Desi

romance, not sci-fi. terrible narration

Revisado: 12-10-23

I'm listening to this now and two things have struck me. first, this is a romance novel. that annoys me to no end. I did not download this to listen to a romance novel. writing a romance novel and tossing it a little magic here and there while not describing anything about the system of magic that's being used or anything about the character who developed that magic wow endlessly fawning over the possible relationship between two main characters make this a romance. I don't want to listen to a romance. that's not my interest. audible not placing this in romance made it impossible for me to give this an accurate score. I'm giving it a score based on somebody who wants sci-fi and fantasy.

my last issue is the narrator. that was just no maturity in her voice. it made the entire narration feel childish to me. I really like the character so far but I wish they had chosen a voice actor who's register is lower and not quite as sophomoric. she sounds like a teenager and it just bothers the hell out of me. I don't want to hear some kid read a sophomore romance to me. the whole experience is just annoying me. I'll try to finish this book and see if it changes my review. but this really should be in romance.

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Worth a listen. Caution, there's horror

Revisado: 04-11-22

Patchy pacing but good overall story. i had some issues with the horror elements. That is not the mood i want to feel while listening to fantasy or sci fi. I loved Gal's humor so that made up for it. The story brought up some big topics and does none of them justice nor seemingly tries. lol That said, it was an engaging story overall with interesting topics that made me think about reality itself which was enjoyable. So, worth a listen in my opinion. I'm not an avoid sci fi reader so take that into account.

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Great story. Quick pacing. Interesting concept

Revisado: 04-03-22

I'm more of a fantasy reader but this was so well liked and had such good reviews i tried it. great book. wonderful concept and brilliantly performed. i couldn't tell how i felt about the light and comedic tone throughout the book book, still can't. a part of me thought such a situation should feel more serious but it worked and was thoroughly enjoyable.

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can we get a new main character?

Revisado: 01-01-22

this is an edit: I went from giving this a 2 star rating to a one-star because by the end of the book, the main character is as evil as anyone in the book. He indiscriminately kills people he doesn't have to and at a certain point it just can't be justified. He's just as bad as everyone he complains about. One would hope he would die like the other characters. overall terrible ending to a promising trilogy. Read on if you want more details.

i waited long enough to get to the end of this book before I opined about my thoughts about the entire series. The series itself is okay. I rather liked the magic system though it is inconsistent to see the main character, Calden, grow so far so quickly in his sorcery yet not seem to grow at all in his personality or depth of wisdom.

from the beginning of the story this main character made bad choices at every turn. His behavior is inconsistent and his personality is hard to even understand. He doesn't trust anyone yet he lies to everybody all the time over things that make no sense and actually
prolong his suffering. He's somehow so gifted and so brilliant at certain things and still an idiot with simple common sense yet I'm supposed to root for him? I loved him in the beginning of the series and ended up rooting for his removal as the main protagonist.

he was both naive yet frustratingly cynical and unable to trust the very people he should have trusted while giving Aid and comfort to a psychopath in the last moments of his life.

he has the nerve to look down on people from another world who had to survive through means that are horrific yet murdered an unarmed man in a second without even thinking about it. it was like he felt like what he did to survive was always right while looking down his nose at everybody else who were simply trying to survive. In fact, lots of these characters made no sense.

This was by far one of the biggest flaws about the series: the inconsistent psychology of the protagonist and many of the characters. There was no consistency and no growth. None of the characters seemed to grow through the series. And the main character seemed to actually devolve..

It would have been better if they had killed Calden off and brought the new main protagonist then see such a promising character become what he ended up becoming.

By the end of it I surely wanted him to just leave with his love interest and let the other sorcerers to deal with problem. That's how bad he was. The amount of stupidity from the main character made me think the author does not understand human behavior at all even though he wrote an amazing psychopathic antagonist in the series who was consistent and well written. Yet, the protagonist, was a dolt.

Also, the romance between him and Miranda was just thrown in for no reason other than as a a motivator and did nothing to advance the storyline. I just can't. I can't deal with characters who don't act the way an actual rational person would in a situation. not everyone would react the same in situations but rational Behavior should show some consistency at least. a nonrational person wouldn't survive a scenario like this.

His behavior was so stupid that by the end of it I was thinking if calden survives this it will be
only because he's the main character which in lies the problem.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

amazingly well-written

Revisado: 01-04-20

this was an amazingly well written story that at times felt like a horror and it time felt like a thriller and at times felt like a mystery. I believe it's a bit of all those things. And it's definitely a science fiction. I am left a little uncertain with how I feel about the larger story it tells about human expansion but each individual insular story was just excellent.

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Wonderfully thought provoking

Revisado: 09-06-18

I just love the concept of this novel. I've always heard about the novel but this was the first time I've ever listen to it. I see now why it's such a well-known and best-selling science-fiction. Clearly I'm not an expert but I know what I like. And I loved this. it was complicated and nuanced. It spoke of religion and politics and sociology. It spoke of ecology and economics tied into ecological Pursuits. It spoke about human potential and the ability of humans to transcend what we see as normal to become super normal or supermundane. It reminded me of people who have deeply meditated for many years. It was quite a good ride. I highly recommend this book for anyone who likes science fantasy. I guess this would be soft science fiction as the science and it is not really well explained nor plausible is certain aspects but other aspects felt quite possible. The technology in this was interesting. It wasn't what I normally see. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

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Confusing, slow paced world building

Revisado: 07-12-18

I found the soft magic system in this world to be confusing and unclear. I like the characters Nil and his friends.

I didn't care for the prophecy aspect of the book. enough of prophecies. Enough with the prophecies already. It's not a bad book but not really my thing. I guess I wanted something to be more defined when it came to how magic system with work.

I would have liked to have a little bit more understanding of the world and how it worked on the front end and not having to slog through entirely long book to understand it better.

reviews on purely subjective so you may like this book. I just didn't.. Or rather, I didn't feel as connected to the storyline as I would have other stories. It is not as though I did not like it. It is just it did not ring to me as consistent with what I see as a good story. I hope whoever does get this novel like it though as there are plenty elements hear that I'm sure plenty of people will enjoy. But I can't recommend it.

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I finally understand what's happened to me

Revisado: 07-11-18

This one began meditating while going back and forth to work simply as a way to reduce stress from the commute and from daily life. After a while, this became a daily habit and greatly appreciated and then loved.

After 20 years of this habit and contemplation, there has been a great amount of changes in perceptions of reality.

I was raised atheist and had no experience at all with any tradition that expoused these practices but the changes still have taken place without an internal understanding of the process of this change before it happened.

After doing research about the Buddhist concept of Liberation and realizing that's what this experience has been I downloaded this book to better understand the science.

This book answered every single question and explained perfectly what this experience has been and why meditating for the last two decades has rendered such a change.

Now living as a nonmaterialistic i could never explain the structure of this conceptual change or why it happened. it was known that the meditation was changing my internal state but this explained why.

With much appreciation and gratitude. Thank you for the knowledge. (HUGS)

There is an overwhelming sense of love in my heart everybody. and there is no sense of separation from this version of the universe that is writing this review and the versions the universe will reading it.

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silly and not my cup of tea

Revisado: 07-05-18

I thought the protagonist immediately came off as silly and thoughtless and childish. I will be honest that I did not listen to much when I realized I would not like the protagonist but I feel like I should give a review for someone similar to my way of thinking who may believe this would be a good book for him or her.

This felt very plot-driven to me and likely will be very enjoyable to many types of personalities, but it was not my cup of tea.

If you like humorous tales of strong female protagonist you may like this. I do like humorous tales of strong female protagonist but this particular protagonist also felt a bit too unserious for me. It was funny. Just from the bit that I listen to I found myself outright chuckling on several occasions so I can only imagine how funny it is as one continues. But, I just couldn't get past the protagonist's personality and annoying Mary Sue implications in the very beginning of the story.

I refuse to listen to a story that says a protagonist can have fully functional powers in the initial scene brought out by a mere thought but yet knows nothing about said fully functional powers until she got into her twenties in that scene. I call BS on that. I just can't do it.

Anyone with a powerful gift or talent that is fully functional will know they have a gift or talent by the time it's fully functional. Either it would form over time or spring up overnight. If it develops over time the person would notice the changes depending on the severity of the changes and the lapse of time it would take for the development to take place. If it developed overnight the person would see the change immediately if the change is quite different. Being able to do this sort of magic with thoughts is a quite severe change. She never noticed that before this?

If you can make magic simply by thinking then shouldn't all of her thoughts have made some form of magic when her powers turned on?

Here's the real problem, the novel may answer these questions but I refuse to listen to it long enough to get the answers. And that is my major complaint. The author didn't give me enough from the introduction of the protagonist for me to even try. it's written in tropes with a main character whose unbelievable. And that made me not want to understand the rest of the book.

If you are like me, intolerant when it comes to fictional tropes and unbelievable responses even in fantasy, do not read this book.

I get that is fantasy but it still have to be believable and has his own working logic. I just can't listen to tripe. But somebody else might like it. Good luck.

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esto le resultó útil a 25 personas

Slow to start but rewarding

Revisado: 02-15-18

I loved the premise of going down a generational line of witches and thought this novel did justice to the premise. The pacing is steady and the story is not easily predictable which was a plus. There were tragic moments but it's a story of love also, pain and healing, discovery and acceptance of all life throws at the main characters of this story.

I would have loved the story to have included at least one male witch in the family as a sibling to a main character. This novel really shows the regressive nature of how we treat women and especially those with power so I understood why no male witches were included but it would have been an interesting dynamic to see. it's essentially a story about the women of a family and what they have to do over several generations to hide their secrete of witchcraft and survive. overall, it's a great story.

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