Battle Mage

By: Peter A. Flannery

Narrated by: RD Watson

The world is falling to the burning shadow of the Possessed and only the power of a battle mage can save it. But the ancient bond with dragonkind is failing. Of those that answer a summoning too many are black. Black dragons are the enemy of humankind. Black dragons are mad.

Falco Dante is a weakling in a world of warriors, but worse than this, he is the son of a madman. Driven by grief, Falco makes a decision that will drive him to the brink of despair. As he tries to come to terms with his actions Falco follows his friends to the Academy of War, an elite training school dedicated to martial excellence. But while his friends make progress he struggles to overcome his doubts and insecurity. Even Queen Catherine of Wrath has her doubts about Falco's training.

While the Queen tries to unite the Kingdoms against the Possessed, Falco struggles to overcome his fears. Will he unlock the power trapped inside him or will he succumb to madness and murder like his father?

©2017 Peter A. Flannery (P)2017 Cherry Hill Publishing, LLC

Great story, marginal production quality

Loved much about this story...the original concepts of some of the demonic entities, subtle introductions of story elements that come into play later and overall presentation.
The fact that a group of teens, each with their own challenges to overcome, all become leaders and heroes gives the story a young adult feel, but it's still a really good read.
I struggled with the production quality.
* Words that fade into silence before the sentences are complete. This gets common once past the midpoint of the book.
* Significant volume variations in some chapters. My Bluetooth speaker barely went loud enough for some parts but was fine in others.
* Mispronounced words.
* Wrong words used where the book actually says something else...he says image instead of mage, position instead of perfection...and many others that I caught.
* I'll forgive the British habit of adding a trailing "r" to words throughout the read, but one that really felt wrong though was to hear "gaping maw" read as "gaping more"...
* Last, but far from least was this narrator's terrible rendition of any excited, yelled or stressed dialog as some weird throat-crackly voice. He has a great voice, deep and calming, so the descriptive text is well done regarding voice quality... but his choice of how to render character voices really got tiring and I found myself mocking his renditions towards the end of the book.
I'd consider buying a second book in this series, but only with a new narrator.

Fun story, cool magic, but not-optimal narration

The narrator's attempts to imitate any character (especially a female) yelling were almost painful to listen to because it sounded like a 70 year old's hoarse whisper. Otherwise, his normal reading voice sounded good. His lower pitched voice (relative to other narrators) did force me to listen at a much higher volume to hear and understand the words over road noise.

The story was good, though the plot was somewhat predictable. It's definitely a fun read if you like dragons, magic, monsters, and swords though!

Would be better if.....

there would of been a different narrator. RD Watson brings nothing to the story. Now I'm sure there are people who enjoy his narration. They probably also enjoy watching water boil and paint dry. I enjoyed the story but RD Watson ruined this book for me.

Solid story, poor editing

A well written story following classic tropes. Absolutely nothing groundbreaking here, but solid nonetheless. I will note that it does lean towards the darker side of things - there is little to no humor to break the tension of some pretty dark subject matter.

The narration is solid, if nothing special. There is some variation in tone for different characters. The narrator uses intense, hoarse whispers to mimic yelling, and this completely fails in my opinion. It generally just ends up being quieter and harder to understand than his usual talking. I ended up wishing he would just talk louder or more intensely to convey the point.

Also, as noted in other reviews, the editing is pretty poor in this book. Words are cut off at their end fairly regularly, pulling one out of the story. On occasion, the book also jumps immediately from one character to another with no pause, which can be confusing if you don’t catch it.

Overall I would recommend it, though I hope future books will have better editing and maybe a different narrator.

Great story!

A fantastic story marred only by poor production. the narrator was great for the most part, but his "yelling/shouting" voice, no matter who it was, always sounded like an old man wheezing. the story itself is awesome and gripping all the through but as others have stated, the production is poor. Words are clipped in some places and the voulume is quiet, but the story is strong enough to continue listening even with these faults