The Battlemage

By: Taran Matharu

Narrated by: Ralph Lister

Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

The epic conclusion to the New York Times best-selling Summoner trilogy!

Fletcher and his friends fight for survival in the ether, where they pursue a mortally dangerous quest to rebuild their world and broker peace.

Even as hatred threatens to turn friend into foe, Fletcher must lead a small army of soldiers into battle to protect his ancestral homeland and face his biggest challenge yet: his nemesis, the albino orc Khan, who seeks to destroy everything Fletcher holds dear.

©2017 Taran Matharu (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Too many unresolved issues

Enjoyed the series but the ending felt rushed. Left a few too many characters just dangling. Very disappointing ending to a good series. Kind of just ruined it.

bad ending

i didn't like the ending. it was very lacking, and unsatisfying. I felt like it should have continued into a book 4, and then everything for the final conflict just got rushed.

A Plot that Could Be Solved With Five Syllables

First I would like to state this is a review of the entire trilogy not just this book.
Second I really do feel that this deserves to be in the young adult section, there just is not enough complexity or substance for an adult book. It’s not a bad thing but this is certainly not a book that takes a hard look at politics despite how large a part of the over all plot it plays. Simply put by the time I was half way through book two I was chanting assassination, the five aforementioned syllables which would resolves 2/3 of the problems.

Pros: I liked the characters and the fact that their motivations were clear and relatable with back stories that explain and reinforced their behavior.
The monsters were interesting and well written, though it did come off a little to much like Poke`mon sometimes.
It was nice to have a fantasy were the aristocracy existed for a reason; and that reason builds that back bone for their behavior as well.
Dwarves are the main support characters with a complete culture, instead of look elves we’ll stick with elves, that fantasy tends to lean towards.
Nicely episodic writing, the series doesn’t try to keep the plot and conflicts going throughout, it has sup-plots and smaller conflicts that culminate to form a plot that’s less like a line and much more curved. It reminds me a lot of sword and sorcery fantasy which is a good thing to me.

Cons: Because no book is perfect,
First and foremost too much of the conflict is contrived. Oh the old king is a right evil villain, we must circumvent his plots, over and over again while said plots take place in a kingdom in a losing war and these plots continue to weaken the country and apparently only the main characters are smart enough to see this.
The Main Character is the perfect image of nobility and virtue, he never does anything immoral. Again he’s a teenaged boy whom doesn’t every let his emotions get the better of him in any meaningful way and always does the right thing even when he can see the massive personal costs.
The beginning of the series stated pretty explicitly the MC was nothing special beyond his values; but by book three he’s the chosen one. Destined chosen one trope losses this book a star.
In a world where EVERY HUMAN is a bigot the only characters that aren’t bigots is the MC, the king and MC’s human best friend.
There is way too much thinly disguised 'racism is bad' talk.
The whole, 'we must save the minorities' shtick gets old real fast when its in every few pages let alone is the main driving tension for three books.
The main threat, outside of bigots, are threats because of very thin reasoning. Civilizations like the orcs in this book don’t last more than a century or two never mind two millennia, and just aren't really that effective in war.
Assassination is never even talked about until over half way through book 3, then stated it can’t be done for flimsy reasons. Again, the bigots that started wars that claimed tens of thousands of lives, apparently ruined their economy for the sake of profit and their own ego. Yes clearly things like poison, collapsing a building or other more extreme means of killing the villain are only options for the MC to be done in by.

Lastly the narrator did a good job for a job that he was clearly bored with. Still every character had a distinct voice and there were no weird stresses or anything.

In the end if you want a solid but not outstanding high fantasy story that keeps things light here it is, it hits trope by trope and doesn’t really throw any curve balls. Other than that I’d give this one a pass, it’s not the three credits to finish. There simply is too much fantasy in human behavior here for me to full get into this book, that’s all.

Reserves running low, rushed story

I have two problems with this great book:

First problem is that Fletcher's reserves are always running low. I don't know if it was a story telling trick so everything wasn't about magic. But it's very dull when every battle he's gets into his reserves run low immediately.

Second I feel the whole trilogy was rushed. We barely learned anything about what happens in Vulcans or any detail how the ether was discovered or demonology history. Then the fact that every time Fletcher was in danger he just Deus Machina his way out of it. Which if done countless times get boring and stale.

An Unfinished Feeling

Old-world style fantasy with kings and castles, swords and sorcery, including the ability to summon demons from the ether. The story is told in 3rd person, mostly through the perspective of the teenage summoner, the orphaned, adopted son of a village blacksmith. There are humans, dwarfs, elves, gremlins, goblins, and orcs, as well as a confusing variety of animal-like demons, summond from the ether.

Contents include some gory death, but no sex and little or no swearing.

I enjoyed the relationships between comrades and their demons. Also appreciated the characterization of King Harold -- his sense of powerlessness, frustration, and political quandary.

On the down side, the bad guys never really suffer, even at the end of the trilogy, even though they caused a great deal of suffering. Their comeuppance is told in passive tense with only a brief paragraph. Crummy resolution.

The world mythos is never established, even by the end of the trilogy -- the ether is not explained, nor the statues and the ancient buldings and mammoth bones found within that inexplicable space. The ancient pyramid in the jungle is also not explained, nor the prsence of humans thousands of years before recorded history.

Language issues frequently pulled me into the modern pop culture. "Get your game face on" etc. The invention of muskets, rifles, pistols didn't really belong in this world, either.

Narration is very good, but often the voice gets too loud and raspy. It was hard to listen while falling asleep. Kept jerking awake.

Enjoyable read with some frustrations

I have to say that I enjoyed this series as a whole and am fairly satisfied about how this book ended, even of it does feel a bit like some things were left unfinished but at the same time I was a bit frustrated about a few things.

First off, I did not feel like Fletcher really grew as a person despite all the experiences he went through. I swear, it feels almost as if all the major fights/conflicts that occurred were all caused by characters taunting one another or people being impatient. Events like these frustrated me.

Second, for a series about summoner and battle mages, they don't really seem to affect anything. Throughout the series, summons felt like they were more for scouting than actually fighting and despite Fletcher and others being trained as battle mages, they hardly seem to use their abilities because they're almost always out of mana. The orcs were portrayed more like battle mages and summoners than the people were. Maybe its my imagination but the part of the series the most shows battle mages abilities was mostly during the war. Everything else seemed to center solely around the firearms that were produced with occasional close combat occuring.

Lastly, I would have like to see how Fletchers summons grow, what happens with his mother as well as his relationship with Sylvia.

Although, I did list all my frustrations above, that does not mean that I did not enjoy the books. I sped through them because I wanted to know more about the world and was sad when this book ended. I hope that the other can continue writing more stories based on this universe and maybe a book or two with Fletcher again.

Great- Feels cramped at end

First book ive listened to by this narrator can't complain, ending feels unfinished and cramped

I like the book but

I like the book and the series, but I've never read a series where a main character has had so much misfortune happen to him constantly. To a point where it actually became annoying, like come on let the character develop instead.

Trilogy Problem

I've read many fantasy fictions similar to this one and it comes down to the same problem between them. The third book is by no means bad; its a great book and a tied off ending. However, that is also the problem. The book seems a bit rushed in order to finish off the trilogy; the content could've been made into 2 more elaborate books. The effect of said rushing leaves the reader feeling a bit lacking and wanting for content, while some of the content that we do possess feels a bit forced upon us. Overall it was a great listen but I wish the author had taken the content of this book and given themselves more room to work with.

good story

felt rushed though. anticlimactic. some things were buttoned up at the end but i feel like the author grew tired of the series and wanted to get it over with.

that being said i still enjoyed it...i just feel it could have been great.