Buying Options

Read for Free

OR

Print List Price:	$15.99
Kindle Price:	$3.99 Save $12.00 (75%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

Add Audible narration to your purchase for just $7.49

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Enter a promotion code or Gift Card

Share <Embed>

The Lost City of Ithos: Mage Errant Book 4 by [John Bierce]

Follow the Author

John Bierce

The Lost City of Ithos: Mage Errant Book 4 Kindle Edition

by John Bierce (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

1,557 ratings

Book 4 of 6: Mage Errant

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$3.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Paperback

"Please retry"

$15.99

$10.12

Kindle
$0.00 Read with Kindle Unlimited to also enjoy access to over 1 million more titles $3.99 to buy
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial
Paperback
$15.99

2 Used from $10.12 5 New from $15.99

Half a millennium ago, the sphinx Kanderon Crux and her allies banished the city of Imperial Ithos from the world of Anastis, in a desperate attempt to defeat the Ithonian Empire. Her dread weapon, the Exile Splinter, even erased the memory of its location from the universe.

Now it's returning, bringing the Exile Splinter back with it. The great powers of the continent are desperately hunting for the site of the lost city, knowledge lost even to Kanderon herself. None know what ancient Ithonian weapons and enchantments might still be found in the ruins, but even the Exile Splinter alone would be a prize justifying war. Hugh and his friends find themselves dragged along on the search, where they'll face enemy warlocks, sea monsters, liches, unnatural storms, and even a man-eating tiger. There's something they're not being told about the lost city, however.

Something that has even Kanderon and the other great powers terrified.

(Includes the bonus short story Murder at Ras Andis.)

Print length

443 pages
Language

English
Publication date

August 12, 2020
File size

5202 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Next 3 for you in this series See full series

Total Price: $14.97

By clicking on the above button, you agree to Amazon's Kindle Store Terms of Use

John Bierce
936
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $5.99
John Bierce
1,757
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $4.99
John Bierce
1,886
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $2.99
John Bierce
1,331
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $3.99
John Bierce
1,567
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $3.99
John Bierce
346
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $5.99

Create your FREE Amazon Business account to save up to 10% with Business-only prices and free shipping. Register today

Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

And it was there, on the banks of Lake Nelu at dawn, as the light of the sun usurped the light of the lake entirely, that the Mage-Eater became the first being since the long-extinct Labyrinth Builders to thwart the plans of the Cold Minds. It was there that the Mage-Eater became the single greatest hero in the history of the Ithonian continent, of Anastis itself.
Highlighted by 153 Kindle readers
In all my centuries of life, Hugh, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that emotions cannot truly be controlled. They can’t be harnessed, and they will never obey your expectations. We can control our reactions to our emotions, and we can slowly wrestle them into the directions we desire, but we will always have to understand them and fight them on their own grounds.
Highlighted by 112 Kindle readers

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08FVD5J2D
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 12, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5202 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 443 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #2,889 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #9 in LGBTQ+ Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #39 in Coming of Age Fantasy (Books)
- #52 in Coming of Age Fantasy eBooks

Customer Reviews:
1,557 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

John Bierce

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

John Bierce is a history buff, fantasy and science fiction lover, and fan of talking about himself in the third person. He also has a background in the earth sciences, and has been caught licking rocks before. For science.

John has also walked face first into automatic doors on multiple occasions. It's a real talent.

Customer reviews

5 star		65%
4 star		27%
3 star		6%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Kevin

Round of applause for book 4

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2020

Verified Purchase

Not much I feel that I can say besides amazingly well done.

Book 4 had me glued to my screen from the moment I started reading.

Improving on the (small) shortfalls found in previous books the Lost City of Ithos simply had me falling in love with the characters all over again.

I absolutely loved the introduction of a refreshing theme of what could be “horror” in this book with some of the mid and final chapters of which I would love to get more of in later books, I’m no fan of horror usually (and while this isn’t actually a horror book of course) the implementation in book 4 was a wonderful change of pace before getting back to the action

Now that the stakes have been raised once again I am even more excited for the next book in the series

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Sardan

Best of the series! (So far)

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

This has everything I like about Mage Errant -- Hugh and his friends are getting more powerful, their comradery is strong, we get to see plenty of creative uses of their magic, and the amazing world-building continues.

And boy oh boy is there action. Book 3 was a bit of a slow burn. This book is nearly nonstop action right from the start.

And while the book comes to a VERY satisfying conclusion, it's also setting up even bigger stakes with the promise of TONS of conflict for our heroes in the next couple of books.

Mage Errant is a superb series, well written and original. Any fan of fantasy will enjoy it. I can't wait for book 5!

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Justin Leverett

Takes everything good about the series and launches into overdrive

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

There's no question that "The Lost City of Ithos" is the best entry yet in the Mage Errant series. The series as a whole has many strengths - including but not limited to its likeable characters, increasingly epic and frantic, creative mage battles, inspired world-building, and a flair for combining real-world science and philosophy into a creative and fascinating magic system. In this book, every single one of these strengths are ratcheted up by a power of three.

Up until now, what we knew about the wider world of Anastis was limited to information shared in exposition by other characters, and by a single trip to a dragon-led city named Theras Tel in book two. Now, the student mages Hugh, Talia, Sabae, and Godrick embark on a journey to locate a lost imperial capitol that has long since been exiled by Hugh's master, the ancient and powerful sphinx Kanderon Krux. On the way, they explore two additional fully inhabited and well-realized cities (not counting the lost imperial city of Ithos), cross a mountain range and a storm tossed and serpent infested sea, witness unimaginable magical creatures, and survive dangerous encounters with Havathi Swordsmen- powerful mages equipped with sentient enchanted weapons, bent on reaching the ancient capitol before they do.

It'd be hard to cover all the things I love about this book in a single review, so I'll try to hit the high points: Everything you like about past Mage Errant books gets bigger and better. EVERY character enhances their magical abilities significantly and puts their new abilities into practice, with explosive results. EVERY protagonist feels fully human and relatable, and their relationships develop in interesting ways over the course of the book. When the author gets into the weeds about the somewhat granular mechanics of how magic works, exploring the source of magic and weaving it into history and geology and biology underpinning the wonders of the world, all it does is lend a greater sense of realism to otherwise over-the-top action sequences and lovingly realized set pieces. The book is simultaneously full of ideas, while remaining grounded in the books leading up to it.

Don't miss it!

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Starting out with too prominent a role of homosexuality

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

The first three books were good, with a couple of the protagonists ending up being gay, but no real emphasis on it. It was mildly annoying but without much impact. This book appears to be putting it front-and-center, which I find really annoying. My number one rule in choosing a book/author is "don't be annoying". I've only read the first few chapters, so maybe it gets better, but I likely will never read further.

If this kind of thing doesn't bother you, the author is actually pretty good and fairly traditional based on the first three books.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

qlawdat

Best one yet, go buy it.. why are you reading this still?

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

TLDR: John Bierce continues to be one of my favorite authors, this is the strongest entry in an already incredibly strong series. Stop waiting, go buy it, leave some reviews for it too.

Spoiler free review

Another Mage Errant book, another amazing time. Seriously this is just going to be praise, go buy it. I am actually finding it hard to say what exactly I liked when I liked so many aspects of this book. So I think I am going to just talk about one specific part of this book, the characters. No spoilers.

The characters that Bierce writes are fantastic. Very few authors, with very few words, can make minor characters feel as real and as deep as John does. I want to read full books on some of these side characters. An entire series on the future exploits of a certain Toad owner would be very fun. Just the right amount of detail and actions are put into the characters to make them feel distinct.

This is magnified many times over with the main characters. It is a very hard thing to expect certain emotional reactions from characters, and then see them play out with more care than that. You get to know these characters, their flaws, their small down time moments, their fears and hopes. I love these characters.

My ONLY complaint about the book, and the characters, is that the antagonists don’t get nearly this much depth. Their motivations do seem compelling, but that is almost all we get, with some very minor exceptions. It is a hard thing to say that is a flaw with the book, but it did stand out a bit.

Other stuff:
The magic is still incredibly cool
The world is awesome, more awesome here than even before
You get some payoffs to things that have been set up for a while
There are even more cool things being set up for future books I am super excited about
Man I love these characters

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

Good series with some major flaws

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

First - this is a very good series with a lot of positives. The most outstanding part is the magic system, which is well thought out (even if the lesson chapters are a bit overdone) and has some good character progression with that magic system. The adventure and intrigue keeps me invested in the story and I am looking forward to the next installment. However, this series is starting to show its flaws, especially in book 3 and 4.

The first downside is that Hugh is beginning to turn into a side character in his own story. This may be to better highlight the other characters that accompany Hugh in his adventure but there really isn't much to be character progression for any character in this book beyond romantic subplots (which is the major downside to this book).

The romantic subplots are shallow at best and don't really take the characters backgrounds into account. Talia is part of a clan culture, Hugh is an outcast from a poorly developed (at least magically) country and sabae was from a culture of arranged marriages and yet their romantic problems feel more at home in an american teen romance story. Although the Talia and Hugh romance plots are ok, Sabae and Godricks plots are very shallow and essentially pointless waste. There is even a part where Talia and Sabae are talking about cantrips in terms of relationships which makes no sense considering the characters involved.

This especially makes Godrick's character feel tokenised and just there for the sake of inclusiveness and is a taking away from his character instead of giving anything interesting for the character to develop. I don't even remember anything about his character such as what culture he is from and why he is the way he is.

Just feel the series would benefit from less romantic subplot and more progression (in terms of character growth) and adventure. I am hoping the next book improves the series, as its starting to turn into a disappointment after a very strong start with Book 1 and 2.

4 people found this helpful

Stevie Twomey

Another winner (mini spoiler alert)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2021

Verified Purchase

Finished in one sitting and neglected all my earthly duties for, I love this series and my favourite character is now firmly a book (how did that happen). Lots of fun happens whilst trying to find a spear in a lost city, only they aren’t quite sure where the city is, or how to find it first, sounds complicated, lots of battle ensures however it turns out they prefer this to navigating their relationships (i’m with Talia in this and would much prefer to blow something up than to talk about feelings)- the ending wrapped things up nicely, thank you tiger for your service

Gazzmann

A great continuation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 19, 2021

Verified Purchase

I'm loving the characters and story more each book and cannot wait to see what happens next. There are some mistakes here and there but they are just bumps in the road of a good story. Cheers!