Arcane Ascension Series

I love listening to books on Audible… I have SO many books on there that I won’t have to buy any for a while.  It’s a good thing that!  Some books are well-worth listening to again!!!  Anyways, last month I was intrigued by an Andrew Rowe book and thought I’d take a chance on a new series by him entitled the Arcane Ascension Series.   His first in the series caused me to pick up the rest of the series. 

This is a fantasy series that uses an interesting style of magic, and they have a religious belief system, which may or may not mean anything to different characters.  Both play an integral role in how the story plays out.  Good guys, bad guys, and some well… indifferent I’d suppose. 

These books are the following: 

• Sufficiently Advanced Magic
• On the Shoulders of Titans
• The Torch the Ignites the Stars
• The Silence of Unworthy Gods 

Anyways, let’s move on so I can tell you a bit more eh?

The Basic Details

Title:

Sufficiently Advanced Magic
On the Shoulders of Titans
The Torch the Ignites the Stars
The Silence of Unworthy Gods 

Author: Andrew Rowe
Formats: Kindle, Audio, Paperback
Pages: from 560-740 pages roughly
Publisher: all were independently published

About Author and Books

Andrew Rowe is a game designer who publishes his own work.  He is most known for this series, Arcane Ascension. His books show his love for role playing games (LitRPG).  I found it rather neat to learn that his love for fantasy was spurred by the same series I was!  DragonLance by Weis and Hickman. 

The Books: the life of Corin and his band of friends during their magic training at a boarding school.  Since I’m listening and not reading… his friends are Sera, Patrick, Mara, Keras, and Derrick. Forgive me if I spell those names incorrectly.  🙂 The goal:  Figure out their magic, fight the bad guys, figure out what the truth is, and survive! 

Learning More

Four books, all listened to through the Audible app.  I’m actually in the middle of book three as I write this review.  I’m hoping to have finished all four books by the time this posts.  🙂   I’ll keep the review updated don’t worry!  🙂 

The first two books cover their first year at school.   Their teachers employ some interesting teaching decisions/methods and often feel like they don’t truly want to help their students.  BUT since part of their magic and religious systems is figuring things out on their own, I guess it’s rather consistent with the overall worldview eh? 

Listening to Corin’s conversations throughout these books I’m convinced that he’s a high functioning autistic kid.  Other reviewers call him neurologically atypical.  Doesn’t like touch, is particular about what he likes, and highly focused attention span.  He’s very precise and highly focused on being honest whenever possible.  It makes for an interesting character to be one of the main people in a story.  I can easily understand why some folks might find him irritating.  To me… all the repeated conversation (of not liking touch, of being particular etc.) fits the character to a “T”.

You’ll find the action overall to be fast-paced.  There is always something happen, and if for some reason there isn’t something going on, Corin will be explaining something.  🙂 During those time periods, if I missed something in the conversation I didn’t worry about since usually… it will be repeated at some point down the road, or explained during an action scene.  As I said, the narration is totally within the character for Corin. 

My thoughts

I so enjoyed these books. I found the magic system an intriguing one where they actually had to earn how to use it, and then figure out how to build the strength to improve.  The fact that there was some randomness in how their magic system worked added another layer of interest. 

Heads up. The main character has same-gender attraction, but at where I am in the story dancing together is as far as it goes.   

Andrew Rowe is at times a bit wordy, but it just helps to define the characters more or helps define how the magic or religious system works. 

Overall… I liked all the books.  There is a LOT of dialogue explaining what Corin was learning.  It fits his personality.  That is what you need to remember in the Arcane Ascension series… it is told from CORIN’s point of view and therefore needs to fit his neurodivergency. 

I found it interesting as a person of faith, how Corin’s objections to the system of faith are quite similar to the objections people have to the Christian faith.  The way people act about the “country’s faith” is just like people act in society along with how people divert from each other in their expression of faith. 

All in all, should you read?   Interesting characters, often playing out tests, learning to fight bigger tests and real life challenges.  People to like and people to heartily dislike, a side to cheer for, and overall enough action to keep things moving forward.  It’s a good read. (or in my case, a good listen). 🙂 

Start with book one, see if you can tolerate Corin’s point of view, if so, you’ll like the rest of the series.