Books: Spell or High Water By Scott Meyer (2014)

"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.

Books: Off To Be The Wizard By Scott Meyer (2012)

"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.