Magic 2.0 seems to have jumped the shark

[cellio]

A couple years ago somebody recommended Scott Meyer's Off to Be the Wizard, the first book in the "Magic 2.0" series. The premise is geek-fantasy: the point-of-view character, Martin, is a hacker who discovers a file (out there somewhere) that, when you edit it, changes reality. In other words, it's the file that defines the world and everything in it. After experimenting a bit (always meant to drop 20 pounds, that kind of thing), he decides to improve his quality of life by altering his bank balance. That's fine because he's creating money, not actually stealing it from anybody, right? No, not such a bright move, and soon he finds himself making a temporal change to escape the feds. His plan is to flee to medieval England and pretend to be a wizard. He's not the first person to think of that, or the last -- the other wizards put him through trials to decide if he can join the guild or if they'll revoke his access and send him back to his time to deal with the feds. It's a fun read.

I also enjoyed the sequel, Spell or High Water, in which we find out more about where female wizards (sorceresses) go, medieval England not being so great for them. We see more interactions among the main characters, and of course some problems they need to solve together. Another fun read.

The third book, An Unwelcome Quest, was less fun, in large part because of the setting. This is the first book where we don't see much of the world the wizards are in; an enemy wizard has caught the gang in a trap and most of the book is spent trying to escape it. Because my reaction to this one was solidly mediocre, and also because the next one existed only as an audiobook for a long time, I didn't go further. Recently I noticed that two more books were available on Kindle.

The fourth, Fight and Flight, starts with the wizards making a stupid mistake with consequences, which they spend the rest of the book cleaning up. The humor (including some actual laughing out loud) of the first book was back, and the resolution of the problem seemed to start down a good character-development path. On the basis of that, I read the fifth.

Out of Spite, Out of Mind was a major disappointment. Many of the characters' actions are just stupid, and in a not-fun way. That growth suggested at the end of the previous book is nowhere in evidence. The plot also revolves around some time-travel paradoxes that have been there since book 2 and always been a little annoying, but now they've taken over. In book 2 we met Brit the Younger and Brit the Elder, who are really the same person at different points in their personal timeline because bad things happen when you time-travel and meet yourself. They don't agree that they're the same person, by the way, and arguments about predestination break out. In this book that all ramps up, and we meet Brit the Much Elder and Angry Brit and Brit the One Hour Older and I think there's one more running around in there... and y'know what? I never liked Brit all that much to begin with. And in the process of messing with the Brits, the author messes with some characters I like and then ends with a very obvious setup for a sequel at the expense of resolving a major thread. I kind of feel like the author broke the contract with the reader here, especially since the earlier books all at least resolved even while leaving openings.

I see the sixth book is coming soon. I won't be reading it.

(By the way, I've read two other books, not in this series, by this author that were fun. Perhaps he does better with one-offs?)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Yay boo reviews!

[cellio]

Some of them were a lot of fun, but I don't like this trend line.

Remind me: with your recent changes in reading technology, can you read e-books now?

[minoanmiss]

I can, or rather, I will be once I start using my Kindle!

[outofwater]

I've mostly enjoyed what I've read of the series (Books 1 through 4). But I read those before the fifth book was available on Kindle (and I don't know that I was aware it was coming). My biggest complaint about the series was early on (maybe just the first book), because it felt like there were way too few women. But once we saw their world, and they interacted with each other, I was less worried on that score.

I'll put Book 5 on my to-read list (mostly because I'm currently subscribed to Kindle Unlimited), but based on your reaction (and my own sense of the series as mostly "candy") I won't push it to the top of that list. And since I'm hoping to go on-again off-again with KU (depending on selections of a book club I'm part of), it may still be on the list when the sixth book becomes available.

But I hear you about that contract with the reader. I had a different series which I mostly enjoyed, but which had some "political rants" that felt like they might be the author more than the characters, and at any rate, did not live up to the characters speaking them. (It fit in the story given that one of the central characters was a fictional president of the US.) But then, in the fifth book, not only did that become too much, but he also split his book into two books, based solely on length. Fortunately, I was using my KU subscription so it didn't add to the financial cost for me, but it was still irritating to have a book just end. That man was seriously in need of an editor!

[cellio]

I didn't know there was s fifth book at all until I happened to check back on the fourth to see if it existed in written form yet. I noticed the near-lack of women in the first book but by the end accepted the explanation, and seeing a lot more women in the second book helped. And they were strong in the fourth book.

My recommendation is to go into the fifth book with lower expectations. If you can get it on KU then you reduce the cost from time+money to just time, and maybe it's easier to bail if you're not having fun if you didn't sink any money on it? (I know about the fallacy of sunk costs. That doesn't mean we always avoid its clutches.)

When a book gets split based on *length* rather than *story*, it's a pretty sure sign that insufficient editing is happening.

[metahacker]

Oy. I liked the first, but fell off at the second book, where it was revealed that the sexism of the first book was not accidental nor going to relent.

[cellio]

There's some sexism in both directions -- forget where it shows up, but the objectification of the servant-men is not exactly a high point. (I gave the benefit of the doubt and assumed the author was trying to make a point.) Either way, it prevents some much-needed character growth.

[hlinspjalda]

Thanks for sharing your perspective on this!