Out of Spite, Out of Mind

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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FIRST THINGS FIRST

I can't talk about this one without spoiling the end of Fight and Flight. This entire book is built on the foundation of that last chapter. Read at your own risk.

WHAT'S OUT OF SPITE, OUT OF MIND ABOUT?

Let's get the subplots out of the way (at least one of which is going to turn out to be important for the next book, and one will be important for this one). Gary hires a local peasant—and then several others—in a misguided, but surprisingly good-hearted, attempt to help them out. This is almost entirely a comic storyline, and I love that Meyer takes the time to do things like this.

Martin and Gwen are fighting (which happens a lot, sure)—because they both want to get married, but not right now, and things are awkward because Martin raised the subject. If that seems odd to you, imagine how poor Martin feels. It feels very sitcom-y—if the sitcom is in a later season and is trying to come up with some low-stakes conflict because the writers can't figure out how to keep happy couples interesting. I rolled my eyes at this stuff a lot—but found it a little amusing. Where this storyline resolved, however, might end up being the most grounded, mature, and admirable thing in this series.*

* Wow, I'm supposed to keep my evaluative-powder dry in this section. Whoops. Feel free to call our Customer Service line for a full refund.

The third subplot also involves Martin (he's our point-of-entry character for this series, so it makes sense that he gets 2 storylines)—he's convinced that Phillip is being stalked by some sort of masked figure who keeps launching stealth-attacks at him. None of the attacks are particularly successful—especially once Martin susses them out and works to prevent them. But they're also not at all lethal, at best they'd be impediments to his activities, irritations, distractions—ridiculously elaborate pranks, really. Phillip thinks that Martin is seeing things. Gary, Gwen, and the rest of the gang aren't really convinced either. It's Martin vs. the Masked Meddler.

But the main thing is this—in the last book, we learn that Britt the Elder has different memories of the events of Fight and Flight than Britt the Younger does. And we're not talking about how two people who were at the same event recall details differently—we're talking about different outcomes here. As Britt the Elder is—ask anyone who isn't Phillip—the older version of the Younger, who co-exists with her younger-self in a way that only works in silly time travel stories, that should not be.

Britt spends some time pondering this and trying to get to the bottom of it and ultimately determines there's a problem in the Code, and she's going to need help figuring all this out. While she's doing this pondering, she starts to develop some physical glitches as well. She's really going to need help. Sadly, the only person she can really rely on here is Phillip—who's dating her younger-self and really can't spend time with the Elder without getting the Younger upset. Things get stranger and worse from here.

HOW WAS THE NARRATION?

This is about an audiobook, so I need to say something about the work Luke Daniels put in. But...but...it's Luke Daniels. I've run out of things to say about how great a narrator Luke Daniels is. I literally have no idea what to say here.

This is the best I can do—my first exposure to this series was the eBooks, and I read the initial trilogy that way, Only coming to the audiobooks as a way to review the trilogy before getting to the second trilogy. I don't change formats for a series—if I listen to a series, I listen to a series. If I read a series, I only listen to re-read (and then not exclusively). After listening to Daniels narrate the first three, I'm not going back to the print version. I switched to audio-only for the remainder of the series (however long that is).

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT OUT OF SPITE, OUT OF MIND?

So all my complaints and concerns and whatever from the last book are gone. This might be the best book in the series since the first. Meyer and the characters brushed up against exploring the whole philosophical underpinning of the series premise—but don't get bogged down in it. And they fully embrace—and exploit—the silliness of time-travel conceits.

Earlier in the week, I talked about Chu's fantastic fight scenes in his new book—there's a fight scene at the end of this book that is almost their equal in execution and description—but far surpasses them in hilarity. The only way I can think of to describe this adequately is to say: "imagine a fight scene starring Lucille Ball, magic, and medieval weapons—with a soundtrack of 'Yakety Sax' (but not really, because the book specifies a different soundtrack)."

We get a dangling plot point resolved (and, boy howdy, do I wish we hadn't), we get some great comic stories, some strong emotional moments, and a good set-up for the next book (it's not as tantalizing as the set-up for this was, but it does make the next book sound pretty appealing).

If you're on the fence about this series after the first trilogy—get back to it. If you haven't read the series at all (how did you make it this far in this post?)—change that, but go to the beginning or it won't make any sense. These books are a great hybrid—Meyer got his comedy chocolate in his SF peanut butter and wrapped it in a candy-coating of Fantasy—and this is one of the more enjoyable installments in the series.

Executive Summary: I liked this better than [b:Fight and Flight 36372116 Fight and Flight (Magic 2.0 Book 4) Scott Meyer https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507432381s/36372116.jpg 54145455], but not nearly as much as the earlier books.Audiobook: Luke Daniels is awesome as always. If you follow my reviews, you know that already. One of the main reasons I started this series in the first place was because he was narrating it. Full ReviewPretty much every character in this series is awful. I knew this before, but for some reason this book really hit the point home for me. There are some I like more than others. Martin grew on me as the series went on, but I feel like in this book he reverted back to his most annoying form.I normally like Gwen, but even she got on my nerves in this book. Gary is the worst. Possibly worse than Jimmy. OK, maybe not that bad, but close. Tyler is probably the only one I'd want to be friends with.I've always been so-so on the time travel aspects of this series, and this book probably does the most with it out of any others. It focuses heavily on Brit, who'd I'd probably like a lot if not for her the major recurring theme of her hating herself. I get it, most people hate themselves to some degree or another. Again it was just a bit much.That isn't to say this book was all bad. It was still pretty fun at times, although I probably found myself laughing less often than normal I will say I am intrigued by some of the developments near the end of the book that has me more interested in reading the next in the series than I'd probably have been otherwise.This series continues to be a (mostly) fun/light summer listen that is all the much better in audio (which is probably why Audible signed it to a 6 month exclusive window on new releases). I'd like to see things get a bit more light-hearted in the next book, although maybe that's just not the direction Scott Meyer wants to take it.