I read Magimakía; The Quest for Merlin by Brazilian author Rafael Lovato in two days. Its tone was light, slightly mocking, and ridiculous in a good way. It is written in a style that conveyed a sort of surrealistic Dead Sea Scrolls importance. The book was an enjoyable read even though there were points in the book that evoked disgust and were clearly designed to appeal to a guy's cruder sensibilities. It is clearly meant for an audience of teenage boys. The Portuguese to English translator used a mixture of American and British English with some typos, grammar quirks, and even some words I've never seen before. The plot included a merging of souls into one body. When a demon's soul is merged with a mage's soul, the result is called a necromancer. Merlin's long life is credited with another type of merge between a dragon and a mage. According to the book, a mage lives twice as long as a human, but Merlin lived at least 500 years and perhaps more. There were other mages with blue magical energy, dragons with orange magical energy, otherworldly angels with yellow magic energy, goblins with green magickal energy, trolls who consorted with goblins, and elves. The elven duals were a deadly competition to win the right to explore and exploit a world for a hundred years. Elysium was the world of the elves. Human mages and witches lived on Earth, which was called Magus. Witches created powerful potions in cauldrons and had other stereotypical witchy traits. Witches can turn into wraiths for a couple of hours, which was a creative feature. Witches were also known to have mind-controlling, seductive powers over male humans. However, a succubus was considered to be a type of demon, not a human. Daemonion was the world that belonged to the demons. Baratrum was the world of the dead. Oblivium was the world of the dragons. Angelicorum was the world of the angels. Three archangels, Rafael, Michael, and another one were mentioned as the supreme leaders who never left their world through any interdimensional portals. Angels and seraphs were portrayed as the bad guys who fought demons and goblins. Prayers could be heard by angels at the wrong times, such as in a church full of goblins. Goblinantrum was the world of the goblins. There was much character development of goblins as a species, including their snooping, gossiping nature. Their gossip is advertised to be truthful, dramatic, and interspersed with plenty of verbal and physical reactions. Goblins can also read minds. Humans can prevent inadvertent mental telepathy to goblins by invoking a spell that utilized imagery and conveyed intent to magical elements. I disagreed with the book's assertion that Latin was the language that magical elements understood the most because Sanskrit and other languages were older than Latin. Using Latin to cast spells is more likely a conventional feature of magic and is simply a stylistic characteristic. Overall, I recommend this book with reservations even though the author has a well-written, detailed style of writing. ( )

I wasn't sure what to give this one. Between 2 and 3 stars, i ended up giving it a 3. I liked the story ,and i liked most of the style of writing.There was some humour,which i also liked.But, at some parts the story was a bit complicated.Another thing i absolutely hated,was Oliver. He's supposed to be 15 years old, but i can't imagine a 15 year old boy behaving this way under these conditions. Half of the book he spends thinking it is all a dream ...(i mean come on,i get the initial shock but get over it already)and the other half he spends thinking about girls and how they're all witches, while in the meantime all hell breaks loose. I think he's written this way to make the contrast with his character in the 2nd book look bigger,but i just wanted to hit him throughout the book. ( )

This novel would be greatly improved if the editing was more polished, as there were several errors and some issues with the dialogue. I think that's why I was never really hooked. I did, however, find the plot fairly entertaining and am curious to know what will happen next. ( )

I received this book free from the LibraryThing members giveaways group in exchange for my honest option.

This was the first time I’ve received an eArc. I’ve been nervous about them because it’s not always in a format that I can read, and it’s been hit and miss with the email-to-Kindle. Luckily, I found a new tool where I can send books to the Kindle with a simple click from my PC. It worked great and I was able to read The Quest for Merlin on my Kindle without problems. (I really hate reading books on a computer screen, Kindle Paperwhite is really the way to go.)

The Quest for Merlin is a fantasy novel set in the modern day. It has a very unique premise and mythology. The story is told through various characters, the main story following the decedents of Merlin, but also has a very interesting side story as told by the goblins. That’s right, goblins! I really enjoyed the GPoV (Goblin Point of View) chapters.

The book begins with a goblin and troll dropping off a stack of histories to the writer, even though he’s not named I can assume this character is Rafael Lovato the author of the novel. The goblin explains that it’s his job to translate them so the story of the Magimakia can be told to the world. Magimakia being a large magical battle between dimensions.

Each race seems to have it’s own dimension, with a magical energy signified by a special color (Angels – yellow, Humans – blue, Goblins – green and so on) and each race also has a magical specialty (for example Humans can open portals between dimensions.) Digging into this world is pretty interesting. It was unlike any other fantasy world I’ve seen in other books.

I wondered if the differences have to do with the author being Brazilian. One other foreign fantasy I read, the Russian The White Raven (Sword of the Northern Ancestors) was also very unique in its world building and mythology.

The chapters told in the point of view of Oliver, the teenage descendant of Merlin, are suppose to have been written by him in a history book of the Order of Mages and Witches. However, it really doesn’t seem like they were written after the fact by a probably older Oliver, because they are very much told in a teenage point of view (complete with annoying teen lingo and immaturity of thought.) In fact, at one point I wondered if the author had a bet going for how many pages he could have the main character think or say “Wicked.” That was the only real downside.

Bottom Line:

A fun and different fantasy novel. The twist at the end really caught me by surprise. I will be looking forward to the next book in this series. If you enjoy modern fantasy you’ll probably enjoy this book. ( )