The Future King (The Revenge of Magic, #3)

Fort's continued adventures take more surprising twists and turns in this third novel in a thrilling series from the author of the New York Times bestselling Story Thieves!
Dealing with monster attacks and his missing father has been hard enough for Fort Fitzgerald in his first month at the Oppenheimer School. But there's another school for magic, this one in the United Kingdom, that's about to create even bigger problems.
Six of the Carmarthen Academy students found themselves lost in time when they first started learning magic. Now they've returned, with news of a coming war that the students claim only they can stop.
But their new plan for the world might lead to an even worse future, one that Fort and his friends are destined to help bring about, no matter how much they might want to fight it.
Can Fort change the future that the Time students have already seen play out? Or is he destined to pay for his past mistakes for all of time?

Rating:

Many thanks to RockStar Book Tour and Aladdin for a finished copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I am thrilled to be hosting today’s spot on the THE FUTURE KING by James Riley blog tour, hosted by Rockstar Book Tours.

This series has been a breath of fresh air. I mean, sure, I love all the dark, stabby books I read, but this? This is a throwback to my childhood, in all the best ways. Teen me lived for these sorts of series. Adult me certainly isn’t complaining any about them, either.

The Future King is packed full of action, as magic threatens to destroy the world (you know, like you do) and our hero(in)es journey to a legendary city.

What I particularly like about this series is that I never know what’s in store for these characters, so I’m always pleasantly surprised. But it never feels out of left field, either. There’s always some new thing to discover or world to visit, and I wasn’t sure where this would go after book two, but it definitely delivered on the new aspects of magic.

This review will include spoilers for the first two books in the series.

❧ This book introduces time magic, and yes, it’s every bit as awesome as you imagine.

Oh, sure, there’s the normal things you’d expect from the earlier books like seeing into the future and such. But there’s so much more you can do with time magic! Cyrus was always my favorite, and he plays such a mysterious role in this that I can’t help but love him even more. There’s still so much more to learn about time magic, which makes me all the more curious for the next book!

There’s also another book of magic we encounter in this, and I can tell you absolutely nothing about it except, phew, is it a doozy.

Yes, I’m well aware of exactly how old that makes me sound, but I’m fine with that, because it was that terrifying and awesome. The whole idea of the magic still makes me shudder. So, you know, something to look forward to.

❧ Soooo … the world’s kind of a mess, and we’re back with our favorite heroes to set everything right.

But first … we have to break things worse. That’s … that’s how this works, right? Is that not the order of things?! Gosh, I love these kids so much, and it was great to see them back together and teaming up. They’ve all got so much personality, and it’s been great seeing the relationship between Gia and Rachel grow, especially.

What’s a third book without a few new faces, though?

The time students didn’t make much of an impact on me either way, personally, but Cyrus? Well, Cyrus is just even more of an enigma, which I didn’t even think was possible. Plus, there’s the introduction of a mysterious old man, and I have no idea what role he’s going to play, but I for sure will be tuning in to book four in order to find out.

❧ The motto of this book is: if something can go wrong … it will.

To be fair, that’s also sort of been the motto of the other books, too? But in this one, at least, the theory is that you can potentially see it coming because … time magic. Which would be handy, you would think, right? Ha, but no. I loved the unpredictability of everything. Just when I thought I knew for sure what was going to happen, something would change and catch me off-guard.

❧ This book takes us to some legendary new places.

GET IT? Probably not. I guess you’ve got to read it first. Even better? This new world involves FAE. You know, the Fair Folk. The ones you should never make a deal with, though we all know children aren’t very good at listening.

This book takes an old legend and turns it on its head, and I loved it!

Didn’t see it coming, so I don’t want to say too much, because you shouldn’t see it coming, either. But boy did I enjoy this little detour. Not to mention that there’s clearly more to come from that world in the next book, which I really look forward to!

❧ There’s this really powerful theme of children vs. adults in this, and I think it’s great that it gets called out in a mid-grade book like this.

Truth is, most adults underestimate kids. It happens time and time again in this series, but in this book, in particular, it’s really highlighted. These kids aren’t helpless. Regardless of their age, they’re capable. More so, possibly, than the adults. Even though, as adults, letting kids take the lead is a terrifying idea and everything in us rejects the notion, because it’s our job to lead and the kids’ job to follow, right? Wrong! Did you miss the point of this?! *whacks you with a newspaper*

This had a bit of a double-edged sword, though, because it was a tad bit disappointing that there were virtually no good adults in this.

I get it. Adults suck. As an adult, I’ll be the first one to throw the rest of us under the bus. But I’d like to think that if the world was in danger, I’d at least try to help the super powerful kids throwing themselves in harm’s way. At the very least, I am for sure going ride that dragon or die trying.

This is definitely more of an adult perspective problem rather than something for the target audience, but I wish there had been even just one adult that the children could turn to, rather than feeling like every adult was out to get them.

❧ I was kind of disappointed in how little Fort learned from the second book in this series in his quest for his father.

I mean … almost dooming the entire planet just to save your father isn’t the best course of action. Fort’s self-centered determination really annoyed me in the second book, but I saw where the arc was going early on, where he sort of learned his lesson and had to really consider what was worth sacrificing and what the consequences of his selfishness would be. In this one, though, he goes back to being the same self-centered kid willing to do anything for his father, and I just wanted to shake him.

Will kids in the target age range care? Probably not. But I care, darn it, because someone has to speak up for the other nearly seven billion people that aren’t his father.

❧ Remember that dragon egg at the end of book two? Well, it plays no part in this book.

Which was a little disappointing, because as everything was going on, I was kind of like … did we all forget the unhatched dragon? How can you forget something like that?! It was sort of a pretty big plot point. It seems like it’d be really important. Yet, there’s only maybe one thought even given to it until the very end, which was unfortunate, because it felt like a loose thread. Now, on the flip side, based on the ending, this will obviously play a big role in book four, and can I just say … yes, please? So it’s not completely dropped or anything. Just … postponed.

About James Riley

James Riley is the New York Times bestelling author of the HALF UPON A TIME series, the STORY THIEVES series, and the REVENGE OF MAGIC series. Contrary to what previous biographies have stated, he is a) real and b) not the character Nobody from his STORY THIEVES books. Where would people even get that idea? (Spoiler: From him. He totally made it sound like he really was Nobody. He thought it’d be funny. We’re sorry.)

He was born in Connecticut, where he lived for only a short time before moving to … well, quite a few states. He currently lives in Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C., because that’s where his cats are. He has four of them. Other people think that’s a bit much.

James is currently working on getting REVENGE OF MAGIC books out every six months, so he might be a little busy. But feel free to e-mail him with questions at jamesrileythatwriterguy@gmail.com, or ask on his blog. (Please don’t send book or series ideas, as I can’t use them legally!)

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Week One:
3/2/2020 Turning the Pages Review
3/3/2020 Lifestyle of Me Review
3/4/2020 The Writerly Way Review
3/5/2020 Locks, Hooks, and Books Review
3/6/2020 Wonder Struck Review
 
Week Two:
3/9/2020 BookHounds YA Review
3/10/2020 momfluenster Review
3/11/2020 My Quirky Writing Review
3/12/2020 Little Red Reads Review
3/13/2020 Nay’s Pink Bookshelf Review

Three lucky winners will receive a finished copy of THE FUTURE KING, US Only.

If I told you that there’s a small chance Excalibur would deem you worthy and a good chance it’d set you on fire … would you try to pull it from the stone anyway?