Shadow Mage

Twilight of Kerberos #1

by Matthew Sprange

Forced onto the streets of Turnitia after the army destroys his home and murders his parents, Lucius Kane becomes an excellent thief, gaining notoriety in his new profession.

Soon drawn into a war between rival thieves guilds, Kane fights for friends and profit but finds himself pulled into the darker and more mysterious world of the Shadowmage, a calling for which it seems he is ideally suited. Mercenary practitioners who combine stealth with magic, Shadowmages make the best scouts, infiltrators, spies. . . and assassins.

Kane discovers the Thieves War spiralling out of control as tit-for-tat killings increase in frequency and savagery, while he has to balance his allegiance to the guild with the raw power he gains from becoming a fully fledged Shadowmage.

Genres: Fantasy

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Synopsis
Forced onto the streets of Turnitia after the army destroys his home and murders his parents, Lucius Kane becomes an excellent thief, gaining notoriety in his new profession. Soon drawn into a war between rival thieves guilds, Kane fights for friends and profit but finds himself pulled into the darker and more mysterious world of the Shadowmage.Mercenary practitioners who combine stealth with magic, Shadowmages make the best scouts, infiltrators, spies...and assassins! Kane discovers that the Thieves War is spiralling out of control as tit-for-tat killings increase in frequency and savagery, while he has to balance his allegiance to the guild with the raw power he gains from becoming a fully fledged Shadowmage."


It is the first book of the "Twilight of Kerberos" series.


To be honest, it is an entertaining and a light read.
But you find a lot of other books that do the same.

I would like to give 3 and 1/2 stars.

[D.harrow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shadow Mage's most arresting feature is the implausibility of nearly all of its central events. This is quite an accomplishment considering it is a Fantasy book, where author's are afforded the highest degree of artistic license in genre fiction. Something has gone terribly wrong when it is not the fire bolts and gravity defying stunts which are the most unbelievable aspect of a story but instead the mundane daily interactions of the main character. The outrageous notion of 'honourable' thieves willingly sacrificing themselves for a fresh recruit calls into question the author's understanding of basic human nature let alone hierarchical criminal organizations. There is also the issue of the main protagonist's past being withheld and his magic training conveniently skipped over. The book had promise until it promoted the ridiculous notion of a gang of saintly cut throats, which would make even the most forgiving of fantasy readers scoff.

[Alaghom Naom Tzentel · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked about this story is that being magical doesn't necessarily mean you'll always win in a fight with a non-magical person, you still need your wits about you. And I did like how that remains clear in this book, it does make for a good story.

But on the other side, if you're still vulnerable to normal stabwounds and other magical threats are lacking, it does make me feel that this story could just is well be 90% similar if there wasn't any magic or fantasy aspect involved as well.

Okay, you have the creepy monsters that show up all of a sudden... Well, they just came along once, we fought them, some friends died, that's it. What they were, where they came from, where they went afterwards... No one knows, no one cares.
It made for an open ending, a premonition of doom if these monsters are not conquered, a promise to learn more about them in the later books (it's a trilogy), but they were never mentioned again.

It's a good story in itself, but the fantasy part , especially in the first two books, feels like a surplus and is a bit on the lame side.

[Jayden · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a nice, easy read.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of books out that are more interesting than "nice, easy read" and thus it didn't qualify with me for more than okay. The idea was good, the writing solid, but it was slow.

There are so many plotlines in this book, it was rather hard for me to find the one big one. He introduces one to apparently abandon it the next chapter and start a new one. It all more or less comes together in the end, but it seems more like a collection of events than one big one. That was rather frustrating.

Also, the book started very slow. For the first half I had to keep on reading doggedly to get through. As I read a few real page turner before this one, it was especially hard to keep at it.

All in all a nice story, but I know a lot of better ones.

[Bri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably really a 3.5 but I rounded up, it wasn't bad but the character development has been kind of slow, having trouble getting to know and have reason to like the main character, but the story is interesting. And he does seem to be growing as a character by the end, just wish his past was explained better!

[Alec Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this book.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good, but there were some typos that kept throwing me out of the story.