Wings of Wrath

Magister Trilogy, Book 2

By: C. S. Friedman

Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers

Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Kamala, a peasant woman, has claimed the powerful sorcery of the Magisters - the ability to draw on the power of the human soul without dying for it- as her own. But in her rise to power, she finds herself hunted by the brotherhood, and flees to a land where spells are warped by a fatal curse. It is a land that even Magisters fear.

©2009 C.S. Friedman (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Excellent Trilogy

Unique world building with an entertaining plot & fascinating interpersonal dynamics between characters. I'd like to find more series just like this.

😬

The first book was great and hooked me. This one not so much. Still will finish the series. I am no quitter.

Fun story but performance is a little weak

story is fun, albeit a little convoluted with missing explanations.
performance was generally decent except for emotional parts where the narrator opted for a muted whisper yell that damaged the feel of the scene

Not as good as the first one

If you could sum up Wings of Wrath in three words, what would they be?

continued, slow, lost me for a bit

Would you recommend Wings of Wrath to your friends? Why or why not?

I would, as long as they read the first one and REALLY liked it. I think this book is a bit slower and you really must be invested to finish it.

What does Elisabeth Rodgers bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

she gives emotion, dont really realized that i'm listening to someone telling a story, feels like I'm just reading it in my head.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not particularly. The first one was, this one I didn't connect with as much

very surprising, but perhaps needed a rereading.

when listening to this book I found myself surprised by C.S. Friedman's creativity in creating obstacles for the protagonists. despite this though i found that not much happened in this book. all the action was devoted to essentially a single place to accomplish a singular goal with only a few tid bits here and there to signify that other parts of the story were progressing albeit very slowly.

as far as writing a further proof read felt let me it was needed towards the end of the book as a redundancy of words between sentences served as a distraction. in addition to this, the word sacrosanct was as worn out in this book as geometric scale or proportion was in the Coldfire trilogy. when reading the books it may not be an issue, but listening to them it feels like a word of the day game people often played in the 90s.

as another side note, the sexual interactions in this book seemed dumbed down in comparison to the last as if there was a sudden need for vague descriptions of what was happening or what the characters were feeling. in addition to this there was a scene towards the beginning where a guard was helping kamala under the illusion that she was hurt and in desperate need of assistance. the idea that the guy was whipped into a sexual distraction from this was very out of place without some hint that sorcery was being played. this was echoed later in another sexually charged scene with her, except that we are told that sorcery wasn't suppose to work properly in the area they were in which failed to explain several things Kamala randomly knew and an exchange between her and another character revealed that she knew more than she should, but never planned out. it felt rather odd.

the narration was much better this time though all the characters on the soul eaters side sounded alike. the only issue I really had a hard time with was the distinction between voiced words and unspoken thoughts which C.S. Friedman is known for. unfortunately the narration made it seem as one single passage until you picked apart the contradiction later.

overall the book and narration was good though I feel it could have been ironed out a bit further.

Great follow thru!

Would you listen to Wings of Wrath again? Why?

Yes. Except, there were so many juxtaposing storylines that I was hoping to hear more of the main character development.

What other book might you compare Wings of Wrath to and why?

None. It has its own life unlike the other books I have listened to.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Elisabeth Rodgers?

Yes. She is a good reader.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

For the most part, Yes.

Any additional comments?

The recording of the chapters kept cutting short. Many of the chapters ended before the reader stopped reading causing the listener to not hear the final words of those chapters. That was unnerving!

Story was just ok

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes its a good read but not something I would read over and over again

Would you be willing to try another book from C. S. Friedman? Why or why not?

Yes

Nothing compelling here.

This review is of the entire trilogy:

After an interesting beginning, I was so hoping that there would be something about the main character that would make her interesting. Unfortunately that never happened. I was so disappointed. She was quite dull and shallow.

The author was too predictable. One of the problems I had was with how she would always kill off potential mates of the main character. Some of them started of quite interesting and likable. Yet you knew they were going to die like red shirted crewmen on Star Trek.

Most male characters were cookie cutter as well. They were mostly self centered, shallow, and misogynistic. Very few were worthy and noble. If they were, they were killed off by the author.

It is sad. There were a lot of missed opportunities with this series.

The narrator was not very good either. She is pretty flat and emotionless. She did not help the story at all.

Overall, I recommend passing on this series. There is nothing redeemable.

good although not as good as the first one.

lots of things happen yet the story is a lot more focused and has been well driven.

Excellent classic epic fantasy

This is the second book in Friedman’s Magister series. This has been an amazing fantasy series and is a very good classic fantasy read!

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was very well done. In fact if I weren’t listening to this on audiobook I probably wouldn’t be continuing on with the series. Rodgers just does such an amazing job narrating the story.

Kamala is reeling after events in the first book and is trying to find a way to gain knowledge that she can use as leverage against the rest of the Magisters. She decides to journey towards the Wrath (a magical barrier that separates the North from the rest of the world) and try to learn its secrets. Many secrets are revealed about the Wrath and the Soul Eaters that dwell to the North.

This story switches POV a ton throughout the book and a lot more characters are added to the story. However, I never had trouble following it. Friedman is also not at all afraid of eliminating major characters as a course of the story and adding in new ones.

The Soul Eaters and their companions make the Magisters seem like heroes in this book. I continue to enjoy the good vs evil themes and all the magic and the way life-force is needed to make magic function. I am incredibly curious to see how things wrap up in the third book; this story has been very intriguing and very hard to predict.

Friedman’s writing style is very “classic” fantasy and reminds me a lot of books I read that came out in the 80’s and 90’s. I have been enjoying the nostalgic feel that reading this series gives me!

Overall this has been an incredible fantasy series. I love the complex world, interesting magic system, entangled plot, and the unpredictability of it all. The characters are well done and the world building is epic. I would highly recommend to those who enjoy epic fantasy with a classic feel to it.