Mage's Blood (Moontide Quartet)

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The magic of this book is fairly complicated so I will not explain it all now, but suffice to say the amount of magic and power you can possess depends on your lineage and blood. I do not mind if you borrow from cultures in our world, just by the gods, change some things at least! The bridge would appear every 10 years with the Moontide and was initially designed to promote trade, communication, and understanding between the two vastly different cultures. It was so interesting how the conflict was created, using these cultural differences in a fantasy setting, through this diverse cast of characters.

Not that MAGE’S BLOOD isn’t without its own setting development–Hair spends the most time on the magic, how it works, where it came from, and the culture surrounding it.

It tells a tale of good deeds that backfire in our faces, of good intentions that are just not good enough, and courage does not depend on skills. The author has managed to bring about a mirror to the complex and fascinating historical conflicts that occurred during the middle ages and gives it a drastic mystical kick to stir up a hornet’s nest.

There’s also the multivariate character cast that will keep the readers occupied with their antics and actions that enthrall and keep the readers hooked on to their chapters. That way you can still work in gnosis, Hair's magic system which is functional enough, but completely typical.I would say that once you're into the story the pages fly by and it's a fairly fast read overall (for a 650+ pg book anyway! As the series name implies, Mage's Blood is only the first in what is meant to be series of four books, and as such there is much left wide open for huge things to come. The storyline here is Kazim trying to get Ramita back, and Ramita eventually falling in love with her mysterious husband. Then the cultures described have been in isolation one from another for untold centuries before the gnosis and the airships when the appearance of magic in the world allowed the West to get to the East so to speak - that would be a third flaw in a way, why not do it the other way, with the East getting the magic and getting to the West first - and I just cannot believe the unitary nature of the cultures as despite surface differences there is a fundamental similarity between the Western, Islamic and Indian cultures in our world and in the world of the novel.

But one day she arrives home to find, to her horror, that her father has promised her to another man who is wealthy and powerful, the greatest mage in the known world: Antonin Meiros. They were portrayed as helpless victims of the maniacal mages of Yuros with no counterbalance at all. Beginning with the ascension rites across various regions to the beatification of an empress, there is a lot that happens in the first 150-200 pages.They are positively ancient and powerful, they lay their plans through centuries and work with proxies from behind the scenes. The last two Moontides have involved crusades of conquest, thanks to the lofty ambitions of the Magi. When looking for a new epic fantasy series, I am always on the prowl looking for a story that has the humongous world building we see from Steven Erikson and combine that with the wonderous magic systems we are always treated to with Brandon Sanderson.

Yet, while no religion is safe from the wrath of the secular mind, the book is not devoid of quasi-religious preaching on many ideological issues deemed to be of importance by the author; the idea of the key magic artefact in the book which can effectively make something out of nothing defying the laws of logic (entirely unacceptable!I know I sound bitter, and I would like to apologize to the many true fans of these books, but they truly missed the mark in my case. Over on the eastern side of the world we get a slew of characters and this is where David Hair excelled in his world building. The two lands were completely separate until the ascendant mages decided to build the Leviathan Bridge which will rise from the sea once every twelve years during the Moontide.