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  • Spellmonger

  • Spellmonger, Book 1
  • Written by: Terry Mancour
  • Narrated by: John Lee
  • Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (329 ratings)

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Spellmonger

Written by: Terry Mancour
Narrated by: John Lee
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Publisher's Summary

Nominee, Audie Awards - Fantasy, 2018

Minalan gave up a promising career as a professional warmage to live the quiet life of a village spellmonger in the remote mountain valley of Boval. It was a peaceful, beautiful little fief, far from the dangerous feudal petty squabbles of the Five Duchies, on the world of Callidore. There were cows. Lots of cows. And cheese.

For six months things went well: He found a quaint little shop, he befriended the local lord, the village folk loved him, he found a sharp young apprentice to help out, and, best yet, he met a comely young widow with the prettiest eyes.

Then one night Minalan is forced to pick up his mageblade again to defend his adopted home from the vanguard of an army of goblins - gurvani, they call themselves - bent on a genocidal crusade against all mankind. And that was the good news. The bad news was that their shamans were armed with more magical power than has been seen since the days of the ancient Imperial Magocracy - and their leader, a mysterious, vengeful force of hate and dark magic, is headed directly to Boval Vale, along with a massive invading army of gurvani. The good people of Boval and their spellmonger have only one choice: To hole up in the over-sized Boval Castle and hope they can endure a siege against hundreds of thousands of goblins.

When the people look to him for hope, Minalan does his best, but the odds are depressing: There are multitudes of goblins, and they want Boval Vale as a staging ground for a vengeful invasion of the whole Five Duchies. Add to his troubles a jealous rival mage, a motley band of mercenaries, a delusional liege lord who insists victory is at hand despite the hordes at his door, a dour castellan, a moody, pregnant girlfriend, and a catty ex-girlfriend who specializes in sex magic - all trapped in a stinking, besieged castle with no hope of rescue, and you'll understand why Minalan is willing to take his chances with the goblins.

All that stands between the gurvani horde and the people of the Five Duchies is one tired, overwhelmed baker's son who wanted nothing more than to be a simple village spellmonger.

©2011 Terry Mancour (P)2017 Podium Publishing

What listeners say about Spellmonger

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Flat. Boring. And the female “trysts” May as well have been 12 nerd porn

So granted I only listened to five hours. So maybe the book has the most amazing ending ever to redeem it. But after five hours of nothing I gave up. The characters suck. They are so lifeless and uncool. The main character is just a horn dog. It’s like the author is a nerdy 12 year old boy who makes the main character bang every single female the story mentions. It’s tasteless and boring. Honestly in the saturated market of fantasy literature this one is nothing special and in fact bad.

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Too self obsessed, difficult read.

As a big fan of many various fantasy series, Terry Mancour’s Spellmonger did not fit my pallet. The opening sequence did the book is quite entertaining, a humorous slow climb to clarity that results in some gritty action and intrigue. But the rest of the book fails to pay off, setting up epic concequences that I couldn’t be bothered to see through. The main character is a poor imitation of humility, and has few likeable traits(whatever his name was) . There were moments in the book when I found myself laughing out loud, and as the scene continued I found it was not meant to be funny. And top it all off with John Lee’s bewilderingly dramatic and bland performance.

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10 people found this helpful

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

boring...

each new plot point means another 20 min of explanation about a new aspect of the protagonist. makes for a dull story.

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4 people found this helpful

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

alright but kinda silly at times

struggled to finish this one. I gave up with an hour left. I found some aspects of the story and magic ridiculous. the main character is not really that likable. I found the whole sex magic thing ludicrous. it's like that part of story was written by someone obsessed with penthouse letters

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4 people found this helpful

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

must read

a relatable lovable main character. you will wish that this book will never end and that the story will hopefully have a good ending for him.

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4 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
  • Ian
  • 2023-07-24

Narrator A+ Worldbuilding A+ Magic A+ Character F

I really wanted to give this one a chance. Couldn't get past the amount of sex. While most of the scenes are /understandable/ within the plot it doesn't make for comfortable listening.
I would've forgiven the flat protag and the info dumping for the beautiful worldbuilding, magic system, and story telling. But I'm unfortunately returning this book and giving up on the series.

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2 people found this helpful

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

Ruined by narrator

I'm genuinely disappointed that I can't finish this audiobook series but I just can't get past John Lee. This delivery is strangely artificial to the point of making me suspect that they simply had him read every word in the dictionary and then synthetically produced the audiobook. Strange sentence cadence, strange word emphasis, just strange altogether.

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2 people found this helpful

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

phenomenal voice actor, fun story concept, poor writing and women are just objects

consistently has lines that stick out and don't match the tone of the rest of the story. women are treated as potential sex holes. The first description of a female character is about her heaving breasts. can we not? I was looking forward to a fun, quick fantasy read. But this is intolerable to try to get through. very disappointed. The voice actor reading the book was absolutely fantastic and I will be looking for other things He's done instead.

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1 person found this helpful

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

Such potential for me ruined by…

This book had such potential for me, it seemed like the author was building a well crafted world with some interesting if not basic magic systems and what could turn into a pretty good world….

Until the copious, and shoehorned sexual content… I have zero issues with sexual content but the stuff written in this book comes off as forced and childish. Like someone is trying to prove they’ve seen a boob before. Like the author was engaged in writing a solid story and then all of a sudden got horny and felt the need to cram in a few paragraphs of gratuitous sexuality, and was that need was dated went back to proper world building.

… and then came the ending, where my decision to not purchase any further books was cemented. Just so ridiculous. Also the book two teaser cemented that even further.

The narrator is what carried me through the rough sections of this was, I give him a 10/10.

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1 person found this helpful

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

Didn’t like it

I’m five hours in and I don’t care about any of the characters and plot is vague. I’ll probably listen to the entire thing but it’s just gonna be noise in the background as I do my dishes. I’m not enjoying.

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1 person found this helpful