Mageborn: The Line of Illeniel (Book 2) [Formato Kindle]

Manning's produced another example of good, traditional fantasy, and managed to add some originality. The writing in The Line of Illeniel takes a somewhat darker tone; while still well described, Mort, the protagonist, has to grow up and accept his new role as a Count when his land are under threat of invasion. The realities of war and conflict are somewhat harsher than the coming-of-age tale of the first Mageborn novel. The pacing remains quick, and Manning does a good job of developing the details; the magical system in particular gets some further development, and the political interests were well described. The dialogue scans well, though the incorrect use of commas can be a bit distracting.

I liked the plot; Mordecai, the protagonist, sole survivor of mage lineage and recently a Count, is forced to rapidly develop both his lordly and magical acumen to deal with the threat of an invading neighbor. Meanwhile, he has to deal with the voices he's started hearing, his tempestuous romance with Penny, and at night some demonic force has started moving. The "shining gods", the good gods (or so they claim) are also trying to gain Mort's loyalties, while Mort may well be turning into the first archmage in a millenium.

While there wasn't anything particularly inspired or new in Manning's first Mageborn book with respect to magical system, plot, or worldbuilding, this second novel introduces many more original nuances and shows Manning's development as an author. Overall, a solid effort and well worth the price, though it needs another run through for grammatical editing. I'd recommend this book to fantasy readers in general, will read the sequel, and fans of the first book will be pleased with the improvements.

I'm leaving this review because I like what the author is doing, though I feel this installment left much to be desired (I loved the first novel). Consider this constructive criticism.

My main qualm is with the character development: without giving too much away, I feel Mordecai's character dev in this installment is way off. While I understand him acting counter to his disposition in troubling times, I felt as though some of his choices and actions were too far removed from how you'd expect him to handle the situations. This left a sour taste at times, particularly when he seldom looked back reflectively on these jarring against-the-grain decisions.

Moreover, everything seems very haphazard and repetitive - character 1 is mad at character 2 for doing x... two chapters later: character 1 is mad at character 2 for doing a slight variation of x. I think the relationships and interactions need to be thought through more carefully such that they are more.. substantial.

Altogether I like what Manning is doing, I just feel as though he may be moving to quickly to get the books out, and the quality is suffering disproportionately as a result -> a little more time rereading and refining (and maybe planning), and this could have been a considerably better read. The first novel was so much more coherent and I simply hope that Manning can achieve that coherence in Book 3.

I am enchanted with Michael Manning's Mageborn fantasy trilogy and the epic tale being spun in a classic medieval setting. This vision and the underlying story are keeping me attached to this story although I feel that improvements could be made to the writing. To his credit, Michael Manning has made significant improvements from the first book. Most of the needed improvements, as I noted in my review of The Blacksmith's Son, were in characterization, dialog and point of view. Characterization and dialog are improved but still need development. Point of view issues were not noted in this book.

**SPOILER ALERT** SPOILERS: Characterizations and dialog are improved except when dealing with Mort's romantic relationship to Penny. Mort and Penny's relationship reads more like an adolescent soap opera than the deeper bonding relationship which is described. Also, Mort's ability to easily surpass generations of wizards because he avoided formal teaching is not very plausible. Mort is able in months to surpass generations of wizards in preparing for the climatic battle of the book. Mort rarely makes wizard mistakes (except the "I did not realize I was that powerful" type of mistakes). It would be nice to see a human fallibility on the magic skills.

The trilogy is charming. The writing shows steady improvement. I am looking forward to the final book in the trilogy.