"Martin Banks is just a normal guy
who has made an abnormal discovery: he can manipulate reality, thanks to
reality being nothing more than a computer program. With every use of this
ability, though, Martin finds his little “tweaks” have not escaped notice.
Rather than face prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the
Middle Ages and pose as a wizard. What could possibly go wrong?
An American hacker in King Arthur’s court, Martin must now train to become a
full-fledged master of his powers, discover the truth behind the ancient wizard
Merlin… and not, y’know, die or anything."
While certainly not an original
premise (A Connecticut Yankee In King
Arthur’s Court comes to mind, as well as TRON), Scott Meyer’s Off To Be
The Wizard is often imaginative, clever, and well written. I’m also assuming
people with advanced knowledge of computers will understand the mechanics of
Meyer’s world building here. The humor is regularly funny, and the situations mildly
silly, but the book does flow very easily and never tips into parody (which is
hard when doing a parody of this genre).
The characters are fun as well,
though I found Martin to be a bit unlikeable for most of the book, while
finding Phillip (the wizard he first meets in the Middle Ages) to be far more
three-dimensional and interesting. Then there is Jimmy, modern day nerd who is
living in the past. The problem with Jimmy, for me, was that it’s no huge
surprise he becomes the villain of this first book in this series. Meyer tries
to give us some misdirection, tries to make Phillip seem guilty, but it comes
down to how Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson made Jack Torrance from the
movie version of The Shining pretty
crazy from the start. In Stephen King’s book, it’s a slow turn from loving family
man to possessed killer that Jack goes through. But in the film, it’s clear the
moment Jack appears, the audience knows he’s already a few tacos short of a
combination platter. Same with Jimmy, as Meyer writes the character a bit over
the top; trying a bit too hard to convince the reader that Jimmy is sane. And
it’s obvious from his introduction he is loony tunes. The ending is a bit anti-climatic,
as well, but logical (and offers one of a few moral messages within the book)
for these nerds.
And again, I start another
series, with four books out now, and a fifth due this summer. Seems no matter
how I try, I find myself circling back to multi-volume books.
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