Review: Min (spellmonger) has only a casual appearance, excessive philosophical discussions and no progression on war front
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 23, 2014
If you have been a great fan of the spellmonger series (as I have) you will be disappointed with this book.  The author attempts to show off that he can philosophize with extensive discussions on chivalry, the art of seduction, making a great soldier, growing a boy into a man, ...  But he dilutes what he is best at, telling action stories and an ordinary person drawn into greatness by circumstances and ability.  The book stayed a four star review partly because the author continues to price his books very inexpensive.  The book is worth reading; just not as good as rest of series.  Suggest you read the other books in the series first and then this one can serve to feed your addiction until the next novel.Tyndal and Rondal the sorcerers apprentices are the core protagonists in this novel.  Tyndal continues his teenage male romp through the court ladies and testosterone driven adventures.  While Rondal continues as the book dweeb, who gets lessons in courting from Tyndal and being a soldier.  While both are trained in the art of being a chivalrous knight.  Because there was no internet, TV, radio or even many books chivalry rules  became elaborate to fill the idle time of the noble wealthy families.  This created artificial barriers to non noble families fitting in as it often took a childhood steeped in the elaborate rituals to really understand all the nuances.  The author tries to make chivalry sound like deep philosophy while in fact it was partially a way to avoid boredom and protect the status quo of the noble snobs.The discussions on seduction are neither entertaining nor particularly insightful.  The soldier training that Rondal endures is simplistic and unless they added magic (which was not explicitly mentioned) would not have bulked him into a lean mean fighting machine in just a few weeks.  Without giving away too much of a spoiler I found it unbelievable that the ironite stone were not warded against theft.  Since they have value exceeding the rarest of gems even without magical enemies I would assume anyone with any common sense would be leery of them be stolen.  Even if the boys are too immature  to realize this what about the other ironite owners?  Could they be enchanted to sound an mental magical alarm, burn thieves, substitute a fake with the real stone hidden perhaps under the skin... dozens of simple protections available without much thought and yet none were applied.The boys growing up is simplistic.  For the continuation of the series I  would  like to see development of a stronger female character aside from a sex magic practitioner, real progress on the war front,  further delving into the ancient empire magi mysteries  to progress the war effort and at the same time perhaps introduce new enemies.This book is a mindless romp which unfortunately has many  pages of philosophy which add little to the story.  Not a bad book just not up to the standard of the other books in the series.