2014; 271 pages. Book 1 (out of 6) in the “Magic 2.0” series. Illustrator: Liz Pulido. New Author? : Yes. Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Historical Fantasy. Overall Rating : 8*/10.
Good news!
Martin Banks has discovered the answer to the question that has plagued philosophers for centuries: is this world in which
we live real or is it just an illusion?
Bad news! It’s an illusion! Even worse, it’s a cyberworld created by a
computer program. We are all merely computer
constructs. Nothing more.
Kinda good news! Martin’s a computer geek. He’s figured out how to hack into that
cosmic computer file and alter attributes in its cyber characters. Want to have blue eyes instead of green? How about owning a Camaro instead of a Honda
Accord? Feeling a little short? Let's add five inches to your height.
But be careful what you
change, Martin. For instance, making
yourself five inches taller might stretch your internal organs until they rupture,
which would kill you.
Magic can be a tricky thing.
What’s To Like...
Off
to be the Wizard is the first book in Scott Meyer’s fascinating time-travel series
called “Magic 2.0”. We peek over Martin’s shoulder as he fiddles
with the attributes the computer program has assigned to him. Unsurprisingly, he quickly finds himself in
all sorts of trouble with the authorities, and has to hightail it to another
point in time.
Martin does his research and
finds that medieval England is the best place for a wizard to lie low. So off he goes, only to find that he’s not
the first hacker to stumble across that computer program. Mayhem
ensues.
I liked that Scott Meyer, and
Martin, and other wizards, have no qualms about creating time paradoxes. Their logic is persuasive, no matter what
they do in 12th century England, somehow things will always work out
to that which we call the present. Past-,
Present-, and Future-Martins can coexist and interact, and yet we never
suddenly find ourselves in an alternate timeline.
Well, at least we won’t be aware of such a thing happening.
Martin learns lots of neat
magic tricks to dazzle the medieval British with. We’ll only mention one: flying, which wows
the local villagers. But think about it. How do you
write a computer program that enables you to fly? In Martin’s case, it’s a matter of trial and error.
Things really take off after
Martin attains the coveted status of “official wizard”. Other wizards have other agendas, and some
are not shy about violating their own self-regulating rules, the main one being
the Star Trekky “Prime Directive”.
Changes occur, casualties accrue, and everything builds to an exciting,
clever, and heroic ending. The good guys
– whoever they turn out to be – win, and the main storylines in the tale are
tied up. We close with a three-page
epilogue that also serves as a teaser for the next book in the series.
Ratings…
Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 3,438
ratings and 1,739 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.99*/5,
based on 37,885 ratings and 3,057 reviews.
Excerpts...
He knew that the things the file allowed
him to do would seem like magic to anyone who witnessed them. If he was going to escape to a point in the
past, it should be a time when magic was believed to exist. That way, instead of people yelling,
“Magic! It must be some kind of trick!
Let’s beat him until he tells us the secret,” hopefully they would yell,
“Magic! I’ve heard of that! I’ve never seen it in person, though!”
The trick was finding a time and place
where the next sentence wouldn’t be “Let’s burn him!” (loc. 320)
“Buck up, Martin! Two days from now, you’ll be a fully trained
wizard with full shell access. Or you’ll
be in jail. The point is, you’ll know. All the uncertainty will be over.”
Martin asked, “Have I told you that I’m
going to miss your little pep talks?”
Phillip said, “No, you haven’t.”
Martin said, “There’s a reason for that.” (loc. 2882)
Kindle Details…
Off
to be the Wizard sells for $3.99 at Amazon right now. The other books in the series are all
priced at $4.99 apiece.
Scott Meyer has another half-dozen or so e-books available, ranging in
price from $1.99 to $13.19. The maximum price may seem steep, but it’s
for graphic novel versions of his fantastic comic strip, Basic Instructions, of which I’ve been a fan for a
long time.
He had spent a lot
of time thinking about himself, and had come to the conclusion that he was
definitely not self-absorbed. (loc.
29)
There’s not much to gripe
about in Off to be the Wizard. The cussing is sparse—I counted only 5 instances
in the whole book, 4 damns and one bitchin’—and that last one was a shout of
joy, not an epithet. The book was
well-edited, the only typo I recall was a lead/led
miscue (pronounced the same way) and my OCD grammar-brain has
learned to ignore that one.
My one beef is with the
story’s pacing. Martin’s first
time-traveling trip comes suitably early (15% Kindle), but then we spend a
whole lot of time observing him in training, and it’s not until 70% Kindle
before we start into what I consider the main storyline.
But hey, let’s chalk that up
to world-building, both past and present.
All is forgiven if the sequel, Spell or High
Water, plows right away into an exciting adventure.
Enough quibbling. Off to be the Wizard is pleasantly
lighthearted in tone, and full of wit and tongue-in-cheek humor. The pacing is brisk, despite the protracted
training sessions, and the story kept me reading chapter
after chapter (there are 29 of them). I highly recommended this book for anyone in the mood for
a whimsical time-travel tale.
8 Stars. You have the option of reading Off to be the Wizard with or without animation. I chose “without”, but Amazon indicates the file size for this book is 222,158 kb. That’s a pretty sizable chunk of Kindle memory. Amazon says the sequel, Spell or High Water, is only 1,002 kb in size. Methinks the animation experiment ends with Book One.
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