Gathering Mage

Michael Taggart
Completed 12/14/2023, Reviewed 12/15/2023
5 stars

I adored this book.  It’s 850 pages felt like nothing, making me read over thirty pages an hour (except on the nights when I passed out while reading because I read until super late the night before LOL).  It truly had me engrossed.  I loved the main characters, the intricate magic system, the world building, and the excitement of the setting.  Unlike the previous two books in the series, Misfit Mage and Melee Mage, this had a lot more substance even though I could still argue that this was fluff.  This one just came together for me in so many ways, and I realized I had missed being in this world that Taggart created.  I also found out in the afterward, that this and the fourth book were written as one huge epic, which he split into two books.  So that was all the motivation I needed to jump into the next one without taking a break with a different author.

This book is quite a different setup than the first two.  It continues the story, which began only a few months ago, of Jason Cole, a young gay man who has just discovered he’s a mage.  He lives with Sandy, the head mage of the magical House, her husband John the mountain troll whom she just married, and another mage named Annabeth who’s magic is linked to music.  Jason is in love with an incubus named Tyler, and they’ve just declared their relationship status as boyfriends, not just friends with benefits.  Jason has a cat named Bermuda who is recognized by other mages as a revered Celestial Guardian.  

In this book, Sandy and Jason go to week-long gathering of mages.  It’s kind of like a convention where the mages of the world come together to share the experiences in their respective Houses.  Both are young mages: Jason only a few months old, and Sandy only about 70 years old.  They’re there to learn as much as they can.  Jason grows in many ways, particularly in his understanding of his own magical nature and in how he accesses this magic.  But besides the usual fun and education of going to a convention, the two run into trouble.  There is a growing movement that wants to cast out the new mages, whom they call rats, from the Houses, claiming they are draining their resources, physical and magical.  This eventually leads to a showdown between the forces of good and the rat haters.  In between, there is a ton of fun and excitement that leads up to this final showdown.  

You’d think that a story about a convention would be kind of boring, but Taggart makes it unbelievably fun.  Beginning with the opening ceremonies, for which Sandy and Jason create an ad hoc show to represent their House that blows away all the participants, there are tons of new aspects of magic for Jason to discover and explore.  There are new friends to meet and new enemies to avoid.  In particular, there are the centaur llamas, beings from another plane who act as servants because they lost their magic generations ago.  Jason befriends one of them and opens a whole new relationship between the centaurs and the mages that all had thought disappeared ages ago.  There are also the tree creatures, mages who are also from another plane.  After a misunderstanding between Bermuda and a giant dragonfly, the trees and Jason and Sandy also become fast allies.

I just loved Jason in this book.  Perhaps one can argue he’s a male Mary Sue (sometimes called a Gary Sue).  Jason is almost certainly a fictional Taggart, and he’s a little too perfect at times.  And after all, the series is called “The Fledgling God.”  Jason is just so adorable and naïve and vulnerable that I can’t help but love the character.  I cheered for him throughout the book, felt like I was him, and at the end, I wished it wasn’t over (thank heavens for the fourth installment).

I really got into the magic system in this book.  It is quite complex.  Taggart almost makes a science of the way that Jason visualizes, stores, and access his magic.  There were times where Jason works and grows his internal magic for pages and pages (and pages).  I think it could have been boring, but I found it totally intriguing.  When he actually uses his magic to heal or in combat, it all makes complete sense.  

The only complaint I had was there’s a deus ex machina towards the end.  However, after I acknowledged it, I completely bought into it.  After all, Jason is a fledgling deus himself.  And there’s foreshadowing of it when Jason meets the All-Rune in a powerful sequence earlier in the book.  

I am so glad I took the chance on this self-published series.  I got it because the guy on the cover of the first book was hot.  And what began as fun fluff turned into something a little more meaty but no less fun.  I give this book five stars out of five for being an intense page turner, thoroughly entertaining, and highly addictive.