Read History
2026 | Score: 4
A solid 4. The start was especially bad but it picked up a bit towards the back. The beginning made me think I was about to read a Red Rising rip-off. The magic system is honestly just not very interesting, I have no real desire to see what happens as the characters get stronger. The world has a couple interesting pieces with the different elemental realms and a time based connection mechanic but nothing that unique there either. Probably won’t read any more of this guy's books since I have not liked either of the ones I tried and they were both very different.
Format: Kindle
Days: 3
Date: 6/12/2026 -> 6/15/2026
Summary (Spoilers)
Academy of Outcasts
Larry Correia
Academy of Outcasts #1
Academy of Outcasts Summary
Ozwald Carnavon (Oz) works as a Red miner on the planet of Fogo. His family are among the many indentured servants of the noble Argent family, who reap the benefits of their mining. Fogo is a lava-covered fire element planet, filled with heat and dangerous monsters, but Red is a magical element used in casting magic so they harvest it to sell. All of their Red goes to the Argents who sell it in The Core, the central world connecting all of the elemental planes such as Fogo. Oz wants to be a wizard but tests as a 0 (The scale is 1-15 ish, 10 is a master). He works to learn magic on his own in secret.
Down the line some pirates attack his family ship and he kills a few with a rifle defending his group but the pirates blow them up, killing part of his family. When he turns 19 he hatches a plan to escape his indentured servitude and learn magic in The Core. He manages to sneak into The Core, a massive city that benefits from the work of the lower castes in all the elemental worlds who gather magical components. The Great Machine is the center of The Core, and rotates a portal so that each day a new realm is connected, each getting hit once a week. One of the Argent sons gets attacked in a market and Oz uses this opportunity to flee, but gets stopped by a watchman so he uses a bit of fire magic to escape. He runs down to the Slump.
The Core is a very vertical city so the lower parts are the Slump and the Under Slump, where the poor citizens live. He gets in trouble with a gang and is about to be killed by them when a Squalo named Trax Bloodtrail saves him. Squalo are kind of like shark men, and can only communicate with their minds. Not many people can understand him so Trax hangs around with Oz. Together they try to gain access to a wizard college but they basically operate on bribery and status and Oz is a poor criminal so he can’t get it. He meets a girl from the Air world, Azarin, in a similar situation and they agree to teach each other some magic. Oz fights in a gladiator pit and meets Krachma, a rock golem dude. He wins some money and continues learning air magic.
Oz gets kidnapped by the Argents, who blame the attack on their kid on him. They are about to torture him but Azarin and Trax save him. They then meet Rade Tartaros, who hails from the realm of death, and a friend of Krachma. Krachma and Rade join their little band of spell learning and share more magic. This is illegal because the council tries to control all magical knowledge in The Core. You need to be a rank 10 mage to start a magic academy. Oz also learns that The Core is slowly dying. One of the realms, the realm of time, got shut down 500 years back when some great evil tried to take over, and without the element from there everything will eventually shut down and die.
Oz then gets approached by a powerful wizard named Adderlane, who turns out to be the chief police inspector. Adderlane has captured Azarin (who Oz has a crush on) and will kill her unless Oz delivers a cursed bauble to the Argent that almost died earlier. Oz sends Trax to save her and manages to stop the curse, but the Argents still think it was him that did it. They send Gaul Haddar, a rank 8 wizard, after him. Oz gets captured but he tells Haddar the truth of Adderlane so Adderlane attacks them. Through some trickery Oz helps Gaul kill Adderlane. Because he killed a rank 10 wizard Gaul Haddar is now rank 10, so he agrees to start an academy for Oz and his friends to keep learning legally before Gaul leaves to go do other stuff. The Argents decide to leave Oz alone. THE END.