Ashes of the Empire

Keiran: The Eternal Mage, Book 3

By: D.E. Sherman

Narrated by: John Joseph Rogers, Rylee Kuberra

It’s been four years since Keiran learned the truth of what happened to his world.

Four years of research and marshaling his resources, four years of experimentation in a futile attempt to recover a faint echo of all that has been lost. His refuge has grown in size and population, and he’s begun to spread knowledge of the old ways of magic in an attempt to revive the lost art to humanity.

There are no more answers to be found at home, and it’s time Keiran sees what’s out there with his own eyes. Armed with more mana than ever, he leaves his sanctuary to explore what’s left of the old kingdoms of the world and plumb their depths for lost secrets.

What he finds is a civilization wrapped up in mysteries and lies, ones that could threaten to break the world a second time.

Keiran will have to untangle it all before it’s too late.

©2024 D.E. Sherman (P)2024 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

Ugh...

His sister is literally the worst... She needs to Exit stage left. Her character brings you out of the story as soon as she starts speaking. A whiny little brat that never grows into any semblance of maturity. Kill her off and give the protagonist something to fight for...

uggh

The author had some seriously good ideas but his execution is just miles away from my target zone. I like a progression fantasy that immerses me in the character as they grow in power and mind/psychology/maturity/into their power. There's zero progression in this series because he knows everything he could ever learn and an ambiguous mana limitation never stops him from using any imaginable spell whenever he pleases from the age of 3 as he constantly looks down on every other being in the world because he's a know it all who actually knows everything and it's extremely, amazingly boring.
still, the whole mana tower thing had a pretty cool setup, and in an actually good story it would've been really fun as he sneaks inside, disguises himself, makes friends and enemies as he learns deeper and deeper truths about the towers origins and purpose, yada yada. Instead... /sigh.
I wanted to finish this series since there's only 5 books and it's complete and everything, but it's just so boring and I just don't care.
also, like many others I find the sister to be annoying but it barely compared to the other things I didn't enjoy.

Solid addition with one caveat

A thrilling and engaging read that keeps you hooked from start to finish. The story offers a captivating mix of buildup, exploration, and mystery, with plenty of new and powerful challenges for the main character to overcome. The author has done a fantastic job of setting the stage for future events, leaving readers eager to see how everything unfolds in the next installment.

However, despite my love for the series, there is one downside: the older sister character has become quite tiresome and frustrating. Her presence detracts from the story to the point where I almost considered skimming through her sections. That said, this is a minor flaw in an otherwise fantastic series, and I’m looking forward to the next book.

Good

Good start and midway was good the ending was so so I do like the pace of the book I can wait to see what is next tho

Keiran the fool

So the last two books show someone who is paranoid and extremely overly cautious to an almost insane degree.

So when you’re in this magic tower thing built by your student who even tho he was clearly stupid from all the stories reached stage 9 became a lich and you see a coffin after being merciful to a bunch of people who planned your death and do fcking nothing????? What happened to the paranoid cautious keiran?? To add more context the coffin is actually drawing in all mana nearby and he did nothing just stands confused after a really easy fight.

Now we have a book the author pulled a wouldn’t this be funny deus ex machida f my well built character, in either of the other book he would have kill or at least instantly locked down that coffin then figured out what it was, let’s also talk about how he freaking wins the fight anyway oh but the lich has a 2nd pyhlactory and was not in the first one???? Fucking what? I know this book has not explained lichs much but most stories about them go into how insanely hard it is to make a single item that can safely store your soul.

I wanna talk about his parents and how this is looking more a more like a anime action manga you can write a slow story building up a person you don’t need to have a massive never ending conflict. But I degress and anyone who reads this is most likely already invested to much time but the story takes a massive L here, the first few hours is basically him exploring finding what is clearly just dragons in a bird format and then invading a magic tower clearly the thing that broke the world and instead of immediately trying to gut the tower he breaks in and immensely stupid shit insues