Took a chance, hit a home run!

Simply, I'm thrilled to find this. I really like Oliver Wyman as a narrator, listening to his narration of both the Monster Hunter series and Brandon Sanderson's Legion series. So I searched for other books that he narrated and found this gem. The author is not as polished as some, and his theme isn't original, but the book works, and really works well. This is definitely high or epic fantasy, and I'm writing this while book 2 is downloading.

Why you should read this:
The Characters: Character progression in this book is very well done. You care about the ones you are supposed to care about, and are outraged at the ones you are not. There are is a lot of mysteries and secrets about each of them, and you enjoy each morsel of the authors puzzles as he gives them to you.

The Magic System: Borrowed heavily from Patrick Rothfus in my opinion, but it too works, and works very well. The way magic is done in the book is logical, and it's not 'wiggle your fingers and shoot a fireball' magic. What is known in the authors world of magic, is known to the reader, but it's very obvious that a lot about magic was lost during an event he calls 'the shattering'.

The Pace: I dislike reading short books. I want a good long juicy novel, and that's what I got. The pacing is right, and nothing really drags on too long. At 21+ hours of novel, you are getting your credits worth.

The Narrator: Oliver is great. He has some great voices, and I really enjoyed everything I've listened by him. If you haven't listened to the Monster Hunter series (Which is the worst name for a series, but one of my favorites), or Legion, they are worth the credits as well. As a matter of fact, I think Legion is 5 bucks, worth just spending the money instead of using a credit. But I digress.

In short: If you are fans of Patrick Rothfus, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, or Tolkien, then this series will fit you like a glove. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.

161 people found this helpful

Bloody Ancestors

If you like naive, emo main characters that need 2 pages of interconflict for every decision...this is your series and Caldan is your man. I survived all 3 books but it was an extremely frustrating ride.

36 people found this helpful

A Rothfus ripoff

Would you try another book from Mitchell Hogan and/or Oliver Wyman?

I would try another book by Mitchell Hogan, but this one was too ponderous and derivative. I kept checking the cover to see if I'd picked up some kind of teen fiction book by mistake.

What three words best describe Oliver Wyman’s performance?

The voice performance was fine. The story... not so much.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointed with the constant spoon feeding of plot via drawn out, ponderous dialogue.

Any additional comments?

This was a poor imitation of Patrick Rothfus's Kingkiller Chronicles. All it did was make me want to go back and listen to those again. The main character is... BORING. I quit with about 4 hours left. Couldn't take the meandering dialogue anymore. It takes 20 minutes just to get the main character to go find a jail key and unlock someone. The whole time you're thinking, "he's really building to something here, otherwise this rather mundane task wouldn't be such a focus." Then, another 10 minutes later... NOPE. It just took that much writing to get him to find a key and turn it. Nothing else happening. Just a run of the mill jail break that he turned into a half hour back and forth:

"Where are you going?"
"to get the key to get you out."
"please don't go."
"but I must"
"but you can't"
"I have to get you out!"
"Promise me you'll come back"
"I promise, it'll only be a moment"

in the end he unlocks her cell without incident. WTF?!?! a taste of that is fine, establishes her apprehension and all of that, but it goes ON AND ON AND ON well past the point of meaningfulness.

Parts of it were too delicate, too tame, other parts felt forced. The author is trying to bring several separate stories together, ala GRRM, but I found myself simply not caring about any of them, least of all the main protagonist, Caldan, who just doesn't have a whole lot of personality to care much about. Maybe the guy will become interesting at some point down the road, but it wasn't soon enough for my tastes.

88 people found this helpful

Loved It!!!

Any additional comments?

Totally enjoyed this book!

I was engrossed from the beginning wanting to know what would happen next. The narrator is excellent. While the vocabulary was suited to the younger readers there was enough sophistication to be enjoyed by adults.

The story is long.

The foundation set in this first book of the series introduces numerous characters for later books with a variety of subplots.

The closet book similar to this is the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

If you liked this book I recommend that you will also like

"The Eye of the World"
"Eye of the Moonrat"
"Sabriel"
"Circle of Reign" .
"The Way of Kings"
"The Final Empire"
"Imager"
"Harbinger"
"Jaunten"
"Jhereg"
"Assassin's Apprentice"
"Enchantress"
"Thief's Magic"
"Poison Study"

If you'd like a books that are more for older readers and are gripping/scarier/darker:

"Blood Song"
"The Warded Man"
"The Shadow of the Torturer"
"The Way of Shadows"
"Assassin's Creed"
"Prince of Thorns"
"A Game of Thrones"

229 people found this helpful

Fantastic first book!

As a fantasy author, I'm extremely critical of other fantasy works. Rarely do I find works outside of Sanderson, Rothfuss, Ryan or Martin in this genre that intrigue me on an author's level. The magic system here is well thought out and I look forward to its depth increasing in future books. The main character, Caldan, is very likeable as is Moranda (sp?). I wanted more development of the Protector master, Simmins (sp?) but that's a minor thing.

One thing I give high praise to this story for is the side stories. In truth, I was just as intrigued, if not slightly more so, by several of those. They were expertly weaved into the main plot and I never felt like I wanted to just move on to get back to the main story. Trust me, this is a skill and something author's struggle with. Hogan does it well. I was very captivated by Lady Kaitlyn and Vacille's (sp?) stories especially.

Caldan definitely felt naive at first as a character, but guess what? He was! Others have pointed that out as a negative point, but it didn't bother me as I felt that was intentional. By the end of this first installment, he had grown and grown quickly.

I think there's just enough tying up of loose ends to satisfy any reader of the genre and leaves enough open to make me want to eagerly move on to the next book (which is out, thank goodness). Final note: this book is VERY light on foul language and contains almost no sensuality, only a few references. It is YA safe and something I value in books. Hogan, like some other well-known authors, prove again that you don't have to muck up a book with profanity and sex to be entertaining and captivating.

Truly, for a first book from a debut author, I am impressed. So will you be.

45 people found this helpful

Good, but... Something is missing

This was a really good book. It had likable characters. It was well written with good dialogue and action scenes. It had drama, coming of age, humor, love interests, intrigue, creative and well developed world and magic system. It has so much, it should be great. It even has a good narrator. But somewhere and somehow it didn't quite live up to the greatness that it should have. It actually isn't as good as the sum of its qualities. It lacks... Pizazz yes, it lacks that little spark that takes a really good story and makes it magical.

The real problem with this story is that it is so damned nearly magically great that you actually notice that it's not quite perfect. It needs so very little to push it into greatness, and you expect to find it on the next page.... But you don't the next page steps back away from greatness and forces the story back onto the outlined progression. And every time it does it, you are left feeling like maybe there was a page or two or two hundred left out of the final draft that would have made it it great. It needs something. I think it needs a more memorable character or two. It needs a Handrian and Royce, or the Bloody Nine. Or Sam Gamgee. Or a Vaelin Al Sorna. Or even an Oberon the Wolfhound.

I recommend the story. It's good. It's really good. But it is noticeable just how close it came to being great. And that oddly, is a difficult thing to quantify and explain. I feel bad saying it. But because it is so nearly great, I feel I must say it. Because nearly great is still much better than most people can achieve. So, in that, there is my review. Damn. It was almost perfect.

108 people found this helpful

Every. Sentence. Must. Sound. Ominous!

It took me a while to realize that this wasn't a sleepy novel with no plot to speak of, but that it basically is just the first act of a larger story which will be sold as several books. I hate it when authors do that.

Many mysteries are presented in this book and none are answered. There is no rising conflict, just characters dithering about and slowly revealing the questions which the author hopes you will find intriguing. Rather close to the end of the "novel," the author adds an inciting incident from out of nowhere, tossing aside all the foreshadowing that has come before, forcing the little adventuring party to finally assemble and flee. Presumably something will actually happen in the second book, but as for the first, this is one of the most poorly named books I have ever seen. A "crucible of souls" implies character development and testing. nothing like that even vaguely happens.

The narrator destroys any hope the book might have had by insisting on the exact same ominous pacing for every sentence and ALWAYS ending each chapter... with the same ominous..... pause.

51 people found this helpful

Not A Complete Story

Any additional comments?

Be forewarned. This is a good fantasy novelist... offering a good fantasy story... in several parts. You are not buying a story when you buy this book. This is piece of a story that does not resolve. You are buying the wheel of a car... not the car. That said he can write. It's entertaining and well performed. Made almost entirely of genre tropes to be honest... but what isn't nowadays. (Aside from the ones that aren't, obviously.) There's the dead parents, the inherited trinket ring, the nice monks who raised me in ignorance of the size of the big bad world, the first boat ride with the sea sickness, the street urchins or poverty-shock, the giant g=beardy magician... "are you a good witch or a bad witch?" -- Orc Hoards and the Absentee Overlord, etc. - There's no tall-important-tower in the distance surprisingly.
Essentially, a well-performed execution of the upper middle of fantasy fare.

3 people found this helpful

Almost worth the credit....

What did you like best about A Crucible of Souls? What did you like least?

The magic system was unique... Only wish the author had settled on a stronger word for his top tier component rather than "trinket".

Least liked the main protagonist. I get that he's new to the city, but seriously he's an idiot! Warned by everyone to mind the docks, he goes anyways: unarmed and with all his coins.

To make up for this lack of wisdom, Hogan wrongly chose to make him a master mage/fighter with a nice physique and lady-charming looks (i.e. all the ingredients for the arrogant, self-centered young man he becomes in Book 2, according to another review)

Would you be willing to try another book from Mitchell Hogan? Why or why not?

No, unless he greatly improved. I'd rather see my credits go towards other authors.

Did Oliver Wyman do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Admirably. But apart from the prologue, I found the pacing slow. Oliver couldn't save it.

23 people found this helpful

TRINKET

THE BAD NEWS, AND ISN'T THERE ALWAYS
The reviewer from Chicago hits the nail on the head. This story has almost no plot and kind of wanders sleepily. It starts out great, with one of the best introductions ever. A gifted solider fighting off 13 men to save his family, a sorceress not quite strong enough, evil shape shifters and a scared little girl. If even half of the drama set in the introduction could have happened this would have been a great novel, but this did not happen. BY THE ANCESTORS, the main character is very likeable, if not a little stupid at times. Hogan knew when he wrote this that it would be the first of a series, so he showed us he had writing skills, but he held back. The series or the trilogy is often the bane of good novels, causing authors to stretch out a story, so they can fit it into three long books.

CABBAGE TOWN
At times this has a YA feel to it. At first I was even reminded of The Rithmatist. All the elements are there, a school full of rich kids, who hate the main character, who is poor. The main character questions the obvious so often, it's almost silly. A teenage boy who is good looking, but is not girl crazy.

Oliver Wyman
He does good voices, has some great inflictions, but his slow pacing even during the few action scenes, can be mind numbing.

37 people found this helpful