Customer Reviews

The Secular Wizard

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I waited impatiently for the fourth book in the series A Wizard in Rhyme to be printed. I was not disappointed by the wait. I enjoyed the plot and characters have to be read to be believed. Stasheff has never failed to entertain me with a new twist to each book. I highly recommed this book to all readers of Science Fiction Fantasy.

This is the fourth book in this series and the one where Stasheff finally decided to mix up the plot a little. In the first book (Her Majesty's Wizard) Matt Mantrell was transported to a magical alternate Earth and helped free the kingdom of Merovence (France) from tyrannical satanic sorcerers, meeting various quirky allies on the way. It was awesome. But the second book (The Oathbound Wizard) just seemed to push the reset button. In that one Matt had to free the kingdom of Ibile (Spain) from tyrannical satanic sorcerers, meeting various quirky allies on the way. Then the third book did the exact same thing, only in Allustria (Germany) and with Matt's college chum Saul instead of Matt himself.

This book finally does something sort of new. In this one the native prince of Latruria (Italy) manage to free the country from tyrannical satanic sorcerers all by himself, without any need for help from someone from our Earth. However, he refuses to ally with Good or Evil. Matt Mantrell journeys to Latruria to investigate. Along the way he (of course) picks up some quirky allies. However the tone of his adventures is quite different, as he is not journeying through a country corrupted by evil, he is journeying through one that has no sense of right or wrong either way.

This book was a welcome change for the series, and luckily a permanent one. The next books don't recycle the plot of the first one either, which makes them a lot stronger.

A fun and original story. I love the idea of it, and look forward to more works from this author.

I recently started to read Christopher Stasheff's books, and I loved the Wizard in Rhyme series, infact I enjoyed them so much I'm having a hard time with his other series as I liked the characters so much in a Wizard in Rhyme:-)