Gathering Mage

Fledgling God, Book 3

By: Michael Taggart

Narrated by: Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey

Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Jason is getting ready to have the adventure of his life!

He and Sandy are heading to the Gathering, which is a conference where the Heads of the Households of the supernatural world network, talk about problems and solutions facing the Houses, and learn a few things.

Jason is going just to support Sandy, and figures he’ll have a mildly interesting time and be home soon. Instead, he gets poisoned, fights for his life, meets a whole new nation, learns the history and secrets of runes, has a cosmic encounter, makes many new friends, and finally gets in touch with his godhood.

It’s a wild ride, so make sure you have snacks, a comfy blanket, hot chocolate, a lap cat/dog/bunny of choice, and get ready for some fun!

©2022 Michael Taggart (P)2022 Michael Taggart

Loved it!

I really enjoy this series. The unique magical world and multiple characters overlay themes of friendship, caring, and family.

Just great

Great read, good vibes, just sailed right through it. I just love how they take everything in a slightly different direction.

I so get your humor!

laugh out loud, don't want it to end, not over the top love scenes, got me looking for more from this author story. Thanks!

I loved it!!

This arc of the story is truly fascinating! The world gets so much more expansive and the possibilities become truly limitless. The characters continue to grow on the journey together as they face new challenges and overcome emergent obstacles in wonderful ways. Bermuda continues to rule the universe as is his due.

Amazing

love this series!! 💗 It is one of my favorites that I stumbled upon. please write more!

Not my cup of tea

Too much perversion for my taste. Got bored quite quickly. Not enough storyline to keep my interesat.

Ok for getting chores done

I keep spending those bucks on this, I guess this means I like it enough. Book 1 was around 12hr, Book 2 around 18hr, and Book 3 is what, 22, 24hr long? All have similar amounts of plot development, and the increase in listening time is just ever more elaborate description of magic systems. Please please find an editor, there was maybe a good plot in this book but it’s hard to remember the plot developments when they are seven hours apart.

Anyways, other than that I would say I wish the main intriguing reveal of the book wasn’t spoiled by the series title.

Insufferably boring and sometimes cringworthy

I was pretty excited for this book when it came out. The magic system was really neat, and it was cool enough that i kept listening, even though the characters were bland and not great all the time. And, at the time i listened to the first two books, i was really excited about having a gay MC, since i was just going through some stuff as well. However, as i read through this book, i became increasingly sure the author has ever talked to a gay person older than 19 before. I have never met a gay person that was nearly as annoying as Jason. The suspicious lack of other LGBT characters other than gay men was also disheartening. I can only imagine that trans people would face unique problems that would be interesting to see solved with magic. There were also no lesbians, and the one maybe bisexual character was a side character who shows up two or three times and then is never mentioned again.

Occasionally, Jason addresses the reader, and it feels out of place. The author then proceeds to tell us how funny the pun or joke that Jason made was. It felt forced and I never laughed at any of them because it felt like I was being told to laugh. While this is probably nit-picky, I would think giving a hug to someone you just met would be a significantly more unwelcome than it was. Jason was really the only one that had anything happen to them, and I never felt there were any real stakes. Jason is so overpowered, that its hard to believe that anything bad could happen to him.

In the overall story, I think the author forgot one of the most important rules of writing; show, don't tell. instead of telling us how sad someone is, describe it and let us infer how sad the man is, or how happy, or how sad. its much more impactful. For the plot, you can smell a hint of one wafting through the text, but its conclusion was obvious and its premise was boring. it boils down to "This man is bad and misogynistic and hates the MC" and resolved in a completely unsatisfactory way.
Here are a few other things I found to be insufferable:
- The power comparisons were inconstant and vague. Don't just tell us that Jason is different than other young mages, give us an example so we can compare the two.
- I don't think that anyone is so horny they ignore all their other friends to go have sex. At least not any good people
- The author tells us that the centaurs are treated terribly, but everyone Jason meets are incredibly kind and respectful to them.
- The only person of consequence who wasn't kind to Jason and Sandy was the main antagonist, who wasn't introduced until like half way through the book.
- Half of the sentences started with the same pronoun did or pronoun looked like and it made the narrator's job hard, since it doesn't matter how you read writing. if the flow is choppy, then its hard to make it sound interesting.

Overall, I'm deeply disappointed with this book. I think the editor should have taken a much harder look at it before it was published. Maybe then, it wouldn't sound like a 3rd grader's writing homework.