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  • Sufficiently Advanced Magic

  • Arcane Ascension, Book 1
  • By: Andrew Rowe
  • Narrated by: Nick Podehl
  • Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,191 ratings)

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Sufficiently Advanced Magic

By: Andrew Rowe
Narrated by: Nick Podehl
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Publisher's Summary

Five years ago Corin Cadence's brother entered the Serpent Spire - a colossal tower with ever-shifting rooms, traps, and monsters. Those who survive the spire's trials return home with an attunement: a mark granting the bearer magical powers. According to legend, those few who reach the top of the tower will be granted a boon by the spire's goddess.

He never returned.

Now it's Corin's turn. He's headed to the top floor, on a mission to meet the goddess.

If he can survive the trials, Corin will earn an attunement, but that won't be sufficient to survive the dangers on the upper levels. For that he's going to need training, allies, and a lot of ingenuity.

The journey won't be easy, but Corin won't stop until he gets his brother back.

©2017 Andrew Rowe (P)2017 Podium Publishing

What listeners say about Sufficiently Advanced Magic

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 4 Stars
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  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

The Name Of The Wind meets The Maze Runner

Rather than swishing a wand and having all sorts of crazy magic spring out of it, this is a world in which magic and the products of this magic are a tradeable resource, and those lucky enough to weild it will inevitably battle to weild larger amounts and more complex versions of it to improve both their wealth and standing within society. It sets up an interesting dynamic at the university, where everyone is not just concentrating on learning how to use their various types of magic, but battling to gain access to more magic than their peers.

As most young adult books tend to, this story has about 40 hours of reading/listening crammed into half of that so as to not lose the attention of the young adult reader/listener. This isn't a terrible thing, but in the end you are left wondering what might have been, had the author fleshed out some of those ideas a little. Still, not everyone is prepared to sit through 40-50 hours of listening to get through a book, and to cut some of the fringe scenes in favour of an action-packed story could be a winning combination. Reservations though I might have, I am sufficiently hooked and will be continuing on with the series.

Nick Podehl narrates the book in his own well known style. He has this elastic, cartoonish voice which means that the lead character is reminiscent of the likes of Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon, Hiro from Big Hero Six, or even Jim Lake from Trollhunters. As a result of this, I haven't been able to shake the CGI cartoon imagery from my minds eye, and the whole story plays in my head as a computer generated, animated movie rather than a live-action one. There are worse things that could happen, and there is always a chance that I'm just a crazy person who sees weird things.

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36 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Bursts of entertainment

This story is very intriguing. Well, parts of it are. Unfortunately, the characters are all very dislikeable. In addition, most of the story is just exposition dumps. If I have to hear the words "I'll have to research that more later", or something along a similar vein, I will lose my mind.

The main character whines about everything. Hates physical contact, avoids people (except he doesn't), and basically just complains the whole way through.

His sister is a hypocrite. Main character gets hurt? "Don't ever do that again! You worried me!" She gets hurt? "Leave me alone corrin! It's my body I'll do what I want!" Main character has a secret with a god? "You can't keep secrets from me! I'm your sister and it affects me too!" She has a secret? "I'm allowed to have things to myself sometimes!"

The tone is also all over the place. It's a very serious story, usually told in a serious way, but just randomly tries to be funny. It's not funny, so this doesn't work. Even in the middle of major conflicts, the author tries to be funny. It is incredibly jarring and annoying.

Most of the backstory is just from people talking over and over and over in classes about things that would be cool to see in real time. I get that rules have to be established, but having someone lecture you is just not entertaining to listen to.

The book has moments that are good. There are a few fights and interactions that are awesome. Unfortunately, for every good 30 mins, there is 5 hours of exposition and grating dialogue or character thoughts that just do your head in. This story would be better told by another author.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

great story and charecters but .....

its a great book with a fun story but the author repeats details ALOT. i think it needs to have a bit more faith in the listeners memory for major details

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The heroic procrastinator of irrelevant things

Loved the world, Nick Podehl is one of my favorite narrators - but the MC is constantly just thinking along random trains of thought that have absolutely no relevance to the story from what i can see. Maybe the author wants to give the MC a contemplative air or something, but really its infuriating. If he did less thinking about things that he NEVER does and just acts on is intuition this book would be awesome.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Spectacular

This is an absolutely amazing find for anyone who enjoys the fantasy genre, definitely reccomended

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Pretty good story

Like a cross between Harry Potter and The Name of the Wind, but not quite as good as either. Good story, original world and well defined magic system but the characters didn't ring true for me. Excellent narration however.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Read it!

loved it.my new favourite book. read it do not wait! I love magic schools and the main character is really smart. it is so nice not to hate the protagonist ideas

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

thoroughly disappointing

I had decent hopes for this book as it had generally good reviews and an interesting premise but it falls flat in almost every dimension. it's my first foray into LitRPG-style so maybe I'm missing something?

about half the book is a mixture of harry potter and name of the wind but taking the worst of both. the main character is both inexplicably ignorant/stupid and unbelievably skilled as the story requires. the tone is a jarring mix of attempted serious, attempted humour with a bunch of snarky dialogue.

It's disappointing mainly because it comes close to touching on so many interesting things but fails to actual explore them. example is the protagonist- he's basically asexual with a touch aversion with a hint of queer curiosity. an interesting character, right? but it was never explored just the occasional reference here and there.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Started good but then got monotonous

Doesn't have a clear direction. Shoves "progressive" ideology in towards the end which messes with established characterisation. I was into it at the start but lost interest towards the middle of the book there is an over analysis of everything which began to wear down my interest in the characters and story.

There is brilliance in this book and the world though. I feel if an editor had pared out a lot of the crap it could be a 5 star. Will check out the second book to see if it tightens up if not will give up on the series.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Where is it going?

Interesting characters. Well performed by the reader.
but no real indication of where it was going.

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1 person found this helpful

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