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The Unsuspecting Mage: Book One of the Morcyth Saga
Let me start with a summary.This is a good story that feels like it is poorly written.However, I do not believe the story to actually be poorly written. I think it was intentionally styled as if a 14 year old Dungeon and Dragons aficionado had penned it. But if you can look past the (for me) annoying strict adherence to present tense, and the occasionally simplistic handling of certain details, you will discover a pretty good little story within.Who knows, you may even find yourself hooked and needing to read the rest of the series.
The Unsuspecting Mage: Book One of the Morcyth Saga
The storyline is the only thing that is worth anything in the book. It is a very tedeous read, almost painful. There is no clear end to the book. If you want the adventures of the a teenage D&D game with the play by play this is your book. But if not... Well, just skip it and do yourself a favor.
The Unsuspecting Mage: Book One of the Morcyth Saga
I downloaded this book when it was made free on the Kindle, because it had an appealing hook. While I never played D&D; myself, I always loved adventure games like Zork and King's Quest, and I had even thought about how cool it would be to have a book where people from the "real world" get sucked into the classic environment of one of those games.Very shortly into the book, though, the writing overtook my zest for the proposed plot. My major complaint about this book was that the author could not stick with a verb tense. He so obviously wants to use continuous present tense, yet he kept throwing in past tense verbs (much like I did with this sentence). Call me picky, call me anal, call me a cab... whatever, it grated on my nerves as a reader. A LOT.In addition to all of that, the main character, James, just was not very likeable. Not that I was rooting for the necromancers or brigands, but he just didn't do anything to ingratiate himself in my mind. Before he left the town of Trendle, would it have killed him to have at least offered 10 or 12 gold pieces to the family that had just let him recuperate with them for the past week? 10 or 12 gold pieces out of his newly acquired 1,000+ gold pieces?Bastard.I shan't be reading any of the other installments, though I wish my fellow indie author good luck in his future endeavors.
The Unsuspecting Mage: Book One of the Morcyth Saga
I enjoyed this series. If you've ever though, "wouldn't it be cool if I got yanked to an alternate world where I was a wizard?" .. then you will too.The writing is decent, but the entire series needs some major editing. The biggest repeated issue is the author's blatant misuse of homonyms. He'll use heal when he means heel, knew/new, I'd make a list, but there are dozens of examples and I just don't care. He also, in various places misuses plurality. He also, from time to time, forgets which god is which.Spell-check is not an editor.Spell-check Is Not An Editor.If the author paid anyone to edit this series, he needs to get his money back. If he didn't pay anyone to edit this series, then his publisher needs to be slapped.But, if you can ignore the blatant and repeated mangling of the English language, it's an enjoyable series. I'd give it four stars if it had been passed through the hands of a decent editor.
The Unsuspecting Mage: Book One of the Morcyth Saga
This book is like a glass of water - refreshing , simple but colourless and tasteless .You drink it and forget it .There are 2 kinds of 2 stars ratings .One kind is when you are angry because the writer really messed up and delivered a sub par piece of writing (Jordan anybody ?) .The other is a happy rating because the book is simply worth it .The Unsuspecting Mage belongs to the second category .I have been for the first (and last) time mislead by advice on Amazon and actually bought the first 2 installements .I read both books in about 7 hours , don't really regret it but won't be buying the sequels .What are the weaknesses ?There are many but all probably originate in the fact that what we got is a transcription of an AD&D; session .1)There is no plot . Even if I wanted to give spoilers , I could not . James , a young student , crosses a door and finds himself in another world . He meets a magical character who tells him "Go to X ." and "I won't answer any questions ." . Then he disappears .So James tries to find X and gets involved in fight every couple of days (of course he always winns) .Between fights he sleeps in Inns and eats stew .Sometimes he eats sliced goat . He also drinks ale .After X he will go to Y .And after Y to Z .The places are not actually important , like in an AD&D; session what is important is the travelling because it enables to set up ambushes what leads again ... to fights .2)The fights are despairingly identical .A module of between 7 - 12 riders , brigands , thiefs , soldiers rush James .He takes out 4 or 5 with magically propelled stones (later metal slugs) while his companions hack down the rest .One almost hears a Dungeon master saying "Brigand 4 is touched by knife . Critical hit to femoral artery . He falls bleeding . Brigand 5 slashes with a sword at Miko . Miss . Your turn now James ..."3)James is a very bad AD&D; player .Example 1 : On one of his stops he goes looking for 2 missing persons (a peasant and a child) .Using a magical compass he finds their location in an abandoned ruin where supposedly a necromancer lived once - typical AD&D; situation .He gets in a fight with a necromancer who turns out to be a girl from his world .Interrupting her while she is trying to summon a demon he kills her and liberates the child .Now what would every player do ?In this very intriguing situation , it seems necessary to stay at that place and to find out why this girl was there . When did she come and how .However James would not even ask the questions . He gets on his horse and rides away like if finding summoned demons and killing necromancers was as usual as eating a stew .Example 2 : James goes on an errand while his friend Miko sleeps in an Inn . Getting back to the Inn he sees Miko tied up and gagged in the bed . Of course he enters the room and gets hit on the head by a horde of brigands standing behind him .No worry , he'll escape easily by using some simple spells .Yet a good AD&D; mage player would never let himself surprise so stupidly .He'd use a spell checking on unfriendly beings or alternatively leave a trap spell on the door when he has to leave his friend sleeping in an unknown and potentially hostile environment .Yet James would never think of it .Of course I understand why the author lets him to behave so stupidly - if James was never kidnapped (and boy does he get kidnapped often !) it would eliminate dozens of pages describing fights accompanying his liberation .However stupidity always irritates .4)The worst part as far as I am concerned is the characterisation .The characters are 2 dimensional , don't evolute , have no past , no motivation or psychology .The villains are anonymous shadows whose role is to appear , slash with a sword and dieEven the main hero James is a hasty sketch with whom it is hard to identify .In conclusion - if you have time and money to spend on a very simple account of a series of Ad&D; modules , you will get here a refreshing and fast read that will put no stress on your little grey cells .However it is not necessary to go beyond the first book .The following will be only more of the same .En evil God using an evil Empire as a tool stands in a fight with a good God using James as his tool .Don't get concerned about the motivations - the evil God will be evil only for the fun of it and is there anyway only to provide a frame in which fights can take place .After 124 000 ambushes , kidnappings and slashings James will prevail and return home with loot , XP and several new spell levels , ready for the next session with another evil God .
The Unsuspecting Mage: Book One of the Morcyth Saga
Like some reviewers said , this is not a book but a transcription of a computer D&D; game .Play for example Baldur's gate . Take notes of every single fight . Put it on paper and dilute with some descriptions .The end result is this book .Actually the most puzzling and interesting issue are the 5 star reviews because it is utterly impossible to rate this more than 2 stars for anybody who's used to fantasy litterature .To be complete and to provide helpful information for eventual readers , it appeared to me necessary to review the 5 star reviewers and here are the results .There are 15 of them .- 8 (Bertramm , Donal Hicks , Gamma Man , Grad Student , John G.Pritchard , River Rat , Sven Bjorenson , Björn Ostermann) have only reviewed this single book . What is the probability that a reader would write an enthousiastic 5 star review on the first volume of a series , say how much they looked forward to the next book and not review any of the sequels ? Right , 0 .So all 8 are in reality Mr Pratt .- Reggie is like the 8 above but wrote also another 2 line review . He is Mr Pratt .- 2 (Diane A. Goins , Kevin Davenport) have reviewed only Mr Pratt's books and all of them . Of course all 5 stars . Their style is very similar and reproduces Mr Pratt's comments . With a very high probability both are Mr Pratt .- Keril has written also 3 2 line reviews on Donaldson , Martin and Hobb . After the 2 lines he always added a warm recommendation for this book which is longer than the original "review" . He is clearly Mr Pratt .- M.Thorsson is an interesting case . 153 reviews . All are "written" in one day , all rate 5 stars , consist of copy and paste and concentrate on whole series of unknown writers . This is probably not Mr Pratt but it is clearly a professional "improver" of ratings .- Kadyra Reddick is like Reggie . A few 2 line reviews out of which 1 for this book . Posted at the same time like John G.Pritchard , River Rat and Björn Ostermann . Probably Mr Pratt too .- A Kids Review . Here it is impossible to check anything . With the benefice of doubt , this may be somebody else than Mr Pratt .Summary : Out of 15 5 star reviews , 12 are Mr Pratt , 1 is very probably Mr Pratt , 1 is a professional rating "improver" and 1 may be a genuine 5 star Kid's review . I didn't review in detail the 4 stars ratings but a random check showed that some may be Mr Pratt too .Last but not least . While this shows dedication from MrPratt what is a respectable thing , it may misguide some people who trust in the value of ratings . So for future visitors of this page , read also this review of reviewers .