Buried Mage

Michael Taggart
Completed 12/20/2023, Reviewed 12/21/2023
4 stars

Another winning entry in the Fledgling God series.  This fourth book wasn’t quite as spectacular as the third book, Gathering Mage, but it still kept me pumped up on Jason and the Louisville Mages.  I felt this one spent a little too much time on build-up.  The significance of the title isn’t apparent until halfway through the book.  But Taggart’s easy prose and the love between the four who live with Jason really make it worthwhile.  It makes it another feelgood romp of an urban fantasy with a masterfully detailed magic system.  And it ends on a cliffhanger, something I’m not generally fond of, but welcomed as it means there will be a fifth book in the series.  Yes!

This book takes place right after Jason and Sandy return from the Gathering of Mages where they established themselves as powerful Mages in their own right.  They brought back newly developed magical abilities and new confidence in their powers.  They share their discoveries of charm creation and rune use with their housemates.  Oh yeah, and Jason and his boyfriend Tyler the incubus have lots of I-missed-you-so-much-sex.  Just when everything seems to settle down, the House is challenged to a Reconciliation battle by the Cincinnati House.  It’s a stylized ritual to pit one House against another to settle a dispute.  Turns out the Cincinnati House had helped the rotten Mages in the first two stories, unaware that everything they were told about Jason’s House were lies.  When it is all settled, all seems right with the world until Karl and Marius, the remaining super-rotten mages return once and for all to destroy Jason and his housemates.

The real star of this book is the magic system.  We learn a lot more about charms and runes.  The House members work to create charms, starting with easy and working up to complicated and powerful.  Jason also works with runes, figuring out how they draw and process power.  Taggart is so detailed, he’s almost scientific in his approach to this magic system.  Where some books assume you understand spells and runes and charms, Taggart defines them like an instruction manual would.  I have to admit, sometimes it got a little tedious, particularly in the first half.  However, when Jason has to actually work with runes and charms as well has his shield and soul creations to escape from being buried alive, all that background makes sense.   

I was startled by the sexual content in this book.  After 800 pages of almost no sex, this installment ushers it back in with intensity and some humor.  To say this book is erotica would be too much.  I would classify it as an urban fantasy with healthy sexual expression.  I’ve read some fantasy and sci fi erotica, and this is tame compared to those books.  But I would classify this as having mature content.  

I must say that I’m very impressed with Taggart’s imagination.  For a set of books with the common trope of “learn an aspect of magic, use it in a life or death fight, repeat”, they are wildly entertaining.  I also still love the fact that everyone in Sandy’s house gets along like a loving, chosen family.  There is very little conflict between the house members.  Sometimes, all the hugging and laughing and partying seems unrealistic.  On the other hand, it saves the conflict for the real bad guys.  It reinforces the idea that one’s chosen family can be supporting and loving, something that many LGBTQ+ people eventually learn and experience.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  It was a little bit of a come down after the exhilaration of the previous book.  I was still very involved emotionally with Jason, Sandy, et al.  Like several other reviewers, I feel sad that Annabeth is the only House member not in a relationship, and it is never noted if she wants one or not.  And it’s not like she’s a fifth wheel.  She fully participates with the others and is never left out.  In fact, she has a pivotal role in the big showdown.  I’d just like to see the love spread out a little more evenly.  As for the next book, I can’t wait to see what happens to everyone.  I can’t wait for it to come out and will probably jump on it as soon as I hear it’s been published.