"The adventures of an American hacker in Medieval England
continue as Martin Banks takes his next step on the journey toward mastering
his reality-altering powers and fulfilling his destiny. A month has passed
since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn’t be
going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen
has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses,
and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers. Thankfully,
Martin and Philip are invited to a summit in Atlantis for all of the leaders of
the time-traveler colonies, and now Martin thinks this will be a chance to try
again with Gwen. Of course, this is Martin Banks we’re talking about, so
murder, mystery, and high intrigue all get in the way of a guy who just wants
one more shot to get the girl."
While the second book in the Magic 2.0 series took a
slower path to get going than book one, it’s still a fun, quick read. Sure, the
novelty of the premise starts to wear thin as the book progresses, and we see a
lot of recycled arguments, but overall, Spell of High Water lives up to the
first book.
Are there problems? Yes, one major one is that after we’re
Off To Be the Wizard, which had clever and strong women, the author sort of
devolves them here, becoming either
cowed by men or enjoy the chase. It also takes the attitude that women can’t be
friends with women without things getting petty, or drama filled. Gwen in the
first book was so brilliant, yet here she continues to be dismissive of Martin
(who clearly cannot take a hint) yet it appears she likes him, and is getting
upset that Martin may now have finally caught on. It’s rather disturbing in
many ways.
The other issue is with Jimmy, who was exiled in book
one. At first I was a bit bothered because it was clear from the start that
Meyer was going to get Jimmy back in the main narrative, so satisfaction of his
exile is taken away. This trope is overused in science fiction and fantasy,
where the bad guy is not dead (or never truly banished); I would’ve been fine
with Jimmy never coming back.
But to set up book three, I guess, he needed Jimmy. But a
cleverer writer may’ve succeed in bring in what appears to be the Big Bad for
next installment without resorting to using Jimmy (who often reminded me of Captain Braxton from the Star Trek: Voyager two-part episode Future's End). Still, that being said, I
began to enjoy the banter between him and the two Treasury Agents who are
assigned to find out how Martin did what he did in Off To Be The Wizard. Agents
Miller and Murphy are comic foils, idiots, yet charming. They could be a part
of spin-off if Meyer’s premise gets any more thinner.
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