Wizard at Large

Here we are: halfway through Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom of Landover series! I honestly didn't remember Wizard at Large at all, so I was quite interested to see what happened.

This time around, Questor Thews has found a means to reverse the spell on Abernathy. Abernathy was turned into a Wheaten Terrier years ago by Questor, who was unable to change him back. But in order for the magic to work, he needs a catalyst: he asked Ben Holiday for the use of his medallion. But the spell goes awry, and Abernathy and the medallion change places for a magical bottle that contains a powerful demon (a darkling). Abernathy finds himself in Ben's world and in the home of Michel Ard Rhi, the ex-prince of Landover, the very man who Questor hid him from by changing him into a dog!

After the bottle is stolen by the G'home Gnomes, Ben and Willow ultimately end up going to Ben's world to try to track down Abernathy and the medallion while Questor and company continue trying to retrieve the bottle. Ben enlists the help of his former partner and good friend Miles Bennett to help find Abernathy and Michel Ard Rhi. Meanwhile Questor and company track the bottle to the Greensward, but when it is stolen again, and ends up in the hands of Nightshade, Questor decides he needs the help of Strabo to retrieve the others from Earth so they can deal with the demon once and for all.

The end of Wizard at Large is a lot of fun. First there's a ridiculous wizard battle between Questor Thews and Strabo, where Questor manages to hold his own through sheer luck. Then, just when things seem hopeless for Ben and the others (Willow is dying because she can't make her monthly change in our world, they've been detained by the police and Michel Ard Rhi is coming to charge them with the theft of the medallion), Questor comes flying in on Strabo and they escape back to Landover! Strabo is also all to happy to bring them to Nightshade, thinking he's going to watch Ben Holiday die at her hand (with the help of the demon).

But I didn't like how everything lead to that deus ex machina solution for Ben Holiday and company. They were trapped and could not get out of their circumstances. They tried a lot of different things and nearly succeed, but in the end it doesn't matter: they get caught and can't get away. It was only through the arrival of Strabo that they were able to escape. I know that the book was building to that moment (and it was, objectively, a lot of fun), but it felt so unsatisfying for their storyline.

I also found parts of this book a bit of a slog. There's a lot of chasing after things that everyone just keeps on missing (the bottle and the demon get away from Questor and company because they find the G'home Gnomes when they no longer have the bottle, then they track down the trolls who had it but the trolls killed each other, with the last one bringing it to the Lords of the Greensward, then the bottle is stolen from everyone by a completely unexpected random magical creature (a shadow wight, which had not been introduced in any way prior to this encounter), who tries to bring it to the River Master, but ends up bringing it to Nightshade after the Rivermaster uses it and decides he cannot resist its power after he uses the darkling to bring Willow's mother to him and almost kills her in the process), trying to escape from things, getting caught again (Abernathy gets away from Michel Ard Rhi with the help of a little girl, but ends up kidnapped again by him not long after getting away because he went to someone for help and they wanted to make some money off him because he's a real talking dog before helping). Ben and Willow go from one place to another with Willow quickly getting sicker and sicker - she does what she can to help, but she very nearly dies because she didn't make the change before going to Ben's world. It was only in the last 50-70 pages, where the wizard battle happens and Strabo crashes into the building to save everyone that things got fun and I wanted to keep reading.  

I originally gave this book 4/5 stars when I read it many years ago. I think it deserves about a 3.5/5 (and so I will leave the book at 4/5 stars for now) - I thought it was better than The Black Unicorn (and a lot more fun), but by no means amazing.

Dungeon Crawler Carl

I've been meaning to get to Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl for awhile now, but was also putting it off in case I get hooked because it's a fairly big series. But a friend lent me the book, so I decided to take a break from Landover to give it a read.

In Dungeon Crawler Carl, aliens have decided to mine the Earth for resources. They collapse all the buildings, killing anyone who was inside, and invite the survivors to enter into a newly created dungeon in Earth's interior. This all happened around 2am Pacific time, so most of the people from North America just died. But Carl, our protagonist, just happened to be outside in his underwear trying to get his ex-girlfriend's cat Donut out of a tree when it happened, so he grabbed the cat and made for the dungeon stairs trying to stay warm (and not really understanding what was happening). They quickly find themselves in a D&D-like dungeon where it is kill or be killed. The event is being televised live for the galaxy, and the participants (or "crawlers" as the event calls them) have been outfitted with a HUD-like interface (HUD=Heads Up Display - a common video-game term) in their heads and can level up their skills and abilities and gain loot. Over 12,000,000 crawlers entered the dungeon before the stairs closed, and within the first hour or so, that number is already down to about 10,000,000. The dungeon is deadly and the galaxy loves watching all the gory details (while also rooting for crawlers who manage to beat the odds). If anyone makes it to level 18, they will become the rightful ruler of what's left of the world. But no one has ever made it that far in one of these world dungeons before. So Carl and Donut (who quickly gains the ability to talk and becomes a proper crawler as well) are fighting to survive in this dungeon where the odds of surviving are incredibly low.

I enjoyed Carl and Donut a lot. Their interactions are a lot of fun. Donut is of course my favourite: she is a newly more intelligent house-cat, so while she knows stuff about the world, she's also learning rather like a child. Plus she's a cat: her outlook on life and what's happening is rather different. And of course she has full confidence that she will win and be properly crowned the rightful ruler of the Earth.

I found Carl to be an interesting character, too. He was a coastguard-man who worked as a technician, so he was in fairly good shape and knew a bit about brawling, which definitely came in handy when he first entered the dungeon. Plus he's played video games before and could fairly intuitively figure out the game interface. While he seems like a loner, he has a heart and tries to do the right thing when he can (though sometimes it's hard to decide what that right thing is, especially inside the dungeon). Plus the two of them genuinely care for each other (he was planning on selling all of his belongings in an effort to buy Donut off his ex). 

But the story itself is a fairly dark read. Yes, there's humour. But there's so much death. Everyone (including the mobs) are cogs in this big entertainment machine, so things that happen are quite dark. Like the Spanish woman who was changed by the game makers into a 15-foot monstrosity who was crying for help. Or the goblins who were killed as collateral damage when Carl threw a bomb into the boss room. So while I enjoyed large parts of the story, a lot of moments like that made me really sad, and I'm not sure that I want to read more of the series if it gets even darker (and the author says in the Acknowledgement at the end that it will get darker).

Overwhelmed: Ways to Take the Pressure Off

I've been feeling very overwhelmed by life lately, so I thought that Claudia Hammond's Overwhelmed: Ways to Take the Pressure Off would be the perfect read to help me out. The endorsement by Daniel H. Pink on the cover even said: "Lowers you pulse as you read it" - exactly what I'm looking for!

Hammond breaks the topic into three big parts: part 1 is acceptance, covering things like perfectionism, a never-ending to-do list (and why it will never end), and how not all stress is bad for you. Then she details next steps in part 2, covering things like how to stop the news from overwhelming you, procrastination, and other people's standards. Finally, she looks at the bigger picture in part 3 with topics like nostalgia, how to worry less, and reaching a flow state. She also lists the key points of each chapter at the end of the chapter (though there wasn't a key point page for the chapter on worry, which was unfortunate - that chapter was almost completely different practical tips you could try to reduce worry in your own life, and a one page review would have been helpful).

I honestly found Overwhelmed to be a bit of a slog to read through. It reads a lot more like a literature review than a self-help book or a book of practical tips (though I felt like there were more tips in the third part of the book). And a lot of what she talked about didn't feel relevant to my life. At times I felt more overwhelmed just reading the book, especially when my mind kept wandering and I had to reread sentences over and over again to follow them. I considered stopping reading, but I was already over halfway through the book at that point; I decided to persevere in the hopes that I might get one or two more tips out of the book before reaching the end (which I thankfully did - like I already said, I found the last part of the book the most helpful).

Needless to say, I didn't really enjoy reading Overwhelmed, and am thankful I can go start something else now. 

The Black Unicorn

Continuing on with my Magic Kingdom of Landover rereading adventure brings me to book 2: The Black Unicorn. Ben Holiday has been High King in Landover for one year, and things are going rather well. But then he has a dream in which his former business partner and friend back in our world, Miles Bennett, is in trouble. The dream feels real, and he feels compelled to go and make sure Miles is okay. When he tells his friends about his dream, it turns out that both Questor Thews and Willow have also had equally compelling dreams: Questor was shown the location of the missing books of magic, and Willow dreamt that a demonic black unicorn was loose in Landover and she needed to find a magical golden bridle and bring it back to Ben so he could stop it. They all decide to go and see if their dreams are real (plus Ben wants to deal with his affairs in a more permanent way now that it's been a year that he's been gone). Ben sends the two kobolds, Bunion and Parsnip, to accompany Questor and Willow; he can't bring anyone back with him to Earth.

Questor and Bunion's quest is a quick success: they find the tomes where the dream promised they would be with little problem. Willow, with Parsnip in tow, heads back to her people to see if she can gain some more information on the bridle and the black unicorn.  And Ben makes it back to our world, only to be confronted by Meeks, the wizard who sold Ben the kingdom (and who is angry that he was shut out of said kingdom when Ben proved to be a worthy king after all). Thankfully this first vision of Meeks is just that: a vision. So Ben does everything in his power to make it back to Chicago under the radar, paying with cash where he can so as not to leave a paper trail. But when he gets to the office, he's confronted by another ghostly apparition of Meeks. Thankfully Miles is alright, so Ben hightails it back to Landover as quickly as he can.

But on his first night back, after puzzling over the books of magic with Questor and Abernathy for awhile (one is a burnt out book, the second only has pictures of unicorns in it), Ben awakens from another dream (one in which he gave his medallion to Meeks) only to find the wizard gloating over him. It seems Meeks was able to hitch a ride back into Landover using Ben! And to add to the horror, Meeks pulls out the medallion, showing Ben that he now wears one tarnished and with the wizard's image, rather than his Paladin and Sterling Silver. Meeks then uses illusion magic to make Ben look different and to make himself look like Ben, then he has Ben banished from the castle. Ben decides that the only thing he can do is try to catch up with Willow and warn her that her dream was sent by Meeks. He sets out alone for the River Country, but is shortly joined by Edgewood Dirk, a fairy prism cat who has decided to accompany him on his journey. And so the two set out, trying desperately to catch up to the sylph.

Like Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!, I didn't really remember much of the plot of The Black Unicorn. I remembered that Edgewood Dirk was in the book because he is the best character, but I didn't even remember that he was accompanying Ben (I thought he accompanied Willow like he does in the fourth book in the series, The Tangle Box). Little bits of the story seemed somewhat familiar as they happened, but there were a lot of things I thought might happen that didn't (like I thought Willow would be the one to help Ben break the spell). 

Thinking of breaking the spell....Ben Holiday is so incredibly dense in this book! One of the first people he visits, The River Master (Willow's father), tries to heal him, and flat out tells Ben that the magic enchanting him is of his own making. Dirk keeps telling Ben things about the spell and about how dreams work (but in his roundabout cat way which Ben has no patience for - I was complaining about this to my partner and we concluded that Ben Holiday is a dog person who does not like cats, otherwise he would have clued in at some point to what Dirk was telling him). Dirk practically spells it out near the end of the book, and Ben STILL had to waste time figuring things out. It was really upsetting to read after awhile, especially when you remember that Ben is supposed to be this super sharp and whip smart lawyer. 

I do think though that some of this could have been better had events unfolded a little differently. After their visit with the River Master, Ben and Dirk end up going to see Nightshade in an ill-fated attempt to get the bridle. Nightshade is still incredibly angry at Ben for sending her into the fairy mists with the Io Dust a year ago. She sees through the illusion and decides to bring him to Strabo. The dragon currently has possession of the bridle, and she is hoping to trade Ben for the bridle (since Strabo is also mad at Ben for using the Io Dust on him). Strabo is likewise able to see through the illusion; both Strabo and Nightshade decide it's because they are old, magical beings; they offer no further explanation. This encounter might have worked better before Ben's conversation with The River Master because it offered a few hints but no real substance as to what was enchanting him.

I also had a pretty good idea that Meeks didn't have the medallion because Ben was still able to talk to everyone. I remembered from the first book (and it's mentioned again at the beginning of this one) that it's the medallion that lets Ben read, write, speak, and understand the language the people in Landover speak. Had he lost the medallion he wouldn't have been able to communicate with anyone, unless Meeks had given his tarnished medallion that ability as well (and let's be honest, why would he bother?)

Also, Strabo and Nightshade were hilarious. Ben and company got away because the two of them started insulting each other then fighting. Had that not happened, Ben was as good as dead.

And then at the end, even though it's Willow who found the black unicorn, Willow who braved touching it despite all the warnings that she would be lost if she did, and Willow who got all the memories from the unicorn, Ben was the one who explained everything about the unicorns and the books of magic to his friends. I felt like he was mansplaining (though I know this isn't an accurate use of the term: he wasn't talking down to her and he did keep checking with her for confirmation). I felt like she was robbed of that moment which should have been hers to tell.

Despite my annoyances and complaints, I did think The Black Unicorn was a better book than Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold! Where Magic Kingdom is an introduction, The Black Unicorn is building on what we know of the different characters. It's also telling a rather interesting story about where the wizards power comes from with some fun characters (like Dirk! I think one of my favourite moments is when Meeks and everyone are confronting each other and Dirk just waltzes into the middle of the field. Meeks takes one look at him and freaks out - clearly the wizard has some sort of history with prism cats). But like Magic Kingdom, I'm giving The Black Unicorn a downgraded rating from what I gave it years ago: it's going from a 4/5 to a 3/5.

And while I am going to continue this rereading adventure, I think I might take a break to read something else before I jump into the third book, Wizard at Large 

Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!

I read the first five Magic Kingdom of Landover novels a long, long time ago (I think around 30 years ago!! I think it was in late elementary school) I remember really liking them, but I don't really remember them. So I decided I would reread them all, see what I think of them now, and finally read the final book for the first time. This is also my first time reading them in order; I originally read books 4 and 5 first, then went back to read 1, 2, and 3.

So first up is Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!, which tells the story of Ben Holiday buying the Kingdom of Landover for $1,000,000 and becoming the King the fairy kingdom needs. I originally gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Ben Holiday sees the ad to buy Landover's kingship in a reputable magazine that his wife used to get. His wife, Annie, along with their unborn daughter, had passed away in an accident two years previously. Ben, a partner in a law firm, had mostly withdrawn from everyone, choosing instead to throw himself into his work. But his work is no longer challenging, and he feels he is losing himself; while quite likely a scam, he feels being King of a magic kingdom might be his ticket to start living again. 

I'd like to mention that, reading this now, I didn't like how Ben's grief was portrayed. I especially didn't like the insistence of his friend and fellow partner, Miles, that after two years Ben should be moving on. Grief doesn't work like that, and people need to grieve and feel their emotions at their own pace, not at the pace that society so often demands. 

I'd also like to note that when I read this when I was younger, I probably would have glossed over that part of the story. It seems reasonable when you haven't really experienced grief, especially from an unexpected loss. But now, years later, I was uncomfortable with this part of the story. 

So anyway, Ben Holiday meets with Meeks, the man responsible for selling the Kingship of Landover. Meeks deems him a suitable candidate precisely because he doesn't have any close ties to people (and, of course, because he is capable of paying the $1,000,000 fee). When Ben accepts, he is granted 10 days to experience the Kingdom and decide if he will stay, afterwhich the sale is final. Should he remain, he must also stay for one full year or else his purchase is forfeit.

But once he arrives, Ben discovers that the Kingdom is in shambles. There is a blight destroying the land, the magic castle, Sterling Silver, that he is to live in, is tarnishing and dying. The coffers are empty, and the various people of the land are fighting. But even after losing most of his ten day grace period due to the magical mishaps of Questor Thews, the court magician, Ben decides to stay for the challenge, and to prove he is more than the play-King many people accuse him of being. But his time is limited: the demon lord known as the Mark will challenge him for the throne by Midwinter. Will Ben be able to reunite the people in time to stop the demon, especially when the conditions they give for their pledges of fealty are impossible?

I honestly didn't remember a lot of the plot. I remembered a few bits and pieces here and there, but lots felt new: the stuff with the Mark, the people of the Greensward, how Ben met Willow at the Irrylyn. I remembered that Ben did something to make both Nightshade and Strabo hate him, but not the specifics of what happened between them (and I did find it funny that they got mad at him for tricking him, but they both intended to either trick him, kill him, or both). I remembered the truth of the Paladin, but not what it took for Ben to discover it (basically accepting that Landover was his home). I also didn't remember that he went into the Fairy Mists (I remember Willow getting help from the Fairy People in later books and traveling through thr Mists, and maybe Ben returning to Earth in a later book, too. But not his foray here at Nightshade's insistence). 

I did remember the main characters (Ben, Willow, Questor, Abernathy, Nightshade, Strabo, and sort of the River Master), but not some of the lesser characters like the kobolds Bunion and Parsnip. Or the G'home Gnomes, Filip and Sot (but when they were introduced, I did remember the name G'home Gnomes and where it came from). 

I also had a harder time liking Ben Holiday in this book. At times I liked him: he was clever and loyal to his new friends. But at other times I didn't, like when he would get mad and kick the gnomes for no reason; it felt like there were two versions of Ben Holiday and they were often at odds. I also didn't like Willow. She was very flat in this book. I remember her being a lot more active, and hopefully that will be the case in later books. Even her introduction was weird - I know she's a fairy creature, but her falling in love with Ben (and completely abandoning her home and people) just because he happened to be the man who saw her on a certain night at the Irrylyn felt contrived. And I'm not really sure how old she was supposed to be, but Ben was supposed to be about 40, and the book kept calling her a girl....so yeah, that felt uncomfortable. Again, these are things I noticed now that would have gone right over my head when I originally read the book.

So when I finished rereading Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!, I felt that it didn't deserve the 4 stars that I gave it when I was younger. I downgraded it to a 3 (it would have been a 2.5/5 book I think, but you can't give half stars on Goodreads): I still liked parts of it, but there are other parts that, 30 years later, didn't really sit well with me. I'm interested to see what I will think of the rest of the series! 

 

Edit, Sept 18/26: I just finished reading The Black Unicorn, the second book in the series, and am now downgrading Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold! to a 2/5, while I'm giving The Black Unicorn a 3/5. 

Three Bags Full

The movie The Sheep Detectives looked cute, so when I saw Leonie Swann's book at work, I had to read it! Unfortunately I returned the book before writing here, so I'm just going to write something brief since I don't have the book to refer back to.

Three Bags Full tells the story of a flock of sheep trying to solve their shepherd's murder. While I had a hard time getting into the book originally (there are a lot of characters, and the dramatis personae only helps with the sheep, not the humans), once I got through that, I thought the book was a lot of fun! The sheep were all so quirky and different, but most importantly, they felt like legitimate sheep who were mostly doing sheep things (and not really understanding human things) for most of the book.

I also really liked the ending, and how the sheep solved the murder (and communicated it to the humans). I didn't really see the solution coming, which is always a plus in a mystery (I suspected the character who was involved, but wasn't really sure). And the sheep logic was fun - they kind of got to the answer but through the wrong logic (because it was their understanding of things, not how the humans actually did things).

 There is a sequel to Three Bags Full, but I don't think I'm going to read it. While I enjoyed reading the book, I felt like it was self-contained and didn't really need a second part; I'm going to leave things there for now. If I change my mind in the future, I can always get the second book then.  

The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdome and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace

I found The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdome and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace by Pedram Shojai at the perfect time. Life has been incredibly stressful these last few years, throwing one thing after another at me (most recently: wildfires). So I welcomed a nonfiction book that I don't even remember putting on hold showing up to hopefully help me with stress management.

The Urban Monk looks at nine common areas that cause people in the modern world problems, including stress, time management, sleep, and money. Shojai examines each problem and uses his views as both a trained monk and a doctor of Chinese medicine to offer solutions. He then further provides "modern hacks" - things that people in the modern Western World can do now to help break the cycle of each problem. Each chapter also starts and ends with a case study, which is based off of real people that Shojai has helped.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading through The Urban Monk. I found Shojai's suggestions helpful and would really like to try them at length. I thought the book was good for a beginner like me (while I'm familiar with some of the things Shojai talks about, I've never really practiced them in real depth or for long). But at times the book does get a little repetitive-sounding. He doesn't so much repeat himself, as offer similar suggestions for different problems (he provides different meditations to try, or suggests different herbs that are helpful). The structure of each chapter is the same as well, so that adds to the repetition (and might turn you off of reading it if you don't like structural repetition like that). His word choice was also a little off-putting at times in that he uses a lot of colloquial language and swears, which seem at odds with the subject matter (but he definitely wasn't as off-putting as I found Chris Crowley in Younger Next Year). I think The Urban Monk is definitely worth the read if you are stressed out by modern life and looking for a new way of thinking about and approaching what life can be like instead.