Paranoid Mage

Book One: Paranoid Mage Callum had seen things all his life. There are monsters and... Read more Book One: Paranoid MageCallum had seen things all his life. There are monsters and beasts living among people, but he learned very early not to admit such things, not if he didn’t want people to think him crazy.It turns out that the supernatural is real, but at thirty Callum has no desire to be part of that secret. Not that he has a choice when it turns out he is a mage, albeit one that hasn’t cast any spells in all his life. There are requirements, duties, and education that the powers that be insist he be subject to.To hell with that.***Book Two: Renegade MageAfter escaping from the Guild of Arcane Regulation and the Bureau of Secret Enforcement, Callum has lost his greatest protection: his obscurity. Now the powers that be know who he is, and hiding is harder than ever. Nor is hiding a plan, just a reaction.Now Callum is forced to decide how he wants to approach the supernatural world, and how he’s going to keep himself secure when the apparatus of government is arrayed against him. Even if he wanted to live as a mage, that bridge has been thoroughly burned, and even if he wanted to live as a normal person, he is far too deep to close his eyes to what he’s seen.He has to make his own terms.***Paranoid Mage is an urban fantasy but it goes rather sideways from the normal stuff fairly quickly.Chapters are Fridays, 5PM EST, with approximately 5,000 words per chapter. Collapse Male Protagonist, Urban, Magic, Modern Day, Monsters, Vampires, Secret Organizations, Hunters, Alternate World, Aristocracy, Arrogant Characters, Mature Protagonist, Werebeasts, Secret Identity, Politics, Death of Loved Ones, Weak to Strong Didn't know this was here, pretty great read, short and sweet. I suggest going to RoyalRoad tho, it's free and the ads are f#cking memes, yes, I'm telling you to go there because the ads are awesome! glhf! Just finished it, and i have to say it was a pretty satisfying read. I'm happy with how the plot panned out and closed off, but i have a shining suspicion this might have get a sequel or something similar ... i might just be paranoid though. It was a pretty good read. As typical with Royal Road novels, each chapter was very long as compared to regular novels. There were a few aspects here and there that were kinda frustrating or left me thinking "huh?" but it was overall an interesting novel. I've just finished reading this novel, and am here to give my thoughts and reviews for this story.For the story itself, it is amazing. It is a wonderful mixture of a magic progression fantasy, High octane action with wonderful writing detail and actual stakes, and a realistic take on the wonders of a hidden, developed, magic society and the politics it entails, bureaucracies included. The main character himself is also great, he has a well developed character arc and some great character development. Callum goes from someone who is extremely confused and paranoid about this new world he finds himself in, to someone with actual friendships and a person who can trust others and have them trust him as well. He comes to have many friends who he can rely on and who can rely on him. There is also an extremely well written romance which both feels accurate and is fulfilling and the side characters who have so much depth I wouldn't be surprised if the author knew them firsthand. The only thing there is not to like is the minor unresolved plot points and how the later parts of the story have a lot of POV shifts and the insane amounts of detail for each character's actions and plans which slows down the pacing somewhat. All in all, this story is an amazing experience of a man who enters a strange world and fights to stay alive and protect those close to him, with a generous helping of magical elements such as enchanting, other races, and eldritch horrors beyond comprehension.9.7/10, S Tier, is good, read it. The story has now been finished.It was a good read, among the top novels I've read on this site. The author far more competent then the rest. I always looked forward to updates, and each one had plenty of meat.Not that wasn't anything wrong with it, but it was crafted to a much greater quality than the vast majority of novels on here.It doesn't follow the typical formula of teens action stories, so probably a decent amount of people used to that are going be dissatisfied with it. But in exchange the story is more mature and thought out so I'll gladly take the whining kids (and equivalents) in the comments.This is definitely a story I'm glad to have spent my time on. 4 typical webnovel chapters can come out of one chapter of this book🤣🤣And Good read also, very entertaining (Important: Chapters are MUCH larger than typical webnovels. There is a lot more to read than the small chapter count would lead you to believe)This novel is several hands above the quality of typical stuff on this site.I'm typically critiquing things into the mud but the complaints I have for this novel are multiple tiers below the overwhelming mass of other stuff on here.My biggest initial worry of overly-stupid villains and the like was even overturned as the novel went on. It's never really mentioned overly, but think of an oppressed society where the top leadership are overwhelmingly more powerful than anyone else and prefer society to be dumb and reliant on them.My complaints that remain are minor, insignificant in the face of consistency and good writing.That being said, I can see that kids would prefer a different style of writing, with more action, romance and power fantasy than political and logistical slice-of-life.Honestly, this is closer to a moderately paced detective novel than anything else, which isn't for everyone, but goodness is the level of writing a breath of fresh air. If you can shutoff your brain or like plot armor then it's a ok read there are simply too many things that don't make sense Lies. Dont believe this guy, most things in this novel make sense unless you lack the ability to think 2 Space Aspect Dragonborn(or blood) hearts/ 10 Morbite bulletsReally recommend, Made me paranoid for new chapters suddenly popping out of nowhere. It sadly goes off the rails after chapter 17. Before, it just seemed like a society being held back by selfish idiots. But now the author is making it seem like everyone except the mc is an idiot. Common knowledge literally anyone can know about if they have a human body is suddenly forbidden knowledge. And know this forbidden knowledge means you are a rogue mage that needs to be hunted.. I couldn't suspend by disbelief. I woudn't say that it went off the rails, but I do agree with the point about common knowledge. Information is king and you would think mages would exemplify this to the point, but no. I don't know about that. It's explained by indoctrination and institutionalism, and reinforced by people so powerful that you either think how they tell you to think or you're just dead. Capitalism and corporate interest doesn't matter if an archmage just says no. In fact, technological and scientific progress are competitors for the archmages since they want everyone reliant in them.And you overestimate the mental capabilities of the general masses. There's plenty of present and historic cases of people believing all kinds of stupid shit, and doubling down on the stupid when the going gets tough.For many people, common sense and logic are not a motivator for intellectual progress. It's only a deep sense of monetary and social loss that motivate the typical holders of power into making SOME adjustments, much less people predisposed for mental laziness. And keep in mind, keeping the subclasses uneducated and powerless has always been method of control, active even in our modern age and first-world countries. Propaganda is a hellova drug.Those who know better can only keep their heads down. And there is no protection for public persons. The higher ranks in mage society are above the law. Whistle blowing would have no have no protection. You know "common knowledge" about biology is a fairly recent development in human history. Germ theory was only discovered a little over 100 years ago. Before that, doctors performed surgeries without washing their hands. Non-modern understanding of biology was mostly guess work and superstition. Even now, while modern knowledge is freely available, only people who receive a proper education would actually know that stuff. You're projecting your own knowledge bias on people who have almost no access to that knowledge, and no need for access to it, either, as far as they're aware.The mages do not have any scientific education of any kind. They learn magic and politics. That's it. At best, trickles of information from mundane sources might seep in as uncommon knowledge, only to be seen by a small number of people within mage society. And even that is exceptionally limited since the magical society is heavily isolated from the mundane. It's unreasonable to expect them to know things you know without having access to the education you've had. I think it's unreasonable to assume that a mage society would be lacking in understanding of Biology, of course most mages who are yet to really delve into it, just like kids in school, would only know about it without any understanding but any half competent mage should have at some point thought about biology in regards to magic at the very least, and those of more senior calibre should have already tried to generalize it. Mages are often depicted as sort of scientists of the field of magic and it's interactions with world as a whole. To wield magic you need to understand it and to study it you will more than likely have to study a broad verity of fields. As the applications of magic are truly limitless.