Aaron

Nice Easy Listen, Good Narration, Cool Ideas

Revisado: 07-15-22

TLDR: A decent easy listen epic adventure (not progression) fantasy romp with a potentially awesome magic system.


The Beginning: Mercenary Wizard starts off well enough with a bit of bloody betrayal and drama that could have been well...more dramatic. It seemed a bit just a bit to normal for the MC. This isn't so bad in general, but at this point we really have no context for why. After this little bit of dastardly do, we have a really slow burn up.


The Middle: Still a slow burn and by now I'm wondering where the wizardry bits are hiding. Finally some contrived randomness happens, a possible evil willow-the-wisp shows up, choices are made and a wizard pops out!


Now we get to the good stuff that I can't help but think could have been so much better! Honestly kind of frustrating. The MC is a bit of a Mary Sue, "Gary Stu?", in any case, the MC is just a bit to infallible and lacking many if any flaws. He seems a bit emotionally one dimensional if you can discount that he can't decide if he's a loner or has a knight in shining armor complex.


This is not to say that i found the MC unlikable or even relatable at times and I do appreciate the overall pragmatic flow the MC has. MC is acceptable, could have been great though, and I think that's the part that gets me.


I really do enjoy the magic system and I find it one of the more creative systems I have seen in a while, which is really nice. I wish that it was used to set up a bit more world building however, something that was really lacking.


The End: It happened.


The Middle in a sense just kind of bled into a finale battle with little to no build up, sense of danger or much else. The best part of this was the scene setting for presumably the next book.


Look, sometimes books start out like this and get way better, or don't really build their own personalities until book 2. Overall this book isn't remotely bad and I would give the next one shot to see if my thoughts of it getting better are true.


On a side note, I feel done dirty that no golum until the very end! Why!?


Narrators: Connar has a pleasant voice that's nice and clean. This is good, unless late night listening for maybe obvious reasons. Decent vocal range.


Suzanne did a decent job on this one, but I'm honestly not sure if it's a vocal range issue or if the various female characters were meant to sound a bit on "hard and rough" side.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Decent overall with some good ideas.

Revisado: 05-08-22

So where to start? Overall this book was decent. it has Somme good ideas, but...

Some of the characters, ok, many, seem rather flat in their interactions and the way they react to circumstances is very dry and lacking in emotion. this is my biggest gripe with this book. Granted, this could be due to the narrator.

Narrator did an ok job, but seemed new and could have played into the characters more to spice up the dry reactions.

Story was very abrupt and could have used a ton more detail. This is an example of SHOW don't TELL. Book almost seems like a long prologe.

With that said, I do think there are good ideas and I like the magic system. I think it can easily be fleshed out in later books. I'll listen to the next in hopes that it fixes some of the issues in this first chapter.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

great

Revisado: 02-21-16

not one for love stories really, but this had time time travelers, so hey. Loved the way the book ended.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

pretty good

Revisado: 01-13-15

liked the reader and the story was pretty good. a few things caught me off guard, such as terms not suited for the type of story, but it was minor.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña