The White Mage Omnibus: Books 1-3

Very entertaining.

What did you like most about The White Mage Omnibus: Books 1-3?
The story is well written with interesting characters, that draw you in. There are hints of Harry Potter in the plot, but please don't be put off by that if you're not a fan of those stories, as the writer and his characters are very different.

What did you like best about this story?
Everything, it's not going to be a classic read by millions, and turned into a huge franchise, but it is fun and keeps you interested. Some parts are a little predictable but this just makes the unsuspected twists that bit better in my opinion.

What does Derek Perkins bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
The narration was excellent, read at the perfect speed and with a pleasant tone.

Any additional comments?
There are at least two more books in this series, but these are not on audible and may not have actually been turned into audiobooks as yet, and as I don't get many opportunities to sit and read (I listen when on the move) this has left me very frustrated.
Update. Very happy now, The next two books are available.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

brilliant

this series goes from strength to strength in can't wait for the next instalment keep this series going on audible

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Absolute rubbish ... Mostly a Harry Potter ripoff

The characters are all overly powerful morons up to until the last second when they finally understand everything and save the day.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Good fantasy

If you’ve listened to books by Ben Hale before, how does this one compare?

Not as good as his first series which was fantastic, but I still very much enjoyed it

Have you listened to any of Derek Perkins’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I'm a big fan of Derek Perkins he has a great voice and is easy to listen to

Any additional comments?

I have to admit that whilst I really liked this book, the way its written, and the characters. I kept coming back to the fact that it's a variation of the Harry Potter idea. I mean young girl finds out that she can cast magic and gets sent to a school that teaches magic... Any of that sound familiar.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Inventive storyline

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Ignore those who say it's a Harry Potter ripoff, unless you believe there can be only be one Author per fantasy type. Forgive the pun but I was spell bound with the h potter books and films particularly the early ones. Enjoy the worlds people create, I'm sure you can think of books where there are similarities
Lord of the Rings v Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Every single sci-fi space opera but I love them.

I have to say I'm so p....d off with the slagging off that make up bad reviews there are either 5 star or 1 star completely polarised opinions.
What made me try this series was the three book bundle for 1 credit if I had only the option of 1 book I wouldn't have tried them and it would have been my loss and frankly why I'm writing this rant

Re the book review!
It's not perfect but I liked the magic system and the world it is set in. Overall the story line is good, The gathering storm is well done. However I agree the Villains are a little two dimensional,
It does jump around a bit, so I found myself rewinding to find my place as they are often mini cliff hangers. It's not game of thrones but it is a reasonable story and in my view worth a credit

What did you like best about this story?

The Darkness, it is a very good evil weapon.

Which character – as performed by Derek Perkins – was your favourite?

No favourite.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, just escapism

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Just couldnt get i to it

Tried time and again to get into these books as downloaded the trilogy but just didnt buy into the characters and didnt like the narration. Seemed very wooden

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Harry Potter but with a girl

Harry Potter but with a girl as the lead character sums it up. not bad but not great.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Bad Harry Potter knockoff

...I will be blunt, that is all there is to this book. The author took a list of events and devices from Harry Potter and attempted to make them more cool and magical, destroying all the charm in the process. Huge segments of the book which could have been used to learn about Tess and develop her character (if she can be said to have one to develop in the first place) were instead given over to brutal battles.


if you're looking for one of those books where supremely powerful wizard heros (with all the charisma of a dish cloth) destroys cartoonishly evil baddies in their scores then this is for you, but even then you could probably do better.

6 of 9 people found this review helpful

A very predictable story

Any additional comments?

The story is very predictable if you have read Harry Potter. The development of characters, is not good, but as book 3 is not the end of the story, that may come later. I had assumed that the story was complete in this omnibus edition, as Audible did not say it was part of a series. But other books must follow if the story is to finish.
I normally like to wait until a series of books is finished before I start reading it, so a few minus points to Audible for not pointing out this is the first part of a serirs.

7 of 11 people found this review helpful

A poorly derived Harry Potter and Avartar story

The Good

The book is not boring, its not exciting but its also not boring. Its the sort of thing you can have playing in the background and paying scant attention to. There is a lot of bang for your buck in terms of number of hours for 1 credit.

The Bad

The problem is that I paid attention to this omnibus. This book is a straight up rip off and while in music we have cover songs, the covers usually bring something exciting, new and inventive to the original song (they also pay royalties). This book doesn't do that.

The plot is poor and the story is very predictable. When a book is inventive, engaging, and exciting, you forgive the occasional plot hole because you start to get absorbed by it. But when it is a luke-warm highly derived story it gets quite irritating. This book is also full of plot holes.

Hindsight writing. One thing that occurs many times during this story is hindsight writing or rather very poor character/situational resolution. I won't give examples since it may spoil things for some people but the guy writes characters and then stuffs in random reasons why they do what they do that is at odds with their nature as you understood. It's not really a surprise (I have seen that plot line before), but there is no good reason why those things happen - you get the worst of both worlds. Its like watching a really poor magician at work, where he clumsily stuffs the card up his sleeve and then asks you were it is and then randomly throws a paper aeroplane.

Me too. This whole book is one long "me too story". It looks as if the author simply started writing stuff and would see something interesting on tv or read an actual good book and then shoe-horn that plot in the most jarring and finesse-lacking manner. Yeah, now, I'll throw in some bravo-2-zero type stuff blah blah... Some authors are capable of simply sitting down and writing a story that is exciting, fully fledged and original without planning or plots etc. This author doesn't seem to be one of them.

Books should be like a magic trick, or like hypnosis. It takes a lot of skill to hypnotise the audience into investing themselves in a story. It takes finesse to do this properly. These books do not demonstrate this. It seems as if the author has just slapped any random thing that came into their head, or what happened to be popular at the time. The funny thing is that if there is enough technical effort in the concept, character development, and plotting readers/listeners would forgive a multitude of sins. They want believe!

Oh yeah, lastly it is a total Harry Potter and Avatar ripoff! Mostly H.P. right down to Dumbledore's Army. Have you no shame sir? Have you no shame!? J.K. should send the lawyers round.

Highly derived stories show a lack of effort in their conception. Is it any wonder that there is also a lack of effort in everything else resulting in a poor story experience?

The Narrator

The narrator was clear and pleasant to listen to. My criticisms are:

1. Every kind of exclamation sounds like an evil witch, and it doesn't matter which character gets agitated or excited, they sound like an evil witch.
2. For a story largely based in the US, there are scant number of American accents. I'm not sure the narrator is to blame since the book mostly feels like it is written in an english rather than american style. Who knows!

4 of 7 people found this review helpful