Alchemyst Series

[Aethling he/him]

Sorry if anyone is finding these annoying. I am just trying to bring some life into the forum and possibly introduce people to new books or series.

This Series by Michael Scott follows two fraternal twins and their weeklong adventures to try to learn elemental magics and stop "Elders" from returning to the Earth. It takes many historic and folk lore characters and brings them to the modern world as Immortals that have been given the gift of a vastly extended lifespan. You will see Billy the Kid, Machievelli, Dr. John Dee, Nicolas Flamel and his wife, Shakespeare, Joan of Arc, Comte de St Germaine, and others fighting on different sides, some trying to prevent the elders return and some trying to foster it.

Many of the Elders will be familiar as well from folklore or mytholocy. Hel, Odin, Mars, Prometheus, Aten, Anubis, Isis, Osiris, a Greenman, and others play the parts of good and bad elders.

While the series is well-written and interesting enough to keep you interested for the entire six book series, it does have some significant holes that I still am unable to believe were not caught by beta readers or the editor. Sometimes facts change from book to book or even from one page to the next. To me this is just sloppy. Another example is that the author mistakenly attributes something done by one character early in the series to a completely different character in the series. Again, this is sloppy and just plain bad fact checking of the author's own work.

I did invest money to get the entire series, so it did manage to engage me for the duration, but the sloppiness of the author's on creation is irksome to me, but it may not be to you. This is a good little adventure and makes a perfect interstitial reading exercise. You can read the entire series in a week or less if you really try.

While I do like this series, I will be honest and state that I will probably never buy another one of Scott's books. Oddly enough, it has nothing to do with the sloppiness I mentioned above. What it has to do with is that the author wrote two ebook short stories involving Billy the Kid and Joan of Arc that he expects you to buy separately. To me, these should have been included in the books of the series or given away as free to entice new readers or reward his loyal readership. Other authors have written short stories involving their works and made them available for free, Scott should have followed this instead of trying to milk the profit.

[Trizee]

I just finished the series and thought it was very good (though book 5 was rather week). I liked the whole premise, especially the idea of auras and elders, and the non stop action made them fun to read. The books do lack a certain depth- character development and the like, but I suppse that's excusable for a YA book, and they make up for it with pure fun!

As for the sloppines, I actually didn't notice any discrepancies, but I took long breaks between books, so that might explain it.

I agree with Aethling that Scott should have made the Joan and Billy stuff free, but I don't think that's a valid reason not to read any other books by the author. If you liked the author, then read his books, don't give up on the author because you din't like the way he publiciizes himself. I personally don't think I will be reading anything else by Scott, largely because I enjoyed the book more for the premise than the writing or plot. The awesome premise allowed me to enjoy the books a lot just for the sake of the idea behind it, so that the writng never bothered me, but I was more interested in the learning about the world the characters lived in than in what would happen to them. In another book, the premise would be different, so I don't think that I would read it.