The Wizard's Crown cover art

The Wizard's Crown

Art of the Adept, Book 5

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The Wizard's Crown

By: Michael G. Manning
Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
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About this listen

Will’s journey from naïve apprentice to a mature wizard is almost complete, and his ever-growing mastery has reached unseen heights.

But his power does not exist in a vacuum. His rising star threatens to eclipse the existing powers and a new balance must be found, one that either accepts his primacy or extinguishes his light.

After Will’s resounding successes in the war with Darrow, the king plots to eliminate his young rival. Driven to desperation, Will is forced to negotiate for scraps between four brokers of power:

An ancient lich driven by vengeance, the fae queen—to whom all are just pawns in a deadly game, a nervous lord of Hell—because Will may have killed his predecessor, twice, and a primal beast—feared above all.

With mortal enemies as his allies, Will must survive to face the king...and the deadly secret he plans to unleash. Ancient foes have risen and the final battle has begun. With the world hanging in the balance, king and wizard clash, but only one can wear the Wizard’s Crown.

©2022 Michael G. Manning (P)2022 Podium Audio Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Royalty King Paranormal City Magic Users Wizardry

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Title says it all, I didn't realise I was so connected to the characters ahh.

The story that broke my heart and left me in tears

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Great series enjoyed all of the books narration was excellent all the way through very tense last book until the end what a rubbish ending so disappointing

So disappointed with ending

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What started out as a great character Will turned into an annoying young character. Some lovely parts but hated that his only real friend and him became estranged. Was glad to see the conclusion as I was getting a bit bored of the final plot. Loved the previous books so hard to write a semi negative review.

Got a bit repetitive

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This is also my least favourite book out of a series I’m already really on the fence about.
I do like Manning a lot as an author. And it is a bit nonsensical for me to say -after listening to every book in the series so far- that I’m not a big far of the story, but there it is.

There is a lot to like, but I’m afraid I really an not a fan of the infuriatingly stubborn, cocky (yet falsely humble) child prodigy/boy-man, lead character. And my dislike only got much worse in this latest book.

I do like Manning as a writer, just not this series. I think it’s mainly the main character and that his female characters are all one type (whether hero, villain, or somewhere in between).

There are great points to the series: mainly that it’s a series, so you know what you’re getting. Also - with the books being long - they are great value for money.

Another thing that appealed to me is that - while the series included the typical theme of war and violence - we aren’t inundated with page after page of sieges and war talk, something many fantasy novels get wrong. There is a lot else to going on, which includes emotions, psychology, visual descriptions that make the reading stand out above other male fantasy authors.

I also love that Mannings characters are three dimensional with both perfection and flaws in the mix and surprises in character development. (No Mary Janing here!…. Exxxxxcept for the main character Will of course. His development feels like an insincere attempt at adding annoying, flawed attributes to try and make him seem humble and believable/ likeable.)

Also I love that Manning is clearly a lover of woman. (He feels respectful, to the point that I feel like the author himself must be a great guy and was raised by good people.) HOWEVER… I hate how all the women have strong dominatrice attributes - if not that, nymphomania as well. (Think Yennifer of Vengaberg).

While sex isn’t gratuitous and over-the-top by any means, it makes me feel kind of grossed out listening to. Punishment and weirdly misplaced carnal urges are more or less the norm when sex or sexual topics occur.

This only serves to remind me that the protagonist is too young for me to see him as the worldly-beyond-his-years action hero the author would like us to see him as.

The Least Enjoyable of the Series

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This one was a bit depressing and my least favourite in the series. Not everything made sence and I dont really liked all the choices the author made. But still going to listen to wizard in exile to see how the story continues

least fav

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Unlike a lot of other reviews, I feel like the turn to the tragic was thoroughly foreshadowed, and the bad decisions at the end were due to previously exhibited character flaws and characters making awful decisions when faced with the literal end of the world. The ending is in-theme, but very definitely not the same tone.

There has been a theme of “hard decisions”, self control and the morality of killing throughout the novels, and this is an exploration of what happens when that hits reality at the global power level. I did kind of wonder if something like this was going to happen.

That said, given the previous tone of the series I expected things to work out better than they did. Things felt a bit rushed, and it felt like there was some shoe horning the narrative to end at a point where apparently it ties in with a previous series.

But honestly I prefer this to the kind of extended horrific break down that the non rushed version would be. If we absolutely have to have this sort of ending to an otherwise up beat series.

A change in tone

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Great characters, well read, don't want to give much away, a definite binge listen.

Great series didn't want it to stop.

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The narrator for some reason started calling Selene Selain in this book and it annoyed me to no end! It’s like dude! You have it written in front of you as you read it and not only that you read the four previous books and called her Selene the whole time! If you can’t read, please rethink being a narrator! It irritated me so much as her name is said so often!

I love this series but….

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as the other reviews mention I thought the ending was poor. the narrator seemed to change his voice from the other books too. pity first 4 books were brilliant. I'd still recommend reading it to finish the story if you haven't already

unsatisfying ending to a great series.

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I did not like the ending for William, I think he deserve more than what he got.
The reader kept on saying the names wrong, which was annoying.

Story

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