Sin of Mages

Rift of Chaos, Book 1

By: A. J. Martinez

Narrated by: Tim Hilborne

Akielas had traveled the world of Odealeous searching for the apprentices that betrayed him. When he finally found them and learned of their malice plot, he was filled with remorse and blamed himself for all they had done. His apprentices named themselves the Specters, and they were on the hunt for all four remnants of the dragons gods. The Specters had one jewel in their possession, and Akielas feared what they would do if they found all four.

Carrying the weight of the world on his shoulder, and great guilt, Akielas was determine to defeat the Specters all alone. However, his friends from different parts of the world, stepped forth and joined his struggle. With sword and magic and a burning desire to avenge the fallen, they swore to defeat the Specters. But there was a problem. Akielas's hands trembled at the thought of slaying his own apprentices.

Listen to this audiobook right now and enter the mystical world of Odealeous.

An epic fantasy series for listeners who love sword and sorcery, elemental magic, dragons, fairies, fairies, elves, dwarfs, and other mystical creatures.

©2016 Anderson Martinez (P)2018 Anderson Martinez

Sin of Mages

Decent story. I liked the magic system. The story seemed a little choppy/rough around the edges. I liked the narrator. I received this audiobook for free through Audiobook Boom for my unbiased review.

Long Story and a Cliffhanger

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request, via Audiobook Boom, and have voluntarily left this review."

This was over ten hours and still ended with a cliffhanger. Several of the chapters made me want to stop listening but I got through the book and was very upset at the end. The narrator kept me listening by the way the emotions were shown. I am not a fan of cliffhangers. Even more so when you have such a long story and no conclusion.

could not listen

Not sure if it was an issue with the file, but I had a LOT of echoing. I couldn't follow along due to the echo. I tried listening to it on 2 devices and same issue. I'll try in a few months to see if its been fixed.

Epic Fantasy with Creatures and Magic!

Sin of Mages
Rift of Chaos, Book 1
By: A.J. Martinez
Narrated by: Tim Hilborne
This is an audible book I requested and the review is voluntary.
This is an epic type fantasy story with all types of fantasy creatures such as elves, dwarves, trolls, wizards, etc. Plenty of magic, action, adventure, fighting, good vs evil, and epic characters. A great magician or wizard's 'children', those he had trained since children, had gone rogue and was decided to make to world free of magic except theirs. They were attacking and killing villages everywhere. The old mage decided he would have to end them after all...
Good narrator, kept the story going smoothly. Good voices and inflections.

Epic fantasy adventure

An epic fantasy adventure with amazing action, twists, turns, surprises, and more. Welcome to a world of magic with a fight to keep it that way. Mages and elves galore. Can't believe though it ended on a cliffhanger just wow.

Odealeous a Great New World with Great Characters

This is a great new fantasy world. New races and a new look at some of the old races. I usually shy away from magic heavy series preferring the sword over the sorcery; but this book was very well done. I loved the division of magic into its separate spheres, earth, air, fire, water, light and dark. With a couple extra types thrown in for the mega mage. The characters were well done and likeable; even the villains were done in a way that made them seem real. I really enjoyed Akielas story and how he must now try to stop the monsters he created in his angrier youth. I can't wait for Audible to do the next two books in the series.

"This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review."

This book was suprisingly good.

Sin of Mages: Rift of Chaos is an epic type fantasy series. I seems like an extended series from the components put in place in this first book. 


The plot was really good. A master mage has to stop his 4 evil students who he loves like his own children. The struggle between his need to stop them, and his love for them is interesting. I loved that it had a magic system that seemed like a Sanderson sort of thing except using the more common air, fire, earth, water plus two new ones, cosmo and devine. Many of the characters are likable. And many are hate worthy. that is good.

And speaking of characters, there are LOTS of characters. I struggled with all the names or people and places and i believe names of. They are all exotic sounding. A little too exotic. Akielas, Exsio, Darmang, Oseth, Auron, Cleyross, Jairo, etc. About halfway through I was struggling to keep track of it all. But I ended up really enjoying the story.

Now, the main problem for me. It was the audio. The narrator did a fine job. Seriously. I enjoyed his voice, and his tempo. But the production quality irritated me to the very end. It sounds like they recorded in a glass room with and omni-directional mic to capture all the echoes. The background echo was so distracting for me. I am wondering if they could send this to an audio guy and have it removed. Fix that and this series is a diamond in the rough.

NOTE: There are a few adult moments in the book. with graphic descriptions of "thrusting inside of her" etc. NOT a book for children with that content.

Thanks for the opportunity to listen. I received this audiobook as a gift in exchange for my honest review.

An action packed fantasy book

Sins of Mages is an action packed fantasy book that starts off a series. The book ends in a bit of a cliffhanger, so plan on reading (or listening to) more books when you finish.

The narrator of the audiobook has a British accent that makes the story seem more epic. Alas he does not do different voices for the characters very well, so sometimes it is hard to keep track of who is talking.

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I REALLY wanted to like this!

I received a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review. I really wanted to give this book a glowing review but can not. I'm going to divide this review into parts and explain why each part has the rating above.

I gave the story two stars because I REALLY liked the world and magic system. They are super cool. So for originality, concept and world building I give this book 4 stars. The story however was very boring. It was a lot of characters that I had trouble connecting to. Running around getting into fights with each other and killing other characters for a reason that didn't really make a lot of sense until the end. It reminded me of the second book in the Maze runner series. The sex scenes were just bad but at least they were super short. So for story I gave this book one star. That averages out to 2.5 stars for the story.

As for the performance -- The Narrator was wonderful. The only thing about his narration that I didn't like was that he really hissed his S's. So I give the narrator 4 stars. However, the quality was very bad and it really took away from the experience. I found myself speeding book up just to get through it because the audio was driving me nuts. For quality of recording I give this book 2 stars. That is why the performance is rated at 3.

Overall, I didn't like this book. I really wanted to because the author has some great ideas but his application just didn't work for me. If the audio quality was better -- I may have gotten more into the story and the characters and almost feel as though reading this book would have been the better experience for me. If you liked the second and third Maze runner books and you can get past the audio quality -- this may be the book for you. It just wasn't the book for me and that make me very sad. So over all I gave this book 2 stars because I did not like it and it was very hard for me to complete it. Normally I finish a book of this length in 1-2 days and it took me six to finish this book.

To the author I want you to know that I think your concepts are great! Keep writing and keep refining your craft -- I think you will go far. I wish I liked this book more and could give it a better review.