City of Magic

Dragon Fire Prophecy, Book 1

De: Jack Knight

Narrado por: Megan Barber

One boy living in a village in the middle of nowhere. One great darkness that threatens to destroy the world. An epic adventure waiting to unfold.

When the traders came to Xion's village, he expected to listen to the stories and see all the amazing things that they had brought with them. Until the mages invited him to join them, and go to a city of magic so he could train to be a sorcerer. In the blink of an eye, his simple life becomes one of adventure, magic, terrifying encounters, and a dark future. With his newfound abilities, and a few friends, Xion must learn to balance learning magic and dealing with his overwhelming destiny, all while the mysterious darkness looms closer.

Can Xion take on this amazing burden, or is the darkness destined to change Xion's world forever?

©2019 Jared Wallis (P)2019 Jared Wallis

Great underdog story

Xion is a really fun character to cheer on. He is often looked over, but really comes into his own as he searches to understand magic. The story had a lot of fun fantasy elements that keep the reader interested and excited. Well put together and thought out. *I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

The chosen one

Xion has spent his whole life isolated and despised in a small village until a merchant caravan is attacked and his true calling is revealed. This was an interesting heroes journey similar to Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker in a more fantasy world. I liked the characters and plot quite a bit, as well as the narration. I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Good Thoughts, Just incomplete ones

First let me say, I was given this book free for an honest review. Now for the review which requires a bit of a set up lol. I will start with a conversation I had with my granddaughter who is 17. She was discussing her struggles in writing with me while she pretended not to be asking for help. I gave her the best advice I could, using terms like what I do is this vs what you need to do is this and sent her on her way. She was pleased she had a new thing to try while still believing that she had not "ask" for help. That is how I felt the whole of this book. Like the author was asking for the help of one really awesome editor. This "kid" who was too old to know so little either had the worst foster parents ever or had the IQ of the ogre. I come from a very remote place, but I would hedge to bet that even the Aborigines know of other peoples, yet this poor dude had not even heard a rumor of other races? Believe-ability is important even in fiction. The supporting cast was fun though and it sucked that Xions mentor was also on the dark side. I actually like what the story was working on, but your editor failed you. Your thoughts wandered and left Xion looking like either a dimwit or a fool at times. Then we have the narrator, she sounded 12! So all her characters also sounded 12 because she had no voice range at all. She did have breathing pauses and a clear her throat moment as well that could have been filtered out with a good editor which apparently failed her too. I will however read book 2, when its available. I hope Xions story grows and thus the author will have grown as well.

Good start

This is the first book I’ve read/listened to by this author. I’m intrigued and would like to listen to more in this series. It’s not an overly original storyline- we have the looming bad guy, main character the said ‘Chosen One’ to defeat said bad guy, not everyone is out to help him. But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. When well done, I like these plots. The magic and how it works is original to me and I like the twist at the end. This is not a stand alone.

This is the first book I’ve listened to by this narrator ( Megan Barber ) and I would listen to another. She puts emphasis on the ends of sentences that made it apparent I was being read to. She gives each character a fairly distinct voice and has some variation in personalities. She’s half way between performing and reading the story. It seems with more practice she could improve her performance.
There was a pulsing, low sound in the background. Very distracting especially when using both earbuds. The first chapter had an echoing or tinny overall sound to the recording, but the next chapters did not.

There are no explicit sex scenes, excessive violence or swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

A coming of age story

The story was well written and had some very well done turn of events. There were a few parts that seemed a bit forced, but they were fairly minor and didn't really effect my overall opinion of the story.

The narration, relatively well done, could benefit from having the background noise cleaned up. There were also a few times where the character voice changed when it shouldn't have, but this only happen two or three times.

Overall, I would recommend this audiobook and am looking forward to listening to the next book in the series.