Nice

Not the best piece of work, but definitely cannot complain! Loved the pace and the plot was cute. Good job!

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A great little story, works as a standalone

Considering this is a prequel to a series, it genuinely can be read as a standalone (I've never read the Sorcery Ascendant series, though I plan to soon). The cast of characters were fantastic, and I'm looking forward to possibly revisiting them in the rest of the series. The world was well developed considering the length of the story, and makes me curious to see how it's built upon in the rest of the series.

The narration let me down a little as with most of the characters being female, and the narrator being male, they all seemed to wind up sounding the same which made some conversations difficult to follow.

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3 people found this helpful

Fantasy Chess

A cracking fast paced fantasy adventure in the world of the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence series, set ten years before the first book, we follow Felicienne Shyrise, a young talented investigator, trying to build a lucrative business for her self, when an investigation uncovers the gang behind the canal murders and are apprehended, But when she’s roped into a murky investigation by a First Adjudicator to the immortal Emperor himself, her life is thrown into disarray, will this be the perfect opportunity to showcase her skills and make valuable connections, or will her future now be in the hands of political powers that can never be denied, a pro at the game Dominion (fantasy chess) a tournament she must enter and win to stop an assassination attempt of the Emperor, a fantastic read of loyalty, guilt and remorse, lots of action, great characters and the plot is intensely good, highly recommend....😁

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Interesting but not unique

This was an interesting and at times compelling story, but made me think of other stories I've already read. The reader did a fine job, so it was a pleasure to listen to, but I had hoped for something a bit more original. Still, I enjoyed it; I'm just not sure that I'll listen to the next one.

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Why use a male narrator?

I was intrigued by this story, and listened to see if I would enjoy the series, but simply could not listen to the male voice trying to sound like women. Why use a male voice for a female protagonist? Not a good choice.

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1 person found this helpful

Better than the actual book

Listened to the book before.
It went downhill towards the end.
I enjoyed this more.
Wish it would have been a full book.

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Felicienne Revealed

At the time of writing this is free so I was certainly never going to have any complaints about it. It is actually an interesting piece of character background for one of the main characters in the series and for that reason alone is interesting. Consistency with the main storyline is reasonable though somehow at this time she is considerably more talented at Dominion to suit the plot.

In itself it's also a decent short story with the same narrator so if you are enjoying the Sorcery Ascendant series and would like a little more of Felicienne then this should do the trick.

It's a real bonus of the modern reading platforms that it is now so much easier for writers to publish such "extras" so bravo to Mitchell Hogan and of course Audible for making this one happen.

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6 people found this helpful

Adds little to the saga

I listened to this short before I listened to book 1. It nearly put me off . Be assured that this simple boring effort is nothing like the rest of the series. I’m on the second book now and it’s great.

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great book to put you to sleep. just dull

Are the characters purposely dumb or is that the writing?
As (effectively) a detective book, it is not very effective. The bad guy is obvious from the beginning, Any loss or hardships by the characters has no effect as there is no investment in the late characters.

I like the narration but with this material it just put me to sleep.

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Utterly forgettable

The author can't write a competent character so relies on telling, on the other characters telling, and on the character mind reading the final reveal from the antagonist's mind because he had a red hanky. A red hanky! That's clearly the sign of the treasonous plot whose elements we weren't told despite all the telling.

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