Two powerful mages-- one of wind, one of fire-- are drawn together by their powers into passion neither of them expected to find.
Flamespirit, a firemage and healer, is a virtual outcast living with a clan he will never be part of, a clan that refuses to accept him as one of their own. While most men have swordbrothers to love them and wives to give them children, Flamespirit has neither lover nor wife.
Stormdragon, a powerful windmage and sunstone wielder, has lost any reason to live. His swordbrother, Sandrunner is dead, and his elder brother has ruined his reputation among their clan. Stripped of being Heir to the Chief for an act of cowardice he didn’t commit, he leaves his people rather than become a kinslayer.
A chance meeting between the two men changes their lives in ways neither of them expected when they are called by power.
Auburnimp has been writing since she was fifteen. Her characters are always strong, feisty and often impetuous enough to get into dangerous situations rather like their creator.
She has been a knife-thrower’s target, an exotic dancer, a drummer, a homeless wanderer and many other things due to a desire to simply go where life takes her.
She now lives in a small house in a large English city with four resident cats and one frequent visitor.
She is female and has blue eyes; anything else is frequently subject to change without notice.
This science fiction based story has a lot of promise and clever ingenuity. The interesting mixture of magic and nomadic clans has definite appeal, especially given two dynamic main characters. Flame and Storm are both exceedingly powerful mages that happen to meet in a desolate desert on the edge of nowhere. Unfortunately, poor writing and execution have left this story as mere promise. The first book of the series, it remains to be seen if the authors correct all the problems inherent in this offering so perhaps in later editions this intriguing premise is actually fulfilled. However, I doubt I'll be continuing with the series to find out.
Flamespirit is young and naive, yet powerful. He lives as an outcast within a clan that uses him and his abilities but treats him horribly. He doesn't know any different so while he is unhappy with the treatment, he doesn't realize the full extent of his foolish gullibility. He blithely follows first the clan and its leaders and then Stormdragon. Thankfully the later has his better interests at heart. Flame's powers are almost too much, as the character stands on the edge of being an all too powerful stereotype. He has abilities that are often seen as rare, one even two powers together are unheard of; combining three of four of these abilities and magics is almost ludicrous. Yet no reasoning is offered for this incredible combination of magic skills in a neglected and scorned young man. Flame also never thinks to question his treatment or talents, his affable and sunny disposition smoothing over any pesky questions he may think to have.
Stormdragon is the powerful son of a rich clan but has been disgraced by lies after the death of his swordbrother and true love, Sandrunner. Storm is looking for a way to die and has given up on life, succumbing to the poison of a wild predator when Flame stumbles upon him. Storm's insistence on death and his lack of will to survive typify the range of his actions from aggressive to sullen. His lingering grief and love for his lost lover and best friend colors his actions with an understandable malaise yet his emotions and reactions to Flame are contradictory. He either desires the younger mage and is already falling in love with him or he merely is protecting the man and caring for him since his dead lover urged him to from beyond death.
While these conflicting emotions are expected from someone who is grief-stricken and struggling to move on, the lack of any depth and complexity to Storm's feelings had him empty as a character and ultimately unbelievable within the setting the authors have created. In Storm's own inner musings, he relates countless times how Sandrunner was the love of his life and he'll never feel the same way about another. Yet as soon as Sandrunner tells him to be with Flame in a weird, awkward dream sequence ~ Storm agrees and generally tries to let go of any lingering angst over his partner's death. He has a few twinges of grief here and there and the nagging question of if he can love Flame, which then conflict to his occasional musings of already being in love with the mage he barely knows. Though as per the title of the book, power calls to power and supposedly these two men were destined for each other due to the powerful abilities they both possess. So why fight destiny.
The obvious issues with characterization aside, there are numerous questions and problems with the scant world building offered. Within this science fiction setting, almost nothing is known about social structures, ways of life, and clans versus the City except in brief comments or descriptions offered sporadically. Clearly most live in a nomadic lifestyle, often without cooked food and their success depending largely on the magic users within each clan. However this is the most offered without any more depth and detail incorporated leaving an incomplete world with many more questions unanswered. The concept of swordbrothers is obviously important as it is mentioned and depicted numerous times, but the basic purpose and concept is not explained. Questions such as what exactly is a swordbrother, how are they chosen, are the men expected to be lovers, how close is this bond and others are left a mystery. The impression is that swordbrothers share a close bond and even sexual passion but whether this is the exception or more commonplace is never elucidated, leaving this clearly essential societal bond unexplored and unexplained.
Even the scarce description of the desert world leaves a flat and dull landscape to imagine. The colors depicted are never vibrant, never exciting, with the biting wind and sand the only constant and yet even that seems changeable depending on whether or not it's added to a scene. This led to an overall sluggish feeling to the environment, which is only exacerbated by the monotone voice of the writing and characters. Even during action scenes, the writing stayed the same, communicating a lack of excitement that was ultimately boring. Continuing to the sex scenes, of which there were only hints, the men often would talk of long rambling pasts ~ mostly in internal commentary ~ before remembering both were excited and supposed to be having sex.
The writing is unfortunately nothing like the quality I've seen in other offerings by these two authors. The descriptions are empty, obvious, and monotone as is the dialogue. The characters often ramble on with no encouragement or even acknowledgment from the other as they talk. Their inner thoughts are frequently mixed with spoken dialogue leading to a confusing use of third person and first person POV with no seeming difference between the two. Both are used for inner monologues and thoughts, yet the shift is jarring each time. Combined with the already stated poor characterization, the plot itself is given no subtly, interest, or complexity. Often the authors would offer massive amounts of information about a character's back-story in random non-sequiturs with either no further discussion or repeated mention of the same facts ~ in case you missed the long diatribe. These long asides of back-story were presented blatantly instead of being worked into the plot and characterization creating an uneven pacing with continuity problems.
With large type and exaggerated margins, this book was actually much shorter than it at first appears, making the story quick to read. While I didn't hate reading it, neither did it capture my interest. The poor and clumsy writing, awkward head hopping, flat characters, boring descriptions and choppy pace combined to make this a complete miss by these authors. Which is incredibly unfortunate as the creativity is clearly there. The premise of the story, their unique setting and ultimately creative incorporation of magic were all lost in the exceedingly poor execution. This will certainly serve as a quick, entertainment read for some but overall I'd recommend not bothering with this book. Perhaps later books in the series offer answers to the questions left hanging ~ yet there are better books to be read. If you wish to read the unique creativity of these authors in a better-written story, check out Hajiri's Pet.
So this review is about the whole series, books 1-8, as I am too lazy to go write one for each book and since I read them in a row it all sort of blended together and I couldn't tell you what happened when. Having said that, there probably won't be any real spoilers because most of what I have to say has to do with the writing.
The good - I liked the idea behind everything. The idea of the world, the characters, the magic.
The not as good - That would be everything else and the execution of the idea. This needed an editor. Not even so much for grammar and punctuation, though there were some errors, but more for content.
In almost every book there are multiple instances of a character saying something and then a paragraph later, saying the same thing, but maybe slightly reworded.
Also, one minute/paragraph/book, MC1 would feel this way about something, while MC2 felt that way, then it was like things got confused because the next time the subject came up it was the opposite. That is just the biggest example of it and the one I remember most clearly, but it happened frequently enough to actually irritate me. At first I was irritated with the characters for being so wishy washy until I realized that they probably weren't actually supposed to be that way and then I just had a vague feeling of general irritation every time it happened.
Probably the biggest problem is that there isn't enough depth to the character or world building. And when we are given information on stuff it comes in one of two ways, a short, non-descriptive line about something rather important or a long drawn out description of something that generally had no bearing on the world/story. Another example of inconsistency or possibly lack of description in the right place:
Then it just kind of got out of hand for the amount of story that was actually there. X is the bad guy...oh, wait!! He IS the bad guy, but now we have Y to add to it and...then I just sort of got worn out and had to struggle to finish the series.
Weirdly, my favorite part of this series is when they are setting up the clan and buying supplies and stuff like that. I was almost giddy. Disaster/apocalyptic shows/books never really get into what happens after and the post-apocalyptic shows/books generally skip that "putting things back together" part. And my bizarre little brain/heart/soul really wants to see those detailed little...details.
I think this series needed a much bigger word count. Give us a little more background/insight into our characters. Give us more about the world. Give us a longer time frame of the set the clan up and show more of the details, how Sword does his smithing, how the greenmage-chick sets up and grows crops inside the caves. I really would have liked to have seen a lot of the stuff and watched the clan grow gradually while getting to know all of the characters a little more before we were thrown into the end game.
My last gripe, about the end of book 8.
In conclusion, I enjoyed it, but it had some serious issues that turned what could been a seriously awesome series into a "just okay" one. Also, I would advise against reading all the books back to back. With a little more spacing between them I think I could have handled some of the irritation better - at least it would have time to die down before I moved on to the next book. :)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
In a post apocalyptic era, similar to Mad Max universe, the world is divided in City and outside clan.
Stormdragon, of the Dragon clan, is a renegade. He lost his swordbrother and lover in battle and he wanted to die with him; but his brother rescued him, not for love, but to denigrate him among his clan, a man not willing to reach his swordbrother in death. And so Stormdragon chose the life of the lone wolf, with only his warbike and sword as companionship, only searching the fast way to die with honor.
Flamespirit is a pariah of his clan, which never accept him as a clansman. He is a healer and has the power to ignite the fire on the stones. And he is also a beautiflu man, with hair the color of the flame like his name. He is also an empath and knows that Stormdragon has a desire of death inside him.
But Sandrunner, the former lover of Stormdragon, appears in dream to him and claims that Stormdragon is not ready to die and he has beside a new swordbrother to look after. And so starts the new life of this two men, one who had all and lost it, and another who had nothing and now has the chance to bond with a powerful warrior.
Called by Power is only the prequel of a more complex story I believe. It ends like the old western movies with the hero who ride toward the sunset in search of a new adventure... only that here the heros are two and they ride a motorbike and not an horse. This book is a pure fantasy, with a lot of magic and also a bit of sex, but not much. I hope that in the next book we will see the bond mating of this two warrior, cause I was teasing a lot during the book: all right, Stormdragon was wounded and he couldn't do his due as "macho man", but still... the headache excuse can be use only one or two times...
There is a bit of yaoi in this novel, with Flamespirit in the role of the cute uke, blushing and pouting, and searching for compliments from his man, and Stormdragon in the role of a reluctant seme, first not willing to find another mate, but still protecting him and caring for his health and safeness.
All in all a very enjoyable reading, and I would be glad to read more on it.
I looked for an easy read with interesting plot and characters that spoke to me.
It felt too short though, but since there are several sequels, I suppose that’s ok. I must say the sex scenes reminded me of Strength of the Pack with their simplicity BUT at the same time satisfying level of hotness.
Now, there were some things that unfortunately cost the book it’s fifth star:
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The series are really amazing and the world the authors have created quite believable and engaging.
But!! There are some facts that change from book to book and i've read up to no 5 so far(one after the other because they were so good)and it's annoying (for example book 1 Sandrunner and Storm were "exlusive" didn't want wives - book 5 Sandrunner was planning on having wives, plus some other minor changes to be fair but they do change the flow of the story which i guess was what they wanted). You know how things were and suddenly it isn't like that. It's frustrating when that happens.
Also Flame and all the characters are extremely likeable with personalities and spark. But his whining about being ignorant with the attitude that Storm is "wordly" and i follow him blindly is incosistent. Pick an attitude and stick with it, please.Am i the only who thinks like that? Oh and in the begining Storm said that Sand could sometimes hear his thoughts. Flame, who is his soul-mate in the end cannot? hmm....
Overall they need revising to straighten their facts and maybe turn it into one book or at least two. The reason i'm saying it is because the books start exactly where it was left and that way there is no point why the continuation is in another book. Still it is one good book and it's worth the time reading it.
I love this series and wish so much that it was longer. The first book starts us off building the story and introducing the main characters. This is where our main characters meet Flamespirit and Stormdragon both powerful mages and fighters. Flame lives with his clan in his modest tent, healing members of the clan when called upon. Flame is a kind man who can't just leave someone hurt, this is how he meets Storm tring to heal him when he is found in the sand desert in the middle of a black storm(which to me seems like a very bad sandstorms).
This series is set in the future when the people live on a new world which is very different than earth. Lots of magics and a very steamy Romance plot with our main characters.
I won't go into much more as it'll give away spoilers from the other books.
The books are very short but if you put all 7 together you get one long book as each book seems to only be a short clip out of the overall story. The last book does finish the story no cliff hangers there and a HEA.
I recommend this series to anyone who likes paranormal mm this definitely fits in with the best Mm series easily. (If you know of any other books similar please PM me)
I like it. It has its issues, but the story was engaging enough that I was (mostly) able to ignore the editing problems and the sometimes stilted dialogue. The protagonists were appealing, the world was exciting, and the bad guys got what was coming to them. I'm going to have to pick up the next one right away.
I really liked this book, but the writing is a bit weak, it could also benefit from some good editing as well. That is the only reason I could not give this whole series a 5 star.