Mageborn: The Blacksmith's Son: Mordecai’s journey to master magic draws him into an ancient battle for the future of humanity.: Volume 1 Paperback – 3 July 2011

So I have read all of Manning's books so far available. I have to say, rereading this one was a good idea. The story was compelling from day one obviously, but once I had a full picture (or as much as available at the moment) I could enjoy and understand a lot more this time around. From here on a bit of spoiler alert:Mort is an enjoyable and very much realistic character. His love for Penny and her a for him is so much what would be like normally. Kids grow up together loving one another without even realising, then in a span of moment it just dawns on them and make them act like they've been married and devoted to each other for years.The magic and the lack of knowledge of it gives you a chance to laugh (and laugh hard) at the situations it creates. Fair warning though, things get really dark slowly first but rapidly eventually as the story goes on (not limited to this book).You don't even realise the time (in "our reality") this all is happening but that just adds to the thrill when you learn more.I can only recommend it, I could go on forever but that would ruin your read. Plenty of adventure, realistic characters, friendship, love and of course magic.

I was going to start this review with an over exaggerated exclamation of joy. However I've calmed down and caffeined (if that is a word) up since my night of avid reading so have decided to do this properly.The first word that really comes to mind when reviewing the tone of this book is refreshing. I've recently become quite an ardent fan of the fantasy genre (I say recently but by no means misconstrue that to imply I'm a novice) and the best analogy I can give this book, or indeed this series of books, is that it should be treated as a palette cleanser between the more hard core and imposing shadows cast by the likes of Hobb, Martin and Sanderson. However I happen to rather like lemon sorbet so again I'm going to use the term refreshing.Do you ever get the feeling that when reading an epic fantasy novel you have to prepare yourself? I mean this in two ways. Firstly you have to prepare a large array of refreshments as there is very little chance that you'll be persuaded off of your posterior for quite some time. And secondly you have to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally. Fantasy authors love to play with you in their books and nothing really can be considered brilliant fantasy unless you feel the turmoil out of the pages. Sometimes it's nice to get a break. Mageborn offers this respite for those who aren't quite ready to leave fantasy behind. Don't get me wrong it has all the essentials, however contrary to most novels in this field; it manages to push to the side lines all that which would dominate a more serious contender in the epic fantasy genre. There is still the hero and the antagonist but the feud does not become the main point of the story. Which I quite like. The characters are wonderfully developed and you can't help but like them, and what's more, the book is genuinely funny.It's written in both the first and third person and unlike some other reviews I have seen, I have absolutely no problem with this. In fact I think it's rather inspired. I'm not usually a fan of the first person narrative, with the grand exception of the Assassins Apprentice trilogy, as I find it rather limited, or indeed limiting. It gets around the problem of being unable to advance other story lines without the protagonist having to almost become a fly on the wall at times.I feel I need to offer more explanation to the paragraph before the previous one. The centre of the plot is indeed all about the main protagonists... progression shall we say. Now normally this would play alongside other perhaps more thrilling events. You really get to see the character grow before all the other issues play a major part and I believe this added real depth to an otherwise generic, cliché story.Now reading through this review I see it may be confusing as to whether or not I really enjoyed the book or indeed would recommend it. So with no further embellishments I really did, and I really would. For all you fantasy die hards out there, just give it a break and I promise you'll have an enjoyable time.Now just a quick side note on the following book in the series. I don't think you would really feel bereft if you just read the first book. I'm not really sure where it is heading but it has definitely lost a lot of the charm of the first book. The humour now seems a little bit tired and the peril has now come before the development of the characters. The book has a wider scope but I feel I've lost my connection to it. That being said I still read it in a day and am now on the third, having every intention to follow the rest of the series intently.

One of my favourite measures of success, is the amount of time I'm willing to spend, that I didn't intend on spending, reading the books. To clarify, this is when you stop following your daily routine in favour of reading 'just one more chapter' instead.All 3 (released) books of this series have had me staying up well past my bedtime, and had me surviving on little over 4 hours sleep, because I got a little too engrossed in the plot.All on all, the book was an enjoyable read, and I liked the writing style.The books in this series are a little short, which meant I was able to read all 3 of the available books in the course of 4 days, but the kindle price on Amazon reflects this, so don't let the length put you off. The series is a nice read, and makes for nice light reading, so perfect for travelling or reading before bed.I personally didn't really have any issues with the quality of the publishing, but I generally don't pick up on those, if you are one of those people, I'd suggest reading some of the other reviews on offer.While I wouldn't compare this series to the Sparhawk series (Eddings) or the Farseer series (Hobb), it left me feeling happy I picked the series up.

Decent debut story. The writing is a bit immature but the story is engaging. Looking forward to book two and learning more about the history of the world Manning has created .

Unfortunately, I read the Art of the adept series before reading this book from the same author, though written much earlier in his career perhaps. I don't know, I didn't research into the author.The language, the world building, character depth, the progression of events, the timelines, everything reads so amateurish considered to the other series by this author.But it's a light series, easy to read, sophomoric perhaps. Good to keep you distracted rather than occupied.

Una lectura entretenida pero no mucho más aunque siendo sincero los libros de fantasy en los que la magia la puede usar la gente porque si y sin ningun entrenamiento nunca me han gustado.

I really enjoyed this first book and look forward to reading more. I found it easy to read and quite captivating.

Bei der Geschichte handelt es sich um einen richtig gut erzählten, sowie durchdachten eher klassischen Fantasy Roman in einer fiktiven weitgehend mittelalterlichen, feudalen Gesellschaft. Es hat einige Zeit gedauert bis ich in den Roman (deutsche Ausgabe) gefunden hatte und dies lag nicht an der Story, sondern an einigen ärgerlichen Fehlern und Freiheiten, die sich der Übersetzer der deutschen Ausgabe erlaubt hat. Daher habe ich mir doch lieber das Original geleistet.Die Geschichte beginnt mit einem furiosen Prolog. Die Burg in dem sich die Familie des späteren Protagonisten aufhält wird von einer Bande Meuchelmördern überfallen. Erzählt wird wie alle Personen bis auf seine Mutter ums Leben kommen, diese gehört einer Art Kriegerorden an und ist auch im waffenlosen Kampf tödlich. Die Beschreibung der Kämpfe ist detailliert und bildhaft geschriebenFür mich hat es den Anschein, als ob der Autor sich in diesen Kampftechniken gut auskennt und sie sehr authentisch schildern kann - der Übersetzer leider nicht.Der Autor hat sich viele Gedanken zu einem nachvollziehbaren Magiesystem gemacht, als gute Idee empfinde ich die den Kapiteln jeweils vorweg gestellten kurzen Auszüge aus einen fiktiven Werk „Über das Wesen von Glaube und Magie“. Der Leser erhält dadurch einen leichten Wissensvorsprung gegenüber dem Protagonisten, der sich im Laufe des Romans, die tieferen Wirkungsweisen ebendieser Magie erarbeiten muss. Seine Versuche und Irrtümer aber auch Erfolge werden dadurch logischer. In der Welt von Manning ist die Magie kein Lehrberuf, sondern man wird mit dem Zugang geboren oder nicht. Es verhält sich ein wenig wie mit einem mächtigen Office-Programm, wenn es installiert ist kann man es benutzen, man kennt nur noch nicht alle Möglichkeiten.Da die Hauptperson, aus deren Sicht der Großteil der Geschichte in der ersten Person geschildert wird, der letzte Spross eines mächtigen Magier Geschlechtes ist, verfügt er über gewaltige magische Ressourcen, er muss nur zuerst auf die Idee kommen was geht.Hier sehe ich auch eine mögliche Schwäche der Romankonstruktion. Die Möglichkeiten der Magie scheinen fasst unbegrenzt, es ist nur eine Frage der Vorstellungskraft und der zur Verfügung stehenden „Lebens“-Energie, des jeweiligen Anwenders/Begabten. Ich hoffe der Autor lässt seine sympathische Hauptfigur in den Folgebänden nicht allmächtig werden.Der Roman endet wie er beginnt mit einem furiosen Kampf. Dem Autor ist es gelungen nicht einfach einen mehr oder minder raffinierten Cliffhanger an den Schluss zu setzen, sondern einen ordentlichen Abschluss, der aber ganz klar auf eine Fortsetzung der Erzählung drängt.Fazit: Ein gelungener Auftakt zu einer kleinen Fantasy Reihe, im Original noch um einiges besser als in der Übersetzung. Die Bände von denen es bisher insgesamt 4 (in Englisch) gibt, sind gleich auf meinem Kindle gelandet. Wer die Romane von Dave Duncan und David Eddings liebt wird auch Michael Manning mögen. Dieses Buch liegt bei mir zwischen 4-5 Sternen, wobei ich die deutsche Fassung aus den genannten Gründen abrunden musste.