"Wizard's Bane" review
Overview
Title: Wizard’s Bane
Author: Rick Cook
Subgenre: Science fiction arguably? Otherwise high fantasy
2021 Bingo squares: Forest setting, Chapter titles, Debut, Witches
Recommend: Not really. If you are intrigued by the concept, start at chapter 9.
Stars: 2.5/5
Review
A truly great concept (let’s bring a computer programmer into a fantasy world that currently has no governing principles) executed in an extremely mediocre fashion and with cringe-inducing levels of sexism. Roughly the first 50% of the novel is a boring journey through a forest which the two protagonists resentfully undertake after a plot device dumps them together and from which they’re saved by a deus ex machina. The next 10% is a boring story-within-a-story that introduces new characters that we don’t really care about in the slightest; and finally, the final 40% covers the plot we actually care about, but at this point there’s no time left to spend on the concept we actually wanted. Really, I was hoping for something that had more in common with a compilers textbook.
I’ve complained before about novels in which the “introductory adventure,” for reasons of plot, leaves the protagonists unable to use magic of any type. It’s a really unfriendly introduction to a fantasy world. This one was even worse: Moira spends most of the first half of the novel yelling at Wiz to stop talking to her, since not only can they not use magic, but they also have to be quiet at all times. The result is a very, very low pagecount-to-worldbuilding ratio. Which is unfortunate: what little worldbuilding there is, is pretty cool, and if the pacing had been done better, the introductory part could have taken maybe a third the time it did, leaving space for much more technical descriptions of Wiz’s magic in the second half.
And then there’s the love spell.
Again she set off in an effortless stride. Wiz came huffing along behind, glumly admiring the swing of her hips and the easy sway of her body. He was used to being treated with contempt by beautiful women, but he had never been this taken with a woman and that made it hurt worse than usual.
If you told me this was published more recently than 2010 I’d assume it was just parody, but since it was published in 1989 I can believe it. But honestly I would’ve DNF’d at this point if I didn’t want to write a review. At least it counts for the Chapter titles (hard mode - every title is more than one word) /r/fantasy Bingo square.
And let’s not forget our introduction to just how very Black Bal-Simba is:
A huge black man stepped into the clearing directly in front of Wiz. He wore a leopard skin over his shoulders and a leather skirt around his huge middle…
He was so black his skin showed highlights of purple and he was the biggest man Wiz had ever seen. It wasn’t just that he was more than six-and-a-half feet tall. His frame was huge, with shoulders twice as broad as a normal man’s. He had a great black belly, arms thicker than Wiz’s legs and legs like tree trunks.
Anyway, 2.5 stars (rather than something lower) just because (a) the concept is good, (b) it has a couple funny moments regarding the Dark League, and (c) I’m willing to forgive a bit of the anti-feminist (and possibly slightly uncomfortably racist) writing because of the publication year. But this is just, not a very good book.
Below the cover image, I’ll paste in the excerpt that convinced me to read the novel. A warning that it contains a bit of a spoiler. But, there is very little worth reading of the novel outside of this excerpt, so you can just read it, appreciate it, and skip the rest.
Wiz took a deep, shuddering breath. “Very well,” he said and raised his hands above his head. “backslash” he intoned.
“$” replied the Emac.
“class drone grep moira”
“$” said the Emac again.
“exe,” Wiz said and the Emac’s lips moved soundlessly as he transmitted the order, expanding it into a series of commands to each of the drones.
Far to the South, in a dozen places along the frozen shores of the Freshened Sea, stubby white shapes popped into existence, scanned their surroundings and disappeared again.
“running” said the Emac.
Wiz was silent for an instant. Please God, let them find her. “All right,” he said briskly. “Now let’s see how much Hell we can raise with the League. backslash!”
