Battle Mage 4

Academy for Magical Inmates

By: Dante King

Narrated by: Lewis Alexander, Rozelyn Rader

Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

I have been separated by my companions, left far to the north of civilization. My quest is a simple one: Find a dragon and bond with it. However simple this quest may seem, it is exceedingly difficult.

Not only that, but my companions have been called to the goblin city of Geriarc to do battle with the undead, led by shadowlords.

All the while, evil festers in the Jade Bastion.

First things first; I must tame a dragon, then I will deal with the undead scourge and the evil that has taken root in my new home.

©2022 Dante King (P)2022 Dante King

Finally!!

felt like I've been waiting for this book forever and now that I'm finished it didn't disappoint, with all the magic epic battles and hot dirty-diry that I've come to expect from this series we also get a certain flame breather!!

Dante, you broke your world!

Let me explain myself.

Mr. King bent his world’s rules by the middle of Book 3. I can see “The Hand Of The Author” then. It wasn’t enough to make me not want to finish the book, but it was entirely too obvious when it occurred. I let that pass, as I still enjoyed the book.

In this book, however, it’s too bloody egregious to be ignored. In book 3, Leo’s power set started to expand to be beyond what made sense. Yet, that is expected in these types of stories to some degree. Sex Magic protecting him from virulent diseases… okay… it’s magic. I guess it’ll slide.

Book 4 the man falls asleep alone and wakes up to his object of desire finding him? Why? Because the plot needs it to happen! That’s good enough for Mr. King apparently. It’s not good enough for me, but this is “The Hand Of The Author” showing itself. It nearly trivializes the whole point of undertaking the quest in the first place. Almost. But before that, the party found magical items that helped Leo through a serious series of problems that probably could’ve actually killed him.

This, of course, is again the author showing his hand.

I’m not stupid, my friends. I know Mr. King needs to progress his plot. However, when it’s this obviously done that it makes me actually see it, it’s simply poorly accomplished. It’s not bad writing, but borderline lazy. Maybe his editor wanted to make the book leaner, but at under 7 hours of audio, I don’t really see that as a good excuse.

In any event, I’m still interested in how it all ends, but I have a few things to mention about the genre that separates it from the average epic fantasy.

First, your hero group isn’t dying. Almost never will a member die. Injuries, curses, and afflictions are on the table, but death for the main group is nearly out of the question. Second, your protagonist will find a way out of everything that looks to be a serious problem. And third, when it’s near impossible for the protagonist/party to escape the greatest dangers, the author’s hand will be VERY visible.

Writing yourself into a corner happens, but the hand of god saving the hero and his friends shows just how bad it got, or how lazy the writer was being in that moment. I still liked the book, and recommend it to those who like the Harem Fantasy genre, but this is a realization that I’ve come to.

Dante King writes pretty well, until he doesn’t and the hand of god appears to save the protagonist’s party.

I simply wished that he took a bit more time to keep up with his own rules and consistencies.

Went way downhill

The other books weren't great but readable this book took the series down hill faster than a box car racer it completely sucks

Justifying an Atrocity because injustice exists?

There is no justifying what was done to these boys and families, yet the story attempts to do so with the justification that sometimes bad things happen to good people. And the MC accepts that perspective. Seriously? The greater good is what we are meant understand as the overarching arguement instead of letting fate run its course . In the Bible, Pharaoh exterminated a whole generation of males because one of them might be the Hebrew's deliverer, yet baby Moses escaped anyway... Point is, things tend to work out the way they are supposed to. Still, in this story the council opts to ruin several families, even if small children die, and make it ok by brainwashing everyone concerned to forget it happened... Good plan! Nothing like justifying a wrong action and then covering it up. Sounds like something good, rational beings would resort to in the battle against evil... Even though they have already tried this 110 times over the millennia, and it failed to be successful every single time! But hey, what's one more try? My frustration isn't what was done so much, because these kinds of things have happened in real life; my issue is more the attempt to make these actions alright and the MC rolling with it... What kind of Champion of Light is this?