Excellent

Yet another trilogy where I am left hanging in anticipation of book 3.

And another author whose name I will search on regularly for new books....

Action, clever magic / mystery, great characters..... well narrated. What's not to like. Ticked all my usual boxes.

If you're a fan of "epic fantasy", whilst not quite as "epic" as a Sanderson or an Abercrombie, it's still up there with the good ones!

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11 people found this helpful

Deus Ex Machinas Galore

A brilliant performance, putty about the poor story and predictable plot. There are moments and chapters full of great character moments and dialogue but the story as a whole could be guessed with 90% accuracy at the beginning of each chapter. And if not, then McCellan throws a handful of expostion to fill in the reader and a sprinkle of Deux Ex machina and we're onto the next situation and problem that will also get speedily resolved.

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Character voices were shocking

Great story but terrible narration. The 20 year old cocky characters sounded like 90 year old frail pensioners the accents used made no sense with people from the same city sounding German Geordie and scouse. Then the invading foreign army half sounded Spanish and half welsh absolutely ruined the book for me

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outstanding

amazing story best middle book in a trilogy I have read greatly looking forward to the conclusive final novel

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An author to watch out for

Even better than the first novel – Brian McClellan has just become one of my favourite authors

Story – 5/5

A much better story than the first and I absolutely loved it. The character development was excellent, which I thought it lacked in the first novel. I found myself caring for what happened to certain characters. There was a small amount of believable romance/love, some characters personalities were changing due to the battles they faced and how hey felt about them and all character plot arcs were extremely likeable. It was also enhanced by a strong wit that was coming from Brian McClellan through some of the characters, which had me laughing out loud a couple of times.

The action is where this series really stands out though. The entire book is packed with more powder mage/privileged fights and epic battles than one could possibly hope for. If military or action based fantasy is your bag, then the Powder Mage trilogy is a must for you. It is not just mindless action though; the politics and story plot that sit behind them are also superb, with plenty of surprises swinging you back and forth. I wasn’t bored for a single minute of the story, and it didn’t take me long at all to finish this audiobook.

Brian McClellan may be Brandon Sanderson’s student, but I feel like he has got plenty of his own styles and techniques and he has separated this link further through this sequel. It sounds funny, but hearing characters in tight spots actually swearing, and having quite graphic violence, adds to the grittiness and realism in the world, which I feel Brandon sometimes lacks.


Performance – 4.5/5

As with the first novel, Christian Rodska is a superb Narrator. His story telling was extremely smooth, and allowed for the story to be easily followed, even given its complex and fast paced plot.

His voice acting was flawless, each character having their own distinctive voice which matched their personalities very nicely. I would rate this performance near the top along with Steven Pacey, Michael Kramer and Rupert Degas.

Overall – 5/5

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Rollicking good fantasy: gunpowder and sorcery

The second book of the trilogy follows the pace and style of book one only moreso. McClellan writes engaging fun plots with OTT violence reminiscent of war novels, with in your face characters and almost comic-book magic. I suspect it's a marmite style, and I loved it, chuckling at some of the excesses.
The setting is akin to Napoleonic wars with different flavours of magic, both tiers of traditional sorcery that accesses a magical dimension as a source, to the 'new' powder mage-ery and the mysteriously powerful bone magic. It's thrown about fairly effectively by the characters in a plot that's got plenty of solid set pieces, drama, and unexpected turns. There's a moderate amount of world-building that plays second fiddle to the plot. We follow four/five main POV characters through the book, and I enjoy each one for differing reasons.
Bought book 3 straight after.
The narrator is well chosen for the material and gives us some excellent voices, although I'm sure a couple have changed from book one!

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Bit of a slog at first but really gets going

voice acting was fantastic. i really liked the audio version of this, so vivid.

the story was slow to begin, 3 seperated stories but they buzzed to nice crescendos. i hope they all get together again in part 3.

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Can’t believe I finished it

I really love the idea of flintlock fantasy but this was just woeful in my opinion.

The writing was poor and the narrations wasn’t much.

Feels like a waste of a credit.

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Awesome

The powdermage trilogy is quickly becoming my second favorite bookseries out there. Solid worldbuilding, storytelling, and characters. Great performance. And just an amazing concept overall. This one was another banger that you should definitely check out.

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really good read

fantastic book listening to this trilogy back to back it's got me so gripped. The only downfall is the narrator gives some characters older voices when they're meant to be about 20 and throws in foreign accents to differentiate some characters even though they're meant to be from the same place. Other than that its brilliant, a very minor flaw

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