Customer Reviews

The Innocent Mage (Kingmaker, Kingbreaker, Book 1)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

The youngest son in a family of hard-working fishermen, twenty-year-old Asher steals away from his coastal home to find his fortune in the kingdom's capitol. He intends to return after one year, coin-purse bulging, to give his father an easier life; but once in the city, he unknowingly finds himself hitched to the puppet-strings of a Great Prophecy. For, as envisioned by a secret circle of prophecy-keepers, Asher may be the kingdom's only hope against a long-dormant Dark Lord who is awakening in the North, behind the magical wall that has protected the land for centuries ...

And so on and so forth. If only the story of The Innocent Mage (Book One of the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker duology), as told by first-time novelist Karen Miller, were as subtle and intriguing as the book's cover. Ms. Miller is a competent writer, word for word, and she shows a particular sensitivity to the flow of dialogue, especially argument, between friends. However, the 640 pages of the novel are nothing more than a prologue for the conflict to come. (At least one assumes it will come, and Asher will, despite much self-doubting and protesting, become The Awakened Mage and save the world.) Ms. Miller shifts easily from one character's viewpoint to another and shows range in moving from Asher's rough, salty perspective to the more refined ones of royalty. (That said, the villain's viewpoint is so stereotypically oily that one expects him to invent railroad tracks and grow mustaches, the better to place damsels in distress and have something to twirl while laughing sinisterly.) But overall, the pacing is simply too ... bloody ... slow--which is one of the problems of draping a protagonist with the heavy mantle of Great Prophecy: unless the story is told with extreme care, it loses dramatic tension, as the reader knows what will essentially happen next and is only left with discovering how it will happen. (Ms. Miller or her editor may have recognized this and attempted to manufacture tension by inserting chapter breaks in the middle of long scenes.)

I was able to finish this novel, and at times, I was taken in by the characters' relationships and Ms. Miller's undemanding style; but I cannot recall reading a fantasy novel and being so annoyed at the lack of progress. Suffice it to say that both cover and title are misleading, as Asher doesn't even experiment with the tiniest spell. ("The Innocent Fisherman Comes to Town" would have been more appropriate.) I refuse to read the sequel unless someone I trust assures me of its payoff. Recommended only for fans of epic fantasies wherein orphan boys make good and save the world. Two slow-drying starfish.

If you can tolerate 400 pages of inaction and conversation, you might like The Innocent Mage by Karen Miller. On the other hand, if you are like me and expect action and conflict in a novel, you would be wise to skip over it on the bookshelf. Seriously, nothing significant, suspenseful, or exciting happens until page 400.

So what does happen in the first 400 pages? We meet the protagonists, Asher and Gar, and they bicker like a same sex couple. They talk, talk, and talk. I suppose that Miller strives for character development in these pages, but the characters never develop beyond their introductions: Asher starts as a blunt, stubborn, good-natured country boy, and that is how he remains throughout the novel. He is the titular character yet does nothing to demonstrate it. Doesn't that make the title superficial?

I am surprised that this novel was even published. In my opinion, it adds nothing to the genre and resembles a patchwork of fantasy clichés. There is a Wall that protects the world from nameless, faceless evil, and there is a Prophecy that foretells the collapse of the Wall. Magic exists, but only in the hands of the Doranen, but since we encounter no Doranen besides royalty, we never learn what they do with their magic, besides controlling the weather. Using Weather magic somehow maintains the Wall, although the connection is never explained. It would make sense if the Weatherworker was draining the good weather from the realms beyond the wall, leaving that land eternally dark, stormy, and harsh, but that does not seem to be the case. There is a predictable romance, and a predictable friendship, and a predictable villain, once Miller decides to include one. What's missing: How about subtlety and originality?

Some of Miller's choices befuddle me. Asher's folksy dialect and country bumpkin act irritated me after a few hundred pages. Miller also switches viewpoints to supporting characters such as Fane, Willer, and Darran, but to no real purpose, since it never happens consistently enough to matter. Miller also inserts chapter breaks in the middle of dialogue, which seems strange. I do not understand why the king is also the Weather mage; you would think that the demands of one job would make performing the other job impossible. Some events also occur off page in the interludes between chapters, such as Asher's realization of love. Miller should show Asher falling in love, not tell us.

To be fair, the novel has a few bright spots. The Prophecy seems to be a force capable of acting, and not just words scrawled on a dusty scroll; I wish that Miller had explored this idea further. The symmetry between Asher and Gar--how they both try to satisfy their fathers while battling their siblings--is interesting, although we should have seen more interaction between Asher and his family for this dynamic to be effective. Miller does a good job of staying in character, and I like how she uses fishing and ocean expressions and metaphors when writing in Asher's perspective.

Miller is a decent writer who could use a better editor. Someone should have told her to get to the story already. Stories need action and conflict; they do not need pages and pages of setup and dialogue.

Like another reviewer, I was attracted to this book because of the cover - a really vibrant, eye-catching piece of work. I didn't expect too much out of the story itself; at most, maybe a day or three of mild entertainment. I'm glad to say that I was wrong.

Most of the characters of _The Innocent Mage_ are very well-developed and complement each other nicely. Especially great was the relationship and interaction between Asher and Prince Gar - Miller really got across in a plausible and enjoyable way how a bond of friendship might form between two vastly different men from totally different ends of the social spectrum.

I found the chapters told from Asher's point of view very amusing and especially entertaining. His dialect, no-nonsense attitude, and sarcastic humor were a joy to read.

However. The plot was a bit... shallow. I scarcely noticed while I was reading since the characterizations were so amazing, but after I got done reading I sat back and thought, "Y'know, there wasn't really too much that happened, except in the last 80 or so pages..." It would have been nice to see some more back-story on exactly how and why the Doranen came to be in Lur, apart from "Oh, there was a civil war and we had to run and found this shiny new kingdom here."

The main villain of the story, Morg, is another disappointment, at least in this first book. He's a caricature of the stock Dark Lord, complete with Dark Dominion, Other-Worldly Slaves and Assorted Monsters, and Unending Hatred of the Good Guys. I will say that he was a sneaky evil, rather than an over-the-top evil, which was a nice change.

If the characters hadn't been so strong, this would have been a three-star or possibly only a two-star book. But Asher and his friends and enemies were great, the plot as set up in the last few chapters looks set to take off like a rocket in the second and final book, and Miller's style of writing is just so accessible that I've got to give this four stars.

Best of all, it seems book two is being released next month, so I don't have to wait years to finish the story.

"Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series"

Or so the cover tells us. But, really, there's not a whole lot of kingmaking or kingbreaking going on. Actually, for almost the entirety of this book, there's not a whole lot of anything going on.

I'll give to Karen Miller that she can set up characters. I just don't think it should take 500 pages to do it. I'm serious when I say that the climax of this book seems to take place in the last hundred pages, and even that left me feeling wanting. After putting the book down, my exact first thought was "I read six-hundred pages and -nothing- happened." Oh sure, there's a big awful storm, some glimfire tossed about, and a wicked entity attempting regicide, but I really do think that with all that did (or didn't) happen, this book could have been condensed into about half of its size.

But not all was bad. I did find some characters interesting, most dialogue believable (though there are some exchanges which left me cringing), and, overall, found myself wanting to move on to the next book if for nothing else just to see if anything -happens-.

I would warn away any reader impatient for some action. It's a very slow and plodding book. That's not to say it's a horrible one, but don't let the cover fool you. There is no major magemaking here.

I hate to say it, but I feel disappointed.

Sorry, Karen.

The problem with this book is that I've already read it. It was called the Riftwar Saga. It was about this kid who comes to live near a castle and in a completely implausible manner becomes best friends with the local nobility. Eventually we find out that, shockingly, this seemingly average kid gets to be a powerful wizard.

Ok, maybe there aren't pseudo-samurais jumping out of holes in the world at some point. I don't know because I'm not going to read anymore. The main character is a brat. A brat who is always right and always saves the day, not because it makes sense, but because he's the main character in an epic fantasy and that's what epic fantasy protraganists do. His relationships with the other characters make little sense. They all immediately like him for little reason that is demonstrated in the book. Again, one has to think it's just because he's the main character in an epic fantasy. It seems the author wants us to believe it's just because he's a salt-of-the-earth fisherman type whose folk wisdom and from-the-gut commonsense must be right.

I don't know. Obviously a lot of people like stories about headstrong young lads who become legends. These days, however, I expect more from a book than a willful desire to make some brat an all-powerful wizard.

Inexplicably, this book is selling like hotcakes. Given the flood of great, modern fantasy currently hitting the shelves, I find this both perplexing and depressing.

Our hero's childhood as a fisherman proves the gateway to court etiquette, public speaking, an instinctive knowledge of the justice system, javelin-throwing and, ironically, horseback riding (two chapters after the sequence above, Miller points out that Asher was actually pretty bad with horses - at least, until he put his bait-hooking mind to it).

Appropriately, the only skill that Asher has yet to learn through the successful application of his fishing talents is the practice of magic. That, however, is more to do with the fact that Asher has nothing at all to do with magic in this book. Presumably, in the sequel, The Awakened Mage, Asher learns that moving things with his mind really isn't all that different from tieing a half-hitch.

Asher is surrounded by a cast of characters that run the gamut of high fantasy stereotypes. Upon his arrival in the Big City (presumably hoping to convert his mastery of the maritime world into something more profitable, like hedge fund management), Asher immediately befriends the Royal Outcast Who Can't Inherit and the Stableman With a Heart of Gold. These two help keep Asher on the straight and narrow (of plot progression) - between a cryptic and uninteresting Prophecy and Asher's handy use of fishing to solve local political problems - our young hero is clearly destined for greatness.

A third friend, Dathne, has flaws uniquely her own. Confusingly, as everything in this book pretty much rolls on the treadmill of plot, she initially avoids the pitfalls of stereotype. (Although Bookseller that Secretly Practices Forbidden But Benevolent Magic isn't really pushing any creative boundaries.) However, as the book progresses, her role becomes clear. Conflicted outsider, escaping to books? Burden to bear? The cleverest person in the room? Finding it difficult to love? "Dathne" soon evolves into a Mary Sue. Although Asher finds Mary Sue unattractive initially (scared off her by ferocious intellect, in fact), this soon changes. While Mary Sue is torn by her duty to the inexplicably menacing Prophecy, she's also drawn to Asher (presumably he's an undisputed master of the rod as well).

The Mary Sue complex takes place on a larger level as well. The simplistic and uninteresting kingdom of Lur is populated by two species. The tall, graceful, mystical Doranen, or "Elves", and the nature-respecting, blue-collar, hard-drinking, honest Olkenen, or "Australians". The former write in mystical, Tolkienistic sigils and are fleeing the land of the Morg (or "Mordor", wow). The latter keep sensible heads on their shoulders and a few practice a druidic, healing magic (or "Reiki"). Unsurprisingly, the key conflict of the story takes place when Elrond refuses to return his surfboard rental.

If planes had windows that opened, I never would have finished this book.

Interesting premise to begin, a land in which one race has created a quasi-paradise for themselves and the benefit of another people in order to save themselves from an evil and destructive past. I was willing to suspend disbelief due to the gruff demeanor and honesty of the lead character, Asher. Though his speech and mannerisms are a little too rural mid-western in style, he is an engaging character -- if only for the fact that he is utterly honest about who and what he is. Things do come a little too easily for him though, which I suppose you could attribute to his being the "prophecied one."

But as the book neared the last portion, it became incredibly predictable and cliche. Why is that they suddenly need to discover a "lost" library when it had never been insinuated before? Why does the one who is supposed to have the most intelligence about the subject of magic have to be the one who makes a horribly predictable and sophomoric mistake which results in putting "everything" in danger? Why is the evil presence that is introduced so terribly conceived? His actions and thoughts are more indicative of the bumbling sidekick than the tyrannical and satanical ruler of the rest of the known world. His is, to put it mildly, such and idiot that I cannot possibly believe he could be capable of his own thoughts let alone capable of subjugating the rest of the world. How is it that an editor of any talent can allow such a travesty of characterization to survive the editing process?

For all that and although I've no interest in reading the final part of the duology, I believe Karen Miller has it in her to be a talented storyteller. With maturity and a capable editor, her future novels hold much promise, so I look forward to seeing her style and skill develop. But I'm going to wait for the next series to try again.

The cover drew my eye, but the plot of the book is a lot less dramatic than you'd expect from a book called "The Innocent Mage" in the "Kingmaker, Kingbreaker" series. In fact, not much in the way of plot happens at all in this book (or in the second book, until about 200 pages before the end).

The main character is sort of interesting though, and amusing, though by the end of the series I thought they were all pretty much idiots.

This is the first of two books. I scooped this one up on a whim and then ended up getting the Awakened Mage after reading this one. It was good enough to make we want to finish it tale but I'm pretty sure I won't be reading these books again. It lacks any fighting with magic period. That was a bit of a disappointment to me. It's poorly edited. Very. I found myself on several occasions being distracted by the poor grammar. It did capture my interest though. Like I said before, I liked it enough to get the second one also. If you're fresh out of ideas and what to read next and you like the sci-fi wizarding type tales then you might want to check this book out. It's accurately price for what you get: 600 pages of interesting story telling. But in the long hull you'll walk away from this series probably thinking, 'it was alright.'

"The Innocent Mage", the 2005 breakthrough fantasy novel by prolific Australian author Karen Miller, pulps together a number of genre stand-bys (boy of humble origins rises to fame, prophecy foretells his coming to save the world from world-dominating evil), but produces only a thin gruel.

This first book of a two-book series is set in the hermit kingdom of Lur, shuttered against a world overrun by evil behind a magical wall. Ms Miller gives this evil a name, and it is ... Morgan. Sigh. "Morgan the insurance claims adjuster" I buy, "Morgan the evil sorcerer" I do not (Actually, I have trouble taking anyone named Morgan seriously, unless preceded by the title "Captain"). The rest of the novel is likewise enjoyable only as a campy fantasy, a throwaway time-filler.

Asher, the youngest son of a large fishing family, travels to the kingdom's capital, hoping to save enough money to buy a boat of his own. By the second chapter, he is catapulted into the retinue of Prince Gar, the king's eldest son, and it is revealed Asher is a long-awaited savior destined to save the kingdom from impending doom. Oddly, the book is in no hurry to get him doing anything heroic, preferring instead to focus on dialogue and the drama of the royal family. Characterization is strong by unsophisticated, a drum solo rather than a 20-piece orchestra. This focus on character would work better if Asher were a bit less irritating. Ms Miller makes him a peculiarly repulsive form of stick-insect, a prickly, rude and thuggish boor you could cheerfully strangle. Flawed heroes are all well and good, but Ms Miller has her entire supporting cast fall instantly and inexplicably in love with Asher, leading you to suspect we're actually supposed to like this annoying little tick.

Ms Miller's blend of fantasy-lite and talky romance may appeal to adolescents, but there is little here for more grown-up readers. The series concludes in book two, "The Awakened Mage", but after such thin fare it's hard to muster much of an appetite for the sequel.