The Traitor's Son

Path of the Ranger, Book 1

By: Pedro Urvi

Narrated by: John Banks

Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

A kingdom in danger, a great betrayal, a boy seeking to redeem his father's honor. Will he succeed in exonerating him and saving the realm from an enemy in the shadows before it’s too late?

Lasgol is the son of the traitor; the man who betrayed the kingdom and tried to kill the king. At the age of 15, he has endured a hard childhood. In his small village in the North, where he’s cornered and hated, his only companions are the mountains and ever-present snow. Yet he refuses to believe that his father is guilty, even though the king himself was a witness to the betrayal.

Lasgol is determined to clear his father's name, and to do this, he has only one option: attend the School of Rangers, a secret place where the respected and feared defenders of the lands of the kingdom are trained for four years. Going there is insane: Hate and death await him. But as the son of a Ranger, he's entitled to attend.

At the Camp he will find himself involved in political intrigues, disloyalties, and fights. He will encounter hatred and fearsome enemies, but also a handful of friends; other novices who are out of place like himself, determined to do whatever is necessary to make it through the first year alive.

©2020 Pedro Urvi (P)2020 Podium Audio

Scratches the itch “battlemage” left me

The book was good but it does have its flaws. But first off, the narrator was great. Nothing kills an audiobook faster than a bad narrator. Secondly, after the exposition, the book flowed well. Too many fantasy authors like to flex their flowery vocabulary which ends up slowing the pace to a crawl and ultimately doesn’t advance the plot. The book also did a good job introducing concepts so that when certain events happened down the road, it didn’t feel like it was pulled out of thin air. On that note, there’s a decent bit of questionable logic. SPOILERS Turns out dominator mages was a thing and the MCs dad was dominated. The king had found many agents with the same runes and everything. They knew about dominator mages and yet they didn’t even think about investigating this possibility before hopping on the traitor train. In fact the king is a king and should have had access to lots of resources to investigate the runes. Instead it took an unrealistic monologue from the corrupt mage for them to figure out which was stupid imo. A smart person would have kept quiet about the domination so the agents could sow paranoia into the king. He wouldn’t know who was good or bad but now the king knows that those controlled were innocent. Aside from that I can safely say that I’m continuing with the series.

Plot holes abound

The quality of the writing is good and some of the characters are great. But the world building and the logic of the world are terrible. Everyone is terrified of magic but tons of people use magic so basically everyone is a whiny scared pathetic hypocrite. It’s like the author started writing one story then switched it half way into a different story and it happens so fast it gives you whiplash, the personalities of most of the side characters switch on a dime in the most unrealistic way and it’s just brushed off like it’s normal.

more like 4.5 stars

solid coming of age story. good characters. good atort. some good twists. my only complaint. about 2/3 through there is an event that happens that kinda breaks immersion. but it resolves soon enough. worth the credit.

Good read

Loved the book good narrator to. Great plot I can’t wait tell the next books come out.

Good Start Coming of Age Fantasy

This was a good book. I generally enjoy books where the characters are sent to some sort of academy to learn magic/how to fight, so this was quite a nice little read. The main character is a likeable youth who was often bullied for his father's betrayal. I think that the only complaint I had about this book was that the main character did not have more ranger-like skills. His father was one of the best, after all, so it is unrealistic that he did not teach his son any other skills. He did have some - he could track game well, but he was a poor shot with the bow, and was not a very compitent hunter. This is still a 5 out of 5 for me. I can't wait for book2.

when ulis the next one out

This book reminded me of the Rangers Apprentice but more adult themed in the sense that he didn't come across as as a early teens book