Free Downloads Blood Of Innocents: The Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, Book 2
Anasoma, jewel of the Mahruse Empire, has fallen. As Caldan and his companions flee the city, horrors from the time of the Shattering begin to close in. With Miranda's mind broken by forbidden sorcery, Caldan is forced to disobey the most sacrosanct laws of the Protectors if he is to have any chance of healing her. But when one of the emperor's warlocks arrives to take control of him, he begins to suspect his burgeoning powers may be more of a curse than a blessing, and that the enemies assailing the empire may be rivaled by even more sinister forces within. This is an updated recording from the original 2014 edition, also performed by Oliver Wyman, which matches the current reissue of the print book.
Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 20 hours and 55 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Audible Studios
Audible.com Release Date: June 14, 2016
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English
ASIN: B00P2V5Z3Y
Best Sellers Rank: #109 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Dark Fantasy #144 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Fantasy > Epic #517 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic
Book one of the Sorcery Ascendant was a fantastic debut. We are introduced to Caldan who starts off a naive self centered child but who develops over the course of the story into a mature, poised, intelligent, resourceful hero. You enjoy reading this development as he explores the intricacies of a new magic while discovering aspects unique to himself.It is then with disappointment that you read this second book and all that character development is seemingly thrown out the window. Instead the reader has to deal with Caldan as an immature, obnoxious, entitled brat who worst of all is incompetent, failing at most things he does and then wallowing in disgusting emo moments of self pity and reprobation. It is with almost horror as you turn each page of the book hoping Caldan would snap out of it and return to demonstrating his moments of brilliance from the 1st book. But instead as the pages dwindle he continues to engage constant moral and action failings that have you putting down the book in frustration. Rather than creating new engineering marvels or discovering new aspects of magic or demonstrating his mastery of Dominion as he did in the first book, he spends every page mewling over a lost love and generally failing at every endeavor while wallowing in indignation and self pity.He is a pawn to every side character introduced rather than a budding hero in his own right. Even the side character Amerdan comments that Caldan is useless especially when compared to Bells.Is in fact in Bells and Amerdan that the author lavishes the accomplishment and development. It is done in an almost GRRM attempt to add depth and complexity to the antiheroes but since that development is done almost always at the expense of the protagonist, Caldan, the development leaves a sour taste in your mouth.The other "hero" of the series Vasile undergoes a similar transformation. In book 1 we are introduded to an extraordinarily competent hero with a unique and powerful talent and in book 2 he is transformed into a weak, incompetent, confused side kick to another side character Aidan that the reader and struggles and fails to find any connection to. I found myself skipping over all the story line involving Aidan while gritting my teeth through the passages where Vasile is portrayed as being just short of a doddering fool.So basically in book 2, the author incomprehensibly took the 2 main heroes and destroyed all their accomplishment and reduced them to self pitying incompetent fools that throws out all their earlier developmenent and feels like a huge insult to the investment the reader placed in those characters in Book 1. And instead the focus is placed on side characters like Bells, Aidan and Lady Felic who at this point in the story you struggle to find any connection or interest in.Overall a very disappointing follow up in a book that I was highly looking forward to reading.EDIT: Updated from 2 to 3 stars. For all its faults the book is the continuation of an excellent series and whoever enjoyed the first book will want to read the second one
This is the second in the Sorcery Ascendant series and I found it to be a really good read. The book had plenty of action and kept the readerâs attention throughout. Never knew what was going to come next and it definitely kept my attention. I canât wait for the next book in the series to come out.
*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*BLOOD OF INNOCENTS is the second book in the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence series by Mitchell Hogan.POV: Third PersonTENSE: PastSETTING: Anasoma (fictional location)SEXUAL CONTENT: noneJenâs Review of BLOOD OF INNOCENTSI want to start by giving my apologies to the author and the publisher. I read this book months ago, and I never wrote the review. My delay has nothing to do with the quality of the book; I just fell into a rut where I didnât want to write reviews anymore. I kept procrastinating, making days turn into weeks and then months.Blood of Innocents was an exciting, fast-paced, and skillfully written book full of endearing and interesting characters. This book continued the story of Caldan, a young man who is caught in the middle of a war and stuck in a bad situation due to choices he made in the previous book. He is learning to expand his magical abilities, while caring for his injured friend (romantic interest). Caldan is a character who people can relate toâhe makes mistakes but has the best intentions.Because Caldan is so likable, the other characters sometimes fall to the wayside. That doesnât make them less interesting; it just becomes easy to want to skip over their parts in order to get back to what is going on with Caldan. I think the author could have had less scenes from the perspectives of other characters, and the book would not have suffered for it.I only saw a couple of errors in the book. One was on page 127. There is some word confusion during a conversation between Bells and Caldan. Itâs a minor thing. Overall, I thought the book was very well-written.Compared to the previous book, this one was more graphic due to Amerdan showing more of his violent nature. This is not a problem; I am just letting people know what to expect in case they havenât read it yet.Blood of Innocents is a book that can be read alone without having to read the previous book in the series. The author introduces the world and the characters to the reader in such a way as to avoid confusion. There is also a âDramatis Personaâ at the beginning of the book, which tells the reader who all the characters all, which is very helpful because there are a lot of characters in this series.I also appreciated that there isnât a huge cliffhanger at the end. Also, the author started giving some of the answers to questions that have been looming since the first book, such as what is going on with Caldanâs body.If you havenât read Blood of Innocents, I strongly suggest it. This is one of my favorite fantasy series. Itâs a coming-of-age story mixed with magical realism and action-adventure. I would definitely read the next book if given an opportunity. I give this book five out of five stars for being hard to put down, having lots of intrigue and suspense, and providing vivid setting descriptions.
I listened to both books on long road trips as well as at night after the kids were put to bed. This second book of the series starts right where the first left off. The flow is good and the characters remained interesting to me. There's a lot of struggle to heal Miranda and much of Caldan's efforts, thoughts and dialogues are to that end. The story of the shopkeeper Amerdin (sp?) is very interesting in this second book and particularly well done. A few surprises hear and there but nothing earth shattering plot wise. That's not a bad thing, as my enjoyment of stories doesn't depend upon an world-changing, completely unforeseen event. The narration was consistent. I never had to wait for dialogue tags to know who was speaking due to inconsistent voicing of characters. Oliver Wyman did a fantastic job, as he did in the first book.I love action in books. I tend to look for well choreographed action and battle scenes and whether or not I feel like I there in the mix. Hogan does this well. That being said, the mystery behind what's going on in the greater parts of the world--outside the main characters--keeps teasing me and I really am intrigued to learn more.Keep them coming.
The first two books in this series were great. Can't wait for more. Like all good series the characters are likeable. Caldan the orphan turned hero. A loveable mass murderer and a cast of interesting characters. There are a number of threads left dangling. Can't wait to see how the author works these out.
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