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Sufficiently Advanced Magic
- Arcane Ascension, Book 1
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Series: Arcane Ascension, Book 1
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy
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Awful fan fiction
- By "tommypot" on 26-07-18
Summary
Five years ago Corin Cadence's brother entered the Serpent Spire - a colossal tower with ever-shifting rooms, traps, and monsters. Those who survive the spire's trials return home with an attunement: a mark granting the bearer magical powers. According to legend, those few who reach the top of the tower will be granted a boon by the spire's goddess.
He never returned.
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What listeners say about Sufficiently Advanced Magic
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joe
- 05-08-17
Fun "D&D" style adventure.
I really enjoyed this. If you like coming of age stories where a protagonist has to apply problem solving to overcome difficult situations and underdog encounters then you will probably like this.
The style is a bit unique, and I can see a huge influence from D&D or similar. The majority of the "fights" are dungeon type encounters, and other puzzle rooms reminiscent of games and tabletop gaming.
I really enjoyed it, but I could see some might have issues with the pacing in the middle-end of the book.
The narrator was excellent.
24 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 27-01-18
Glad I kept going!
I regretted purchasing this book for some time as I struggled with the narrator's voice, but im.really glad I persisted. The story is excellent, a unique fantasy world and a twisting story that is well written. I even grew to... tolerate the narrator. I'm already looking for more from this writer!
5 people found this helpful
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- ThatLibraryMiss
- 17-10-17
Whingy teenager plays RPGs
Listen to the preview. If you can deal with that, you might enjoy this book. If the whiny voice recounting what appears to be some sort of quest game sets your teeth on edge, do yourself a favour and stop. It doesn't get any better when the self-obsessed teen's friends show up. I literally lost count of the number of times they rolled their eyes.
And what's with authors making up swear words? You've imported names and offensive gestures from our English-speaking world: why make up some new swear and use it exclusively? Ooh, so edgy.
Maybe it gets better in the second half. I returned it before that.
5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 31-07-17
Awesome
Tower is interesting, the magic is well thought out with good rules and it keeps you on your toes. great ending to book one 1. loved it
17 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 18-03-18
not too bad... well just okay... it was alright.
the magic system was unique but some times un-necessarily over powers the story. the main character's progression through the story is always underwhelmed by his mental regression so the two contanstly flip-flop back and forth which becomes tedious at times. Nick Podehl does an excellent performance but sometimes his voices don't range very well, which mixes up whose actually talking. otherwise enjoyed it and looking to what follows.
3 people found this helpful
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- Steven Richardson
- 22-08-17
Amazing world building
I loved this story and was amazed by the level of detail given to the world. I could imagine this being made into a epic RPG game I would love to play.
The story was excellent and well thought out. I didn't see the final twist coming and it was very interesting.
I am looking forward to any more in this series as there is so much more to be explored in the world and the story line.
Also I though the narrator did an excellent job and made it an enjoyable listen. Hope it's not too long till the next.
7 people found this helpful
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- Snuffles
- 15-09-17
shallow start but strong story
So I found that the story was straight in to the detail with no explanation of the world or concepts in the first chapter so it was hard to get in to the world to begin with, but wow, a few chapters in and boy did it pick up.
For context, I got to the end of the book and was like 'what, 20 mins left?'. I immediately went to look for book two, no luck, I'm hooked on this world now.
It takes a few chapters but you get great detail on the magic system and the world. It may sound odd but I like it when there is extra detail on how things work or the detail of the world the characters have to work within is explained in the story.
criticism incoming: characters are a tad shallow, we have a few hints of some potential and amazing depth, invites to dance.... and yet it stops there, just hints of depth, no development.
Main character is great and often amusing.
We have a lot of started maybes in plot and lots of incomplete something's, part of the authors grand plan? I hope so.
Second criticism incoming: the author switches from regular folks in the story, to super heroes defeating god monsters with no build up / little development which makes those scenes a little jarring.
What I do like is that the main character does not start off with no power and become a god by chapter 15, he basically runs on the skills he starts with and that is awesome because it makes the wins for him more poignant.
The book is well worth adding to your collection, it has the potential to be an A rated emerald but at the moment is probably an A rated sun stone. (Doesn't make sense? get the book).
I will definitely be getting book 2 and looking for other books in this world.
p.s. Narrator is great for me, no more to be said.
2 people found this helpful
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- bookworm
- 28-02-19
A gem of a read
To be honest I wasn’t sure about this book but was intrigued enough to try it. So glad I did. Full of drama, suspense and intrigue. A pleasant surprise and gap filler while waiting for the next in the Spellmonger series. Trouble is now I need to listen to the next in this series as well. What a lovely dilemma.
1 person found this helpful
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- Jonas
- 19-02-19
A solid fantasy book with a well made world
Though the narrator could do better if they learnt to do more varied female voices he was good with male voices and plenty good as expressing the dour emotions that Corrin often has.
The story itself was great even if it had a little too much "you think you've won? in your dreams!" hero moments. buy the stand out point of the book is it's unique world setting. it was very good at show, don't tell when it came to the mysteries of the world that our characters were unaware of.
1 person found this helpful
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- Garry
- 21-12-18
Gripping listen!
Really got drawn into this book through well drawn engaging characters. In style it is like a hybrid of LitRPG and standard fantasy fiction but not so game-centric as LitRPG, making it more accessible. There is something quite addictive about listening to a character grow in power and ability as the book progresses. Can't wait for book 2 to get into audible.! Hurry up!!!
1 person found this helpful
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- P
- 13-01-20
Levels doesn't matter
So the levels of the power doesn't really matter as you can see even a first year student can hold off experienced higher level opponents with some prepping. Let's just make up stuff while we go, shall we? And the LGBT bit was dropped in like a bomb without preamble. It is got a good world setup but all gone to waste.
204 people found this helpful
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- Brian
- 10-04-19
The protagonist gets on your nerves...
I almost sent this book back, but I kept slogging through it because the story had some potential. I liked some of the characters, some interesting plot twists, but it could not stay on track. It obviously is playing on the success of the Harry Potter line, which I really enjoyed, but it did not do a good job. The plot had "dragon-sized" holes in it. The Tristan "thread" did not ring true or authentic. The whole story with Corin's family was very thin. What is up with Mom?! Corin's level of angst, second-guessing himself and seeming incompetence (which the author describes in excruciating, annoying detail) does not make sense based on the level of training he did. This book was unnecessarily long (please don't have a spell that takes over five seconds to say while you are in combat!). Having said all that I did finish the book.
I am still debating whether I will buy the second book. I have not read the reviews and I don't know if I can take any more of Corin Cadence. If I do, I will have to change my mindset. Just try to enjoy what is done well. I read/listen to a lot of this genre. This is not IMHO a book as good as Rowling, Card, Bujold, Hearne but it has some good points...just not enough of them.
90 people found this helpful
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- Midwest Male
- 22-03-19
juvenile
I assume the target audience is teens, because this book has no plot whatsoever. it's like a lame D&D RPG game brought to life. It essentially starts in a dungeon and assumes the reader gets excited by listening to how someone else chooses their adventure. literally that's how new characters are introduced....random encounters.
58 people found this helpful
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- Keith Murray
- 23-01-19
Book is pretty bad
The narration is good, but the story is honestly not very good and poorly written.
42 people found this helpful
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- Matt V.
- 07-08-20
Easy to quit
There are maybe 2-3 books in my life that I haven’t finished, and this is one of them. Often, there are nagging questions or characters that I love too much to leave. I didn’t have any of those here. It is the first book that I will easily leave behind.
The main character stated that he was driven to a singular purpose, but we weren’t given any emotional ties to that purpose. It was simply stated and never demonstrated that the main character more than occasionally thought about this supposed purpose of getting to the tower.
The same lack of emotion was demonstrated with the main character’s relationship. Just being an LGBT relationship doesn’t automatically make it interesting or inspired. It felt artificial, like it was added as an afterthought. An LGBT relationship is likely a hurdle for many readers because they can’t relate. Situations like that would seem to require an even more compelling love story. However, this was not compelling or interesting. Nothing pulled my heart into this book.
38 people found this helpful
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- User
- 10-02-19
Feels like an RPG
In most magic based series it's hard to understand how strong/skilled a person really is and even harder to truly understand their growth. This author made it a whole lot easier by giving us actual numbers and words any gamer could easily understand.
One of the reviews here states the reader couldn't get passed a certain point because the protagonist of the series isn't remotely as skilled with magic as the reader assumed he would be based on the characters background, I happen to disagree, but maybe we understood that background a little differently.
The main character grew up in a family famous for being very skilled in regards to dueling. In fact it is their militaristic prowess that helped them become nobles in the first place, the author makes it clear that the character was pulled out of public school to be privately trained for the previous 5 years in the art of dueling. And one could assume this meant magic too, but reading onward you should realize that until they receive an attunement magicians are fairly weak and have little to no useful skills. Thus, the character was brought up as a "melee" duelist, he happens to be far more skilled than most of his peers in terms of physical combat. Not magic although he certainly has potential.
I'm not in any way a writer so please pardon any grammatical errors, I have also begun the second book so I'll stop here to avoid any spoilers. Give this series a shot, I definitely believe it deserves it.
101 people found this helpful
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- Andrea
- 15-01-19
mc
an extremely unlikable main character, and even some of the side characters. I will not read the second book
32 people found this helpful
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- Val
- 26-07-19
Could not finish it
Starts off with a 17 year old that knows next to nothing about the world he lives in. A MAGIC world! One in which he is expected to be a noble, and be good at using magic. Yet he knows next to nothing. He seems to have sexual tension with his sister at first, and then he goes full out gay. It all feels forced. Like the author gets into writing his story but then decides to push some cause like being a social outcast, abused child, aspergers, or homosexuality. As I said they seem forced on the readers. I wont be reading/listening the rest of the series.
The narrator does great though.
21 people found this helpful
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- Erik
- 26-05-20
Video game magic system and other problems
Admittedly, I couldn't finish this book. I tried, but it just kept getting worse and worse. Nick Podehl is a great reader but that's where the praise ends.
The main character is completely and frustratingly oblivious as to how anything around him works despite living in the world for his whole (albeit young) life. Add to that a video game like magic system and seemingly forced LGBT content and you have yourself one stinker of a book.
19 people found this helpful
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- Foster
- 10-04-19
Lackluster
Book has interesting concepts but main character is needlessly ignorant of many seemingly well known concepts in the world. For a person who was privately trained to be a magical warrior he seems to have missed a large portion of the magical part. Was hard to keep listening and finally dropped it when the author randomly added a love path with an interesting character out of no where for seemingly no reason or purpose.
55 people found this helpful