Showing posts with label Collegia Magica series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Collegia Magica series. Show all posts

Thursday 25 April 2013

Review: THE DAEMON PRISM

The Daemon Prism by Carol Berg
Read by Angele Masters, David DeVries, Daniel May & Eric Brooks
Book 3 of The Soul Mirror (Collegia Magica #3) series
Genre: renaissance / fantasy
Format: paperback & unabridged audiobook

About The Daemon Prism:
“Thou’rt Fallen, Dante. Born in frost-cold blood; suckled on pain. Thy repentance was ever a lie…”

Dante the necromancer is the most reviled man in Sabria, indicted by the King, the Temple, and the Camarilla Magica for crimes against the living and the dead. Yet no judgment could be worse than his enemies’ cruel vengeance that left him crippled in body and mind. Dante seeks to salve pain and bitterness with a magical puzzle - a desperate soldier’s dream of an imprisoned enchantress and a faceted glass that can fill one’s uttermost desires.

But the dream is a seductive trap that ensnares Dante’s one-time partners and unlocks his own deepest fears. Haunted, blind, driven to the verges of the world, Dante risks eternal corruption and the loss of everything he values to unravel a mystery of ancient magic, sacred legend, and divine truth…
Source: Info in the About The Daemon Prism was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7854686-the-daemon-prism on 29/08/2012.

Review:
This is my first audiobook I listened to where there are four readers involved and I find that I kinda liked it! It's not a dramatization but the book is written in such a way that there is a swapping of POVs as the story is told. And the narrators take turns as their character's POV tells the story. Really fun to listen to. Specially that I've listened to David DeVries and Angele Masters with Books one and two respectively already. But even that got trumped up in awesomeness with the twistiness of the plot! I knew from Book 1 and Book 2 that the plot is devilishly twisty, still the plot threw me a surprise or two. Ah, lots and lots of brownie points to the author for the twisty plot!! However the theme of Dante batting for the other team is rapidly becoming a tired old tune that I wish Carol Berg hasn't recycled that theme. Also, there were many little holes in the plot. Sure, irritating... But, I choose to ignore it... because I also like Carol Berg's rendition of the Christian's "War In Heaven" idea as the story's over-arc-ing plot. Just familiar enough to make a solid connection with the reader. Different enough to hold the reader's interest. And woven masterfully into the tapestry of this trilogy to make it the book's own. Fab! I also noticed that the titles of the books in this trilogy contains words pertaining to optics. Spirit Lens. Soul Mirror. And now Daemon Prism. I wondered about it from the start and the answer slowly unfolded as the story progressed. Wonderful! ....Having said that, I don't know... maybe because I've read the Lighthouse doulogy first that now I am expecting the same level of awesomeness that the expectation bar has been set a bit too high and consequently I was a bit disappointed with this trilogy. And the reason for that disappointment, I could not pin point other than that maybe because the bar of expectation was high. So hopefully for you (who hasn't read the Lighthouse doulogy) this would not be the case and would enjoy this book even more than I did. My only advise is, don't read this book on it's own, gotta read Book 1 and Book 2 first, or this book wouldn't make a lot of sense.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 4
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = (21.5-hour listening time)
Plot = 4.5
Narrators = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Me and Reading ButtonThank you to Me And Reading for hosting a giveaway and made it possible for me to win a print copy of The Daemon Prism by Carol Berg.

Monday 8 October 2012

Review: THE SOUL MIRROR

The Soul Mirror by Carol Berg
Read by Angele Masters
Book 2 of The Soul Mirror (Collegia Magica, #2) series
Genre: renaissance, fantasy, murder mystery, investigative suspense
Format: paperback, unabridged audiobook

About The Soul Mirror:
By order of His Royal Majesty Philippe de Savin-Journia y Sabria, Anne de Vernase is hereby summoned to attend His Majesty's Court at Merona...

Anne de Vernase rejoices that she has no talent for magic. Her father's pursuit of depraved sorcery has left her family in ruins, and he remains at large, convicted of treason and murder by Anne's own testimony. Now, the tutors at Collegia Seravain inform her that her gifted younger sister has died in a magical accident. It seems but life's final mockery that cool, distant Portier de Savin-Duplais, the librarian turned royal prosecutor, arrives with the news that the king intends to barter her hand in marriage.

Anne recognizes that the summoning carries implications far beyond a bleak personal future - and they are all about magic. Merona, the royal city, is beset by plagues of rats and birds, and mysterious sinkholes that swallow light and collapse buildings. Whispers of hauntings and illicit necromancy swirl about the queen's volatile sorcerer. And a murder in the queen's inner circle convinces Anne that her sister's death was no accident. With no one to trust but a friend she cannot see, Anne takes up her sister's magical puzzle, plunging into the midst of a centuries-old rivalry and coming face-to-face with the most dangerous sorcerer in Sabria. His name is Dante.
Source: Info in the About The Soul Mirror was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8626348-the-soul-mirror on 21/08/2012.

Review:
Angele Masters' voice is not as soothing to my ears as Therese Plummer's is. Nor as appealing as Alyssa Bresnahan. Plus I like it when the same narrator reads the books in the same series. I'm anal that way. Angele Masters also have the tendency to read "happy" lines and "excited" lines in a flat and monotonous voice at times. I am guessing this happens when she is already tired as this does not happen all the time. But still quite apparent to my reader's ears. And quite irritating. The change in POV from Portier de Savin-Duplais in Book 1 to Anne de Vernase in this book (Book 2) also took a little getting used to.

Maybe I've been listening to this series long enough that I now appreciated the intricacies of the world of Collegia Magica. Or more likely, the author just spins a beautiful world for us. Either way, I think the world building is even more beautiful with this book than it was with Book 1. And unlike the Lighthouse series, this book actually has a well-structured story with a beginning, a central dilemma and a resolution in the ending at the same time as fitting into the main story arc of the series. That, earned a lot of brownie points with me!! As if that is not enough to add to the goodness of this book, the plot is so twisty it threw me surprises where I never expected it! There were tiny holes in the plot but I choose to ignore those for the reading pleasure that this book gave me! And thank you to Me And Reading for hosting a blog contest and making it possible for me to win a copy of The Daemon Prism (Book 3)! A huge thanks to Me And Reading!!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4.5
Ending = 4
World building = 5
Cover art = 4
Pace = (18-hour listening time)
Plot = 4.5
Narrator = 3

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries

Monday 10 September 2012

Review: THE SPIRIT LENS

The Spirit Lens by Carol Berg
Read by David DeVries
Book 1 of The Soul Mirror (Collegia Magica, #1) series
Genre: renaissance, fantasy, murder mystery, investigative suspense
Format: paperback, unabridged audiobook (MP3)

About The Spirit Lens:
In a kingdom on the verge of a grand renaissance, where natural science has supplanted failing sorcery, someone aims to revive a savage rivalry...

For Portier de Savin-Duplais, failed student of magic, sorcery's decline into ambiguity and cheap illusion is but a culmination of life's bitter disappointments. Reduced to tending the library at Sabria's last collegia magica, he fights off despair with scholarship. But when the king of Sabria charges him to investigate an attempted murder that has disturbing magical resonances, Portier believes his dreams of a greater destiny might at last be fulfilled.

As the king's new agente confide, Portier - much to his dismay - is partnered with the popinjay Ilario de Sylvae, the laughingstock of Sabria's court. Then the need to infiltrate a magical cabal leads Portier to Dante, a brooding, brilliant young sorcerer whose heretical ideas and penchant for violence threaten to expose the investigation before it's begun. But in an ever-shifting landscape of murders, betrayals, old secrets, and unholy sorcery, the three agentes will be forced to test the boundaries of magic, nature, and the divine...
Source: Info in the About The Spirit Lens was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6678976-the-spirit-lens on 21/08/2012.

Review:
I bought this book simply because it got Carol Berg's name on it. I am an old Carol Berg fan and absolutely love her Lighthouse doulogy. I wanted to enjoy more of that kind of wonderful reading time... thus the purchase of this series... But, I've had this book in my TBR shelves for the longest time. I tried picking it up a few times, however I just couldn't get into the story. After sometime I finally decided to cheat and download the audio version. I wanted to persevere with this book because based on my previous experience with this author, her beginnings are not always smashing. I had to plod through Book 1 of the Lighthouse doulogy before I could enjoy the wonderful reading time of Book 2! So I decided to cheat... listened to the audiobook.

Right off at the start, the king hired a librarian who is also a failed magician with no investigative experience or knowledge, to investigate the magical assassination to his royal person. At the same time the king paired the librarian to a less-than-useless and bumbling pompous jay. It made me think that the king did not really want the root of the magical assassination discovered. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that, that was just one of the many twists of the plot. Once I got into the story I appreciated the unfolding of the plot and the unexpected turns it took! Kudos for the twisty plot! So our hero is a librarian-turned-investigator. He never claimed to be a trained professional so I forgave his ineptness at times, even as it annoyed me. It was after all, in keeping with his character. I am also looking forward to reading further into this series to find out how the dice would roll with the wild card character who is Master Mage Dante would turn out to be... I sincerely hope he would be one of the good guys instead of one of the bad guys... 'coz, it'll break my heart... Another kudos for the character development! All in all, this book was quite a good start for Carol Berg.
CymLowell
Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4.5
Pace = N/A (17 hours & 18 minutes)
Plot = 4.5
Narrator = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries