An Unwelcome Quest

The final (for now?) chapter in the Magic 2.0 series comes to an end and I gotta say I’m glad. It is not that the book isn’t funny (it is) or that it is a “bad book” (it isn’t)… it’s just, I believe, a sort of forced book.

So, what are the good parts? Well, the humor is really good and consistent with the rest of the series. The characters are funny and the premise is silly but entertaining. Now for the bad… IMHO, the tone of the book should be funny, but sometimes (I won’t spoil anything) it tries to be serious or deals with dark/serious themes all of a sudden, without the (expected) change of tone.

The characters are also “watered down” from their previous appearances. The “adventurers” are just a couple of interchangeable people, they don’t feel excited or nervous for their quest: they feel bored. And that is why I think Mr. Meyer was also bored when he (had to?) wrote this. It feels like he is the one going through a tedious chore, so he puts his protagonists into another tedious chore, and extensively, also his readers.

I won’t spoil anything, but I’m sure fellow readers will agree that the ending is also a promise from the author to write a “better adventure” for us next time.

The magic wears off in this third installment of Magic 2.0. Just like the previous novels, the premise of the book is fantastic, but execution is a different story.

The writing itself is very tongue-in-cheek and this is absolutely a chore to get through. The antagonist borders on mentally handicapped at times and petty at others. As with the first two books, the resolution of the plot is anticlimactic, albeit this is admittedly less so in this novel (there is more exposition).

However, Luke Daniels again elevates this book far beyond what it rightfully deserves. I am not clamoring to continue this series, however, given the ratings of books 4 and 5.

If you’re looking for mindless entertainment, riddled with plot holes, but serving its purpose, this series does just that.

This continues the saga of the computer hackers living in a World they control by controlling a certain computer file. They have given them selves magical powers. The first two books in the series worked very well and was very enjoyable.
In this, they are in a computer game controlled by an evil person. They have to complete the challenges and, of course, interact with the somewhat robotic computer icons and avatars in the game. However, it just went on to long. The continual child is became repetitious and somewhat boring. They were hard to understand and predict, and we all knew that somehow they would come out all right at the end. I finally stopped reading. Just went on and on and I just didnt have enough interest to continue. Too bad. I really liked the first two books in the series.

I was lukewarm about the first in this series, enjoyed the second more and this the most of the three. Rather contrary to most series, this one seems to be picking up the pace and interest and again, curiously, being less of a character study than the previous books.

Here, more than previous two, one needs to be conversant in modern and recent past American Geek Culture to appreciate most of the references and sly jokes the author inserts rather regularly into the story.

As with any comic novel where the characters have super powers including time travel, there are huge logical holes or at least questions about various aspects of the story. For example, there are two characters from the previous novels who are the same person but one is the future version of the other or the other is the past version of the first or something. Thus one knows all that happened to the other because she’s already lived it.

You can either roll with it and enjoy the story or get all spun up that time travel cannot spawn an added person along with the other absurdities along the way. Heck, though, you enjoyed Star Wars and Skyrim, didn’t you?

An enjoyable roller coaster of a fantasy novel.

An Unwelcome Quest is the third book in Scott Meyers Magic 2.0 series. In this episode were introduced to Todd. Hes the only wizard to ever fail the trials and be banished from the medieval group. Because of Todds crime, he is stripped of his powers, computer access, and is confined to a high security prison. But Todd escapes and wants revenge and that sets the stage for this latest book.
I thoroughly enjoyed Off To Be The Wizard as it was funny and original. The second book was somewhat less enjoyable because much of the charm in the series was used up in the originality first book. So by the time you read the second book everything had been done before. Now that were into the third book of the series, Im afraid that Meyer is experiencing literatures version of the law of diminishing returns. The jokes and pop culture references and humor that made the first book so fresh and enjoyable is no longer fresh and isnt as enjoyable. Once the plot was established in this book, I found much of the middle of the story to be lackluster and caught myself reading just to finish it. I will say that once Meyer was finally able to merge the two plot lines together that the book finished much stronger than a lot of the rest of the book read.
Is Meyer a good author? Certainly. Is Meyer funny? Without a doubt. Is this book as good as the other two? I dont think so. Its just not that great. Overall, Ive enjoyed the series but Ive probably read my last book from Magic 2.0. For me at least, the magic is gone.

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