Cold Iron cover art

Cold Iron

Masters and Mages, Book 1

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Cold Iron

By: Miles Cameron
Narrated by: Mark Meadows
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About this listen

Aranthur is a student. He showed a little magical talent, is studying at the local academy, and is nothing particularly special. Others are smarter. Others are more talented. Others are quicker to pick up techniques. But none of them are with him when he breaks his journey home for the holidays in an inn. None of them step in to help when a young woman is thrown off a passing stage coach into the deep snow at the side of the road. And none of them are drawn into a fight to protect her. One of the others might have realised she was manipulating him all along....

A powerful story about beginnings, coming of age, and the way choosing to take one step towards violence can lead to a slippery and dangerous slope, this is an accomplished fantasy series driven by strong characters and fast-paced action.

©2017 Miles Cameron (P)2017 Orion Publishing Group Epic Fantasy Historical

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Critic reviews

"A stirring, gritty and at times quite brutal epic fantasy." (Tor.com)

"'This series promises to be the standout epic fantasy for the ages." (Fantasy Book Critic)
All stars
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10/10 story and characters. A start to another fantastic series! A great fantasy with a mix of school ground, court and military settings.

Miles Cameron Strikes Again

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Only just started listening but I suspect I'll have to return this title. The narrator is awful beyond words.

Builds pitch in sentences with absolutely no reason, you think something dramatic is about to happen but it doesn't. If you measured the pitch I'm sure it would look like a sawtooth waveband: up, up, up, then drop. Then huge, unnecessary pauses.

Because of this, I just cannot get to grips with the story.

I see others have praised the performance, so I'll push on but it is such a struggle

The worst cadence to narration

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Very good narration of an in-depth world of plots and subtle magic, politics and factions; guns, swords and colourful characters as real as you or I.

Recommended.

Another work of art by Cameron

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I’ve been totally immersed in quality fantasy really and Miles Cameron has produced another quite absorbing tome for us to consider. It tells the story of Arunthur, a farmer’s son from a small and fairly remote village who left to study at a big city university. It bypasses much of the standard early coming of age stages and delves straight into Cameron’s world of magic, intrigue and colourful characters. War is steadily encroaching on the land and just while everyone should be uniting against a common foe a myriad factions compete based on their own priorities and designs. The worldbuilding is quite fascinating and the characters are cleverly built with no little depth in a traditional fantasy style.

At the heart of this story are a lot of issues that resonate in our current society and probably always have. The class and wealth divides plus racial and gender prejudices are all there in the core. In fact on some review sites I have seen the suggestion that the book itself is racist which I would reject totally and utterly. Some of the characters do show prejudices and intolerance of others but I think it’s always clear just what it is and it’s never glorified in any way. We won’t deal with prejudice and racism by pretending they don’t exist, that’s for sure. And it is an intrinsic part of this world’s mechanics, to be honest much like in a lot of other fantasy novels I have read.

The narration by Mark Meadows is well done. He’s not the most demonstrative but he has a good range of voices and accents for the characters.

All in all this is a promising start to the series and this first volume ties up plenty of subplots while setting things up nicely for bigger things to come. There is action, intrigue and a very detailed world to enjoy in Cold Iron and I get the feeling that things are just warming up . . .

Cold Iron is a Warm Start

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Story excellent, narration good, the only downside for me is the constant use of foul language. This author is not alone though in the use of foul language in his novels. I will listen to the remainder in this series however. Authors take note , the constant use of foul language is not necessary ! Take a leaf out of Ben Hales novels. The second book Dark Force is even worse regarding foul language. I'm not a prude by any means , but there is no need for the amount of foul language the author uses, shame. I returned the second book and will not buy the 3rd.

Well worth a listen

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The narration is good the story is good

But. There. Is. A. Pause.

at the end of every paragraph or three I think I'm getting a call because there's a huge gap where the narration has paused while tea is brewed the record pressed once more.

sigh

Pause Read Pause Read

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Big fan of the Red Knight series this was very enjoable. Great characters , well paced opening and good plot. Part 2 felt a liittle short and hurried. Looking foward to rest of series.

Excellent story very well read. Great characters

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Thoroughly enjoyed this first title now for Book 2, good narration and story pacing quickly got me hooked.

Exciting and engaging

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This is a good start to a sword & sorcery series. The characters are developing nicely and some intriguing groundwork is being put in place suggesting a good story to come. The narration is good; not as creative as some, but supports the story well.

Promising start

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There’s a great many reviews that berate the cadence of the narrator, and whilst it is different to most it soon becomes the rhythm of the book and does not detract from the joy of the story. I will happily get the next audio book in the series as I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Excellent

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