Reviews of The Unsuspecting Mage: The Morcyth Saga Book One

I'm going to be completely honest here. I would like someone to do the same for my story as well so I don't feel bad. There is no hook in my opinion. Also James is 17 why is he riding a bike to school. I am sorry, but you should do more research. I do realize that his school is a short distance but still. Here is something else it says his PE teacher tells him he should participate. Normally seniors get to choose their classes and the freshmen must take PE one year. Most high schools follow the one year freshmen PE doctrine. To me the characters lacked a lot of description. We are all entitled to our own opinions and mine is this is a no go. I do want to give you props for pulling off 140k words using present tense that is rare. I am sure you are a good writer, but to be honest. I do not like this story. Sorry. :(

Really good story. Competent writing. Strange choices like everything being in the present tense. On balance I enjoyed the book but found myself constantly very slightly annoyed. Like eating ice-cream with a fly buzzing around your face. :-) I decided not to purchase the follow-up work.

Riveting! Inspiring! Once you've reached page 17, there's no turning back. Brian Pratt is a Master Storyteller. This book could enrich your life so much, you won't be the same person anymore!

very good read!! i'll buy the next books...won't stop reading till i finish james and his friend's adventure in finding the truth on his quest.

This was a great book and had an interesting story line BUT the first person view and present tense verbs were driving me crazy midway through. I would love to read the rest of the series because the story line, characters, and plot are very enjoyable but since the book does not flow easily for me with the present tense used I may have to read them in short doses.

I give three stars for the fun, escapist plot, but really, stay away if you're bothered by clearly amateur writing. The other reviews mentioned the rather uneven prose, but I wanted to point out something that jarred me from my suspension of disbelief. This is a minor spoiler because it happens so early in the book:

James helps a guy defeat six bandits, and accepts a bounty of 1100 gold. Said guy insists James takes the whole amount instead of splitting it. Well okay, that's our first introduction to money in this fantasy world, so we don't have any frame of reference. Then when James reaches his first inn, we find out that it costs one silver. We find out later (though it's never stated directly) that there are 20 coppers to a silver, 20 silver to a gold. The most expensive inn in the first book is one gold per night.

Think about that: collecting that one bounty from a farming village would let him live at the most expensive inn for three years! Compare that to hotels in our world: in the US, cheap hotels are maybe $50, while the most expensive certainly get up to $1000 per night (twenty times the price, just like the book). Food is usually a couple coppers for a cheap meal (~$5), so this seems like a reasonable estimate for currency conversion. That means this small farming town apparently has the real world equivalent of $1.1 million to pay out for a bounty. And not only that, the guy who did most of the fighting freely gives up the equivalent of over half a million dollars to a kid he just met (and saved) the day before! Even if you adjust my assumptions down, it's still an outrageous amount of money for a small farming village to hand out or even have available.

So anyway, in short, it's an interesting diversion, but the writing could use some work and the economics in the story just aren't very well thought out. Worth the price of the free download, but I can't say I'll continue with the sequels.

James, a regular young man, gets transported into a parallel world where magic exist. There he will need to learn magic to survive the many different hardships he gets thrown into.

James seems to be able to think of all the right things at the right times. It's refreshing to read a book where the main character is competent instead of like in many tv series where they rely on making the characters incompentent for the sake of creating cliffhangers.

The first person perspective adds to the immersion for me. Everything the main character does is mentioned. You follow him from his point of view as he reacts to- and devices plans for the situations, and you feel good when his plans succeed.

I like how James can use the experience from his D&D games in the situations he gets into in the parallel world as something that appears to be supernatural insight when seen from the perspective of his companions who were born in that world.

I like how the knowledge of physics (for example electricity), which is common in the ordinary-, but unknown in the parallel world gives James the understanding to be able to use nature to enhance his spells to great effect.
That gives him the potential to be a more powerful mage than all other mages in the world. The main character transforms from a regular young man with a normal life, into the kind of mysterious Merlin type mage from old tales.

I think this series is a must read, and well worth the time and money.

This book will hook you. There are six more that you will want to read. I couldn't wait to follow James on all of his exploits.

I found the book as a free download on nook and truly enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to reading the remainder of the series. That said I would like to point out that I felt that the character could have been developed a bit further,and I hope that this character development happens later in the series

I enjoyed the entire series. I am looking forward to the next series with James just have to wait till its all done before buying. (Hate waiting for next part)