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The Way of the Wandering Wizard
Gentle wizard Mikal Novastar's life is complacent and secure as a mystic instructor at the School of the Three Moons in the Great City of Addis. This changes, however, when an extraordinary prophecy urges him to embark upon a heroic and dangerous adventure. Armed with a staff of light and joined by his summoned feline Majam, and an inscrutable thief, and a very young half-elf, Mikal must overcome vicious wererats, ghastly blood goblins, horrific gloomhounds, savage slavers, an exceptional and mysterious Stone Mage, and the enigmatic dragon Em-Le. Nothing could have prepared him, however, for dealing with the calculating evil of Path Bloodhue and his powerful Red Robed Wizards. And against the legion of the perfidious Black Robed Wizards, with their lethal dark assassins and brutal black blades, how can he possibly hope to triumph or even survive? And then there are the squirrels.
- GenresFantasy
352 pages, Paperback
First published November 29, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 10, 2013
Cross posted at my blog HERE
Original Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
I'm actually a bit confused about how should I write the review of this book. At times I felt like I should give it no more than 2.5, but then again I felt 2.5 would be much less (in which case I wouldn't have posted the review at all)..and then finally I decided to rate it 3 stars. There were things I liked and things I didn't like. So it was a mix of both.
First the names in the book. I kind of liked the names given to the characters. Names like Mikal, Majam, Talon and others seemed peculiar at first but once I got used to it I kept looking for more. Even the names of the places were interesting (like the Callous Hills).
Second, the time and style of narration. I like when stories are narrated in present tense, gives me a sense of attachment. I liked it here too. But what somehow spoiled the fun here was the way it was used. The author could have made the story more interesting if he had been a little careful.
Third, one of the things I actually liked was that the whole book sounded like a RPG. I am not a big fan of role playing games but I like to watch when others play. It seemed that I am in a game, inside the world of wizards and magic stuff; the only difference was that it's being written rather than seen. But everyone, like RPGs, have a part to play.
That's the fun of role playing games...or here, role playing stories.
Fourth and last, and this is wholly a con according to me, is that the characters lacked proper development. I would have loved to see some strong back stories and evolving characters but never got the chance. Every story relies a lot on the characters and without the proper development of them, it's like a headless ram!
Not a too-bad read after all. If you like role playing games and are into wizard things a lot, then I suggest you read this. But there are some things you may face trouble with like I did and you should be ready for that.
Original Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
I'm actually a bit confused about how should I write the review of this book. At times I felt like I should give it no more than 2.5, but then again I felt 2.5 would be much less (in which case I wouldn't have posted the review at all)..and then finally I decided to rate it 3 stars. There were things I liked and things I didn't like. So it was a mix of both.
First the names in the book. I kind of liked the names given to the characters. Names like Mikal, Majam, Talon and others seemed peculiar at first but once I got used to it I kept looking for more. Even the names of the places were interesting (like the Callous Hills).
Second, the time and style of narration. I like when stories are narrated in present tense, gives me a sense of attachment. I liked it here too. But what somehow spoiled the fun here was the way it was used. The author could have made the story more interesting if he had been a little careful.
Third, one of the things I actually liked was that the whole book sounded like a RPG. I am not a big fan of role playing games but I like to watch when others play. It seemed that I am in a game, inside the world of wizards and magic stuff; the only difference was that it's being written rather than seen. But everyone, like RPGs, have a part to play.
Everyone in this group has an important part to play; yours no less than anyone else's.
That's the fun of role playing games...or here, role playing stories.
Fourth and last, and this is wholly a con according to me, is that the characters lacked proper development. I would have loved to see some strong back stories and evolving characters but never got the chance. Every story relies a lot on the characters and without the proper development of them, it's like a headless ram!
Not a too-bad read after all. If you like role playing games and are into wizard things a lot, then I suggest you read this. But there are some things you may face trouble with like I did and you should be ready for that.
March 11, 2013
It's fair to say that any time I read a book, I want to like it. So I go in with a positive bias. If it didn't have some appeal to me I wouldn't have bothered in the first place.
Which is why it's disappointing when I have to give a largely negative review.
Michael E. Novak's The Way of the Wandering Wizard reads to me like a role playing campaign that's been summarized. Partly that's because it borrows heavily from D&D tropes including the spells and the idea of memorizing spells each day.
Which wouldn't be the end of the world. You can tell a good story using common fantasy elements. But the parade of D&D character types gets wearisome. We have a Wizard, Half-Elven bowman, Thief, Paladin, Cavalier. On the monster side we have goblins and were-rats amongst other things too.
This too would be forgivable. But there are bigger problems. Much bigger problems.
The book is written in the present tense. This could be a personal bias, but I think that only experienced writers should attempt to do that. It's a distracting and non-standard presentation that just makes the job harder.
I do wonder if the author was perhaps influenced by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. who has used the technique quite effectively in his Recluce fantasy series. And idea that is given additional weight by the use of Red, White and Black cloaks for wizards.
The distracting present tense is made much worse by the fact that everything in the book is told and not shown. Everything. We are told that people are telling stories, but not shown the stories. We are told that a character is worried, but don't get to see evidence of it.
We really don't get to see anything actually. None of the characters have what I would call a personality just a couple of standard character traits.
There's also the problem of things just conveniently happening in this book. There's a dragon who just happens to be friendly. There's a group of mystic religious women who just happen to have set up base where the characters end up. The story jumps from encounter to encounter with no real reason for some of these characters to even be doing what they are doing.
And then there's the naming. The Town of Ulna? The river Phalanges? Mr. Meniscus? These words are not nearly obscure enough to be used as names in a fantasy book. Each time one of them came up, it crashed what little disbelief I'd managed to suspend.
This is the summary of a story. The author should probably take it and turn it into an actual story.
Which is why it's disappointing when I have to give a largely negative review.
Michael E. Novak's The Way of the Wandering Wizard reads to me like a role playing campaign that's been summarized. Partly that's because it borrows heavily from D&D tropes including the spells and the idea of memorizing spells each day.
Which wouldn't be the end of the world. You can tell a good story using common fantasy elements. But the parade of D&D character types gets wearisome. We have a Wizard, Half-Elven bowman, Thief, Paladin, Cavalier. On the monster side we have goblins and were-rats amongst other things too.
This too would be forgivable. But there are bigger problems. Much bigger problems.
The book is written in the present tense. This could be a personal bias, but I think that only experienced writers should attempt to do that. It's a distracting and non-standard presentation that just makes the job harder.
I do wonder if the author was perhaps influenced by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. who has used the technique quite effectively in his Recluce fantasy series. And idea that is given additional weight by the use of Red, White and Black cloaks for wizards.
The distracting present tense is made much worse by the fact that everything in the book is told and not shown. Everything. We are told that people are telling stories, but not shown the stories. We are told that a character is worried, but don't get to see evidence of it.
We really don't get to see anything actually. None of the characters have what I would call a personality just a couple of standard character traits.
There's also the problem of things just conveniently happening in this book. There's a dragon who just happens to be friendly. There's a group of mystic religious women who just happen to have set up base where the characters end up. The story jumps from encounter to encounter with no real reason for some of these characters to even be doing what they are doing.
And then there's the naming. The Town of Ulna? The river Phalanges? Mr. Meniscus? These words are not nearly obscure enough to be used as names in a fantasy book. Each time one of them came up, it crashed what little disbelief I'd managed to suspend.
This is the summary of a story. The author should probably take it and turn it into an actual story.
January 23, 2013
My daughter is an author and one piece of advice she is constantly given is to 'show not tell'. I don't know if this author was given this advice but he definitely ignored it. The telling of this story was what made it so different and enjoyable. I found that it was a good old fashioned magic adventure story that ended with the promise of more to follow. I will most definitely be on the look out for the next book.
Currently Reading
March 10, 2013I can say without a trace of bias that you will really like this book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews