Off to Be the Wizard

This was insubstantial but fun. I think it'll be entertaining if you go into it with the right expectations.

There aren't deep layers of plot - if you think you know where a point is going, you're right. Not much is twisty or surprising. Some of the characters are endearing, while others are rather thinly drawn, and it suffers from Smurfette Principle. But it's a silly romp with some fun action scenes and goofy gags.

Sometimes it seems like Meyer is trying to worldbuild very carefully and follow those rules, but other times it feels like a significant question gets glossed over. Chief among them is “you discovered the source code of the universe and your ambitions are basically limited to avoiding arrest and LARPing?” But I had to get over that. That's the setup - don't fight the hypothetical, just go along for the ride.

Just an under par book. No major offenses, but everything (character, plot, setting) is way too weak to be worth reading.

Major plot holes (how can you use a cellphone in the medieval age?) did not bother me as much as the rest.

The protagonist is given the power of a god (wizard) but he is too stupid to make anything useful out of it. He attracts the attention of the FBI, because he makes money out of thin air into his own account, and escapes to medieval England to avoid arrest. Because if you can change reality, this is the best course of action, of course.

If this was just a premise for the adventures of a man from the future in the past, I can take it. But it is not. When he arrives at the past, he finds another time traveler with the same powers as him that is willing to teach him how to become more powerful. This is as interesting as my nephew telling me about his day at school.

And that is the book. Dumb protagonist and uninteresting plot.

Read 3:23/10:14 33%