Rise of the Mages
Publication Date: February 8, 2022
Emrael Ire wants nothing more than to test to be a weapons master. His final exam will be a bloody insurrection, staged by corrupt nobles and priests, that enslaves his brother.
With the aid of his War Master tutor, herself an undercover mage, Emrael discovers his own latent and powerful talents.
To rescue his brother, Emrael must embrace not only his abilities as a warrior but also his place as last of the ancient Mage Kings—for the Fallen God has returned. And he is hungry.
All the better.
My Review
I'm just going to straight up say that if you like fight scenes in fantasy stories, then this is the book for you. The action never stops. It also has a similar vibe to The Name of the Wind, especially in the beginning, as well as more old school fantasy series, such as Goodkind's Sword of Truth or even Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. Rise of the Mages, like those titles, is the story of a boy with mysterious gifts fighting against evil while trying not to let the power consume him.
In Rise of the Mages, we're following Emrael, who is training to become a weapons master but keeps falling short. However, when his city gets attacked during his final exam, all he wants to do is save his brother. Even if that means unlocking something that was hidden inside him. Something that could get him killed.
While I do think this book is perfect for readers who are nostalgic for that classic fantasy style, it did take a bit of time to get used to the dialogue. Some of the paragraphs were a little more formal than you'd expect, with long, what I like to call "mini-speeches" given by the main character or the side characters. It's not bad, it just takes a while to get used to.
Also, Emrael starts off as a rather average student. He's not the best fighter, but he's not the worst. And he has to work for his place in his school. However, he gets to be the leader of his ragtag group of friends very quickly for some reason. I guess because his mentor didn't ever step up and other people blindly decided to follow the young man who has never led anything in his life? It was a little odd, but nothing that overly detracted from the plot. Now, something that did detract from the plot was the violence. While I am not averse to violence in my fantasy stories, this one just Would. Not. Stop. At one point it was chapter after chapter of characters getting stabbed, burned alive, impaled, thrown into walls, etc. Only for our heroes to also be punched, kicked, stabbed, etc. Over and over and over again. Thank goodness the protagonists had a magical healing method or otherwise... Yikes.
Because of the constant insertion of fight scenes and the protagonist's anti-hero methods, I couldn't rate Rise of the Mages as high as I'd hoped. It's not a bad story by any means, I just think that if some of those fight scenes had turned into world-building scenes or character-driven scenes instead of slashing and hacking, a better story could have been made. I'm more of a character-driven-story kind of reader, so it's totally a personal preference. I will say that despite my negative reaction towards the end of the book (after getting bogged down in battle after battle), I was still intrigued with how the events were unfolding. I don't think I'll read the sequel to this one, but I may pick up Drakeford's future books. I think he has potential, and this debut will definitely appeal to a lot of swords and sorcery readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I LOVE your comments! And I do read all of them so keep at it! Thanks for visiting!