Antimage

Ends of Magic, Book 1

De: Alexander Olson

Narrado por: Phil Thron

A scientist from another world. A mage seeking deadly knowledge. A power that could topple an empire.

Nathan's life was defined by labs and lectures until an Archmage yanked him into Davrar and made him a tantalizing offer: master magic in exchange for Earth's scientific secrets. Yet, Nathan can't shake off the feeling that darker truths lurk beneath such promises.

The world of Davrar is a dangerous place teeming with dungeons and monsters–ruled by levels, Talents, and a near-infinite progression of power. Nathan will need to rely on himself to survive, forging alliances and taking every advantage he can get against those that seek to control him.

His unique capacity to counteract magic gives him an unprecedented edge, making him a beacon of resistance against those who wield magic as a weapon of control.
Armed with intellect and an emerging power that could dismantle the very foundations of Davrar's society, Nathan emerges not as a mere student of magic, but as its ultimate adversary: the Antimage.

©2023 Alexander Olson (P)2023 Tantor

Great and satisfying concept

I came from a reddit post describing the story, it sounded like my kind of thing and i’m glad to say it was, definitely worth a read and i’ll be checking in to see when the next books get audio versions.

If I had to criticize one small thing, I would say I found it kind of confusing how Nathan never really questions the culture of hoarding insights, it seems to me like the only real reason for adventurers not to share knowledge like that is greed and wanting to control the power, it’s not been hinted that the skills get weaker if you share them with too many people, the only other risk would be enemies like giant’s rest getting ahold of them much like the concern with guns. If he’s willing to question the dueling culture then why not at least acknowledge that his world shares knowledge like “insights” freely and have a small discussion as to why this world doesn’t rather than just instantly accepting it as how things work here?
As I said it’s a very small gripe that just tickled the back of my mind a little each time trading or selling insights was brought up, overall it was a great listen and i’m glad I came to check it out!

Pretty sciency

I really enjoyed this book. If you are not a fan of things getting very very technical, this might not be one for you. sometimes the science explanations were beyond me, but I still enjoyed the story despite my lack of understanding of higher level sciences.

As for some reviews as saw saying this story was "woke" I'm not sure what they are referring to. I was expecting things to get super preachy or overly sexual, but nothing ever came up.

In short, I recommend this book if you like it when your fantasy magic gets technical.

Fantastic premise

I love the idea of merging science and a magic system, especially turning it on its head the way that's been done here, the narrator has an older voice then I would of given the protagonist but I still think he does a wonder job.

Dull

The voice-acting and writing was fine. It has the typical progression fantasy elements to it (skills, leveling, etc.) It's not a bad book. It just feels slow and dull.

I'm writing this review 10 chapters from the end, because I can't continue any longer.

The book starts off strong and with an interesting idea: science vs magic. The MC is a grad student working towards their science PhD when he gets teleported to a fantasy world. There he uses his knowledge/ reasoning to save himself and escape a powerful mage. Afterwards, he meets an adventuring party with interesting characters that helps him. We learn of a war between an magic, racist slave empire and a small independent city that helps people escape slavery.

So far, so good right? But then the story pretty much grinds to a halt. MC settles in the city and joins an entirely new group. The entire book is spent on training/acclimating to the new world and nothing interesting really happens. We don't hear about the archmage much or the greater conflict with the empire. I'm sure something major happens probably in the last 10 chapters that I won't be reading.

Story-wise, this book is dull and boring. I like the Antimagic stuff and the (too) few instances of science/technology knowledge being used. I also liked the other conflict in the story between the guild reformers and traditionalists. I found the focus on MC building social currency and favors and the whole "trading knowledge to build power" very interesting. But overall, the story is weak and uneventful.

Also, for anyone interested, this book features a lot of progressive ideals. The male MC likes guys and will spend time describing how hot some dude is. There's a lot of disdain for "macho" behavior and the book likes to point out how dumb it is. MC spends a lot of time in the book justifying his "rage" against the empire because of how supremacist they are and how they enslave others. I only mention this because at some points, it seemed kinda like virtue signaling.

Anyways, the book is mid AF. It doesn't take the main premise far enough and nothing major really happens in the book.

Ok but

Yeah not gonna lie wish it had an LGBTQ tag wouldn’t have picked it up the random into dudes thing breaks my immersion sonce it seems mostly irrelevant. Also some of the science stuff got long winded but other than that not bad interesting concept for all that but doubt I’ll pick up the second one