if you enjoy good characters, nice dialogue, good voice acting and aren't too rushed to have the story progress rapidly, these might be books for you.


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