AP

what a way to live up to the hype!

Reviewed: 09-08-24

There's been a long time between this book and the last (in the modern literary sense and compared to the place of his other releases) but Hugo Huesca came back with a vengeance, a mature writing style, amazing direction, and avoided SO many plot pitfalls, traps, and cliches. What a fresh feeling angle.

I hope life is treating Hugo well or --at the very least-- better every day...and that we get more from an amazing author.

Also, an absolutely wonderful job from the folks at Soundbooth Theater in this audiobook performance. Fee books really do the sound effect, light music, and full cast audio so well. This....really...HIT! IDK what made this so particularly good but there was some real magic to it. Kudos to Jeff Hays, Annie Ellicott, Dorrie Sacks, Ryan H. Reid, Gary Furlong, Lucky Byfleet, and anyone else involved on the production side. The mix was great. Keep up the great work you all. You really elevated the work, in my opinion.

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Still great. Hoping for continued growth

Reviewed: 01-28-24

Still love it. And it threads the line of wholesome and kinda horrific really well. Still...I'm really starting to tire of the MC being as platonic and childish about certain things. It's time for more growth on that front, I'd say.

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Solid first entry

Reviewed: 01-04-24

Good world building, interesting premise, good mystery, actual stakes... this has the makings of a good series.

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Solid series. We had a good run

Reviewed: 08-29-23

I've been following this series for a while now. It's been a good few years. Some great fights, some fun moments, and some sad ones. This has always been a solid cultivation tale. It was always good to come back to.

It had clean, solid prose, some decent character interaction and motivation, a solid and easily understandable power system, and decent dialogue. This series, always remained at least good to pretty good.

There's more room to grow here. More chances to evolve. More opportunities to do cool things with prose and characterization. To take more risks. I'm here at book 12 with overall positive feelings about the series. I even think it could've gone longer, though this is a really good place to stop.

It could have a sequel series and still work. I will admit that it did feel as if things were a little neatly buttoned up to fit but the author did confirm that that was the case. Not badly done. Just a bit of a shame to not let it run a little longer for more payoffs and setups.

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1 person found this helpful

A Pinnacle series in progression fantasy...

Reviewed: 06-07-23

that sticks the landing. This book had me saying, "Oh my god," and "hell yeah" more than 30 times before even being 2/3 in. It really did hit everything. No loose ends. An absolute pleasure to read. A new pinnacle series in fantasy. A well conceived magic system, nigh infinitely extensible and yet grounded. Wholesome yet action-packed. No shying from violence but not grimdark and with time for fun. Take note, authors. There's real balance here. Kudos to Will Wight.

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It sticks the landing pretty nicely.

Reviewed: 04-12-23

The end of an era. I started with these in podcast form and now we're finally here. All in all, it's a satisfying conclusion to an amazing series. Well done, Domagoi and well done, Jack. Great work. It has everything it needs for the characters: earned power, crazy tactics, real stakes, and a generally satisfying conclusion that leaves room for more. I'm glad I was here for this.

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He did it again.

Reviewed: 04-05-23

Will Wight has really grown as an author and this has all the potential in multiple worlds to be an amazing series. Ballsy to start with that level of power but he nails it

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A Great Story with only a just fine ending

Reviewed: 02-07-23

Wasted potential. Too short for a finale.
This series was magnificent in the beginning. It took risks and spent time with its characters and settings that other stories would not have the fortitude to attempt.

It did something special. It fit a niche that not much else does. Two competent soldiers get brought to a new world and cultivate, level, craft magitech fusions of Earth weaponry and new world magic, have full on wars, and nation build.

It was one of the few book series that let itself just take the time to get into the minutiae of its magic system, that had battles that could go for a hundred pages and then come to a great climactic conclusion. It was one of the few series that had the balls to put you through hours of content not involving the main characters because actively building a nation in a nation-building story requires delegation and competent side characters you can follow. The main side characters are pretty well characterized and their motivations and styles are understood so they can carry that burden across multiple chapters.

I really enjoyed the detail and the depth of what it takes to run a nation or a multi-factional war fought across multiple dimensions. You get the espionage and information gathering, the military coordination and large army strategy/combat, the small squad level tactics/combat, and everything in between. I really enjoy that, personally. Crazy long, intricate action scenes with magic'd up earth weapons against fantasy and cultivation style weapons and powers? I'm in. Getting into detail about crafting and enchanting or cultivation and the mechanisms of magic for a chapter? I'm in.

Unfortunately, the author began toning down the length and crazy detail in the later books...but that was what I enjoyed about the series. That's what made it stand out above the other books out there. And for it to fall so flat compared to the potential it had just shatters the literary soul. The books went from 20+ hours to maybe 6. And the last installment was nearly the shortest of them. It's a passable story and it does what it needs to but, when you've seen it firing on all cylinders, it seems to lack that lustre. I would have been totally fine with longer waits for more detail. I've been snapping up these books as soon as they became available for a while now, so I definitely committed...

I'm just disappointed. I don't know that I'll pick up any new series by this author as immediately. I'll actually have to check to see how they go and if the quality/expected depth changes again as they progress before I decide to buy. Definitely a talented author with great action prose, a great talent for multilayered concurrent storylines, and a good sense for just enough humor. It just seemed as if he got burnt out and wanted to finish out the series.

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1 person found this helpful

It's a serviceable story...

Reviewed: 10-06-22

...in a series that usually sits at the great to amazing mark. It's a shame that it's not as fleshed out as the previous entries. We could've used more time in the world with so few books left. Unfortunately, from reviews left on the other books, it's not going to end as well as it started. I've seen it said that Chatfield's endings can leave a lot to be desired.

I don't understand it. The man can write. Very few have the talent and style to write military and magic fiction with the level of detail he does and do it *well*. The extra time and depth and breadth of the early books has slowly begun to erode as the series nears the final few books and it shows. The bar was set so high.

I still enjoyed it for what it was. I'm invested in the characters. I still like his writing style. Just... it just feels like we're heading to a rapid finish in a series that used to take its time. I honestly don't know if I'll finish it out. Especially with the reviews on the paperback version of the next one. It's a shame. I would drop everything but Cradle for this series whenever the next installment would come out. And now we're here.

Great narration as always by Neil Hellegers.

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Great but felt uncharacteristically short

Reviewed: 06-05-22

From one of the few series out there that takes the time to really explore the scale of these huge empires, it was a bit of a letdown to have the explanations be so cursory by comparison in this book. We went from battles and operations lasting hours with amazing detail and scope to something fairly quick.

We used to spend a lot of time with the "side characters" and exploring the magic/cultivation system. In this book? Very little in depth exploration...by comparison.

This series sets a bar and this installment doesn't reach it in terms of detail. Still a wonderful story but I need much more and it has always delivered until this one. If the book was a Part 1, I would understand. However, for an entire installment...not quite. I'm hoping the next few books will be more like before.

Also, the ending really felt uncharacteristically rushed.

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