The Faded Land: A Progression Fantasy Epic (Keiran: The Eternal Mage Book 1) by D.E. Sherman

The Faded Land: A Progression Fantasy Epic (Keiran: The Eternal Mage Book 1) Reviews

• 
  Amalga Mat1on

  Great Story Buried in Introspection...
  
  The overall plot and setting are interesting. Powerful and ruthless wizard is reincarnated to a small family in a village within a desert, which is starved in more ways than one. Seeing the reincarnated child trying to better himself and save his family in a world that isn't what is seems can easily hook you.
  
  Unfortunately, there is an overabundance of internal monologuing and introspection, which pretty much kills the entire story. The series narrates almost every decision the MC makes, why it's the best decision in that situation, why he doesn't consider other choices, and the repercussions for if he fails, as well as the results of what will happen if/when he succeeds. Every. Single. Time. A good 60% percent of the story is the MC considering his choices, 10% is him acting on them, and the last 30% is the actual progression of the story and small but interesting cast of family members and other side characters.
• 
  P

  To much inside his head as a three year old….
• 
  Jesse Spencer

  Too much telling
  
  The book starts off strong but somewhere around the halfway mark falls into the trap of telling and not show to the point where every page felt like a slog.
• 
  Tony Hinde

  This book was difficult to rate. The first half dragged on quite a bit, even skipping the hundreds of pages of introspection that did nothing for the plot. The last quarter, however, was excellent. I wanted to move straight on to book two (it doesn't exist yet).
  
  I don't think the author handled the reincarnation element very well. I've read many other books with this premise; adult mind in a baby's body. This one didn't ring true. Making matters worse was the personality of the protagonist – Keiran was unsympathetic, somewhat arrogant, and lacking empathy.
  
  What brought the story out of the doldrums was the addition of an external threat actively trying to oppose Keiran's plans. I also liked the central mystery which looks to overturn all of his assumptions.
  
  I'm just hoping the author's upward trend continues in book two.
  
  
• 
  Gareth Otton

  This was a strong first book in a series about a reincarnated archmage. This is a familiar premise as I have read a lot of this sort of story recently, and I have a serious soft spot for it. However, I have also read enough of them to know that there are a great many pitfalls that usually let them down, and I am pleased that this one didn't fall into those pitfalls.
  
  This is an enjoyable, character-led story with an interesting premise, believable decision-making, and an engaging plot. The only things that let it down are:
  
  1. Pacing
  The story sets up a lot of milestones in the plot that we know have to happen. I like to think of a plot as points on a map. When you don't know the destination, it's okay to meander and explore a bit as you try to find your way, but once you know your destination, you need to head straight for that destination, or you are needlessly wasting time. There are multiple times when we, as readers, know full well where a story is headed, but it takes its time to get there regardless. It meant considerably less distance was covered than probably should have been given the length of this story, and that was frustrating at times.
  
  2. Self-interested main character
  On the one hand, it's refreshing to have a main character who is okay putting his own interests first. Not every protagonist needs to have the desire to save the world. But that doesn't mean they should be completely lacking in empathy. It's okay to want to help people who mean a lot to you, and it's also okay to want to help the community you are in if it's not going that far out of your way. There are multiple times in this book where the main character expresses an interest in just leaving everyone around him to a dark fate that he could stop with minimal effort, but he doesn't want to go out of his way. This is a bit too detached from humanity for my tastes.
  
  Final Verdict
  None of the downsides were enough to put me off this story. I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this book and can't wait to get going on the next one. The pacing issue was my biggest frustration here, so if the next book covers a little more ground, then I think this will comfortably turn into a 5-star series.
  
  I recently read the Ascendant trilogy by the same author (under the pen name Emergency Complaints), and while there were some issues with those books, on the whole, I really enjoyed them, and it put this author on my radar as someone to watch. This book shows all the same signs of a quality writer, and as a result, I have high hopes for what comes next.
• 
  Ford Miller

  Good story, very wordy and very over explained.
  
  Overall I enjoyed the story and look forward to book two. The main characters plot line isn't original but it's a unique take on it. The biggest issue is the over explanation of every situation, most of it becoming irrelevant. An example of this is the main character about to attack a group of enemy, he gives inner dialogue and expose for 10 pages on how his magic staff could attack in many different ways, 10 pages worth, only to say "but since my staff isn't working, I'll just throw a fireball and kill them All". Very wordy to the point where it's almost filler in over explaining.
  If you took away all those information dumps and cleaned up the story you would lose over a hundred pages of this book but it would be much better paced and a cleaner read. All that said, I enjoyed the story as a whole.
• 
  Mistress OP

  Bit too much ponification without action or humor for long stretches.
  
  Progression fantasy and litrpg are extreme thirsty genres. We haven't seen this kinda thirsty for subgenres since harry potter and every week there was a fantasy book with a 12 year old boy who had awful things happen to him and he had magic everyweek. The problem here is writers were ripping off the plot. And a good writer can write about bogars and make it semi interesting. This author isn't a writer type. It's like a fan of another book who wrote a book kinda like that other book they read. Which is cool for royal road or wattpad. But there's gotta be action or a joke here. You gotta use your tools.
  
  this isn't bad. it's just not good either.
• 
  Forrest

  3.5 stars. pretty good, but Sylver Seeker does it better
  
  🎶”Oh he’s sweet, but a psycho, a little bit psycho!🎶
  
  An “almost 4-year-old” who casually engages in torture and “murder” would be received a little bit better if the author gave us a reason to like him first. Like how Sylver had to watch everyone he loves die in the prologue before sacrificing himself to kill the bad guy. Every “evil” thing he does afterwards is then put into that context. With this book, we only know that he is smug and powerful and a bit of a jerk. The author also loves describing, in great detail, how the magic system works. I actually appreciate that, but it does sometimes feel like listening to a class lecture on magic more than a story at times.
• 
  Dame DandeLyon

  Needs a bit more balance
  
  As other commenters have mentioned, there is a weird feeling to have a 3-year-old condescend to an adult's regardless of him being reincarnated and making those around him aware that he is. So the main character is kind of pretentious and I know it All and it makes sense with the context but it's very hard to have a main character who no one can check and who doesn't check himself. I just wish there was somebody that was his equal because right now it just feels like a low level face slapping type of personality. He's just so beyond everybody else in terms of planning and knowledge and it's a little annoying.
• 
  Kevin

  This is reading like the Legend of the Arch Magus.
  
  I'm enjoying it, but the protagonist has to struggle even harder because he is low on resources.
  He also doesn't have time to do much, because, why would things be easy?
  
  The book was okay, but it had too much struggle. Why couldn't something go right, without having something go immediately wrong just after, and when the protag is low on resources to fight back?
  
  I will read the sequel, but I really couldn't enjoy this because it seems the author has a struggle fetish. Things can happen without having to struggle afterwards.
  
  3/5 Stars
• 
  MyDoRyS

  So much unnecessary description of making decisions and introspective/retrospective... Why would I care to know there are 300 ways to do something, and why is the MC making that decision to do it a certain way....Just do it!!! Then his family is SO stupid. I wished the dogs ate them actually, especially the sister! What an obnoxious character. I bet you the sister is going to fight him at some point. The idea of the book was great but so poorly developed. Onto my next adventure, Happy Readings!!!!
• 
  Ben

  Stopped reading at 48%, and skipped to the end to see how it all concluded. Great writing, but simply too much of it. Where the author could have skipped some exposition, they detail everything. Ultimately, the story just takes too long to go anywhere. A shame, as the writer can clearly put some good prose to paper.