Customer Reviews

Webmage

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Rivirn is a cutting-edge sorcerer/computer hacker who combines both skills to stay alive after he inadvertently becomes locked in conflict with one of his great-to-the-nth-degree-aunts, Atropos, one of the three Fates from Greek mythology. As it turns out, all the Greek gods, goddesses and demigods truly exist out in the world. Ravirn is part of the family and possesses both magical ability and incredible strength and healing that set him far beyond anything human. The problem is, although potentially immortal, he can still be killed. Bound by a Cassandra spell (no one will believe anything he says, especially against Atropos), Ravirn tries desperately to locate and shut down the magical program known as Puppeteer. Aided by the few friends he has (including a laptop/demon he created/programmed named Melchior), Ravirn speeds through shadowy side-worlds both magical and cybernetic in nature -- usually with fierce foes nipping at his heels.

WEBMAGE is Kelly McCullough's first novel. His second, also featuring Ravirn and company, comes out next year. Several of his short stories have been published, and he was one of the Writers of the Future.

Gripping and imaginative, rooted carefully in the real world, WEBMAGE is an exciting chase novel filled with techno jargon the cyber-crowd will enjoy as well as Greek mythology for the fantasy enthusiasts. The first-person narrative rings especially true and drives the tale. Dialogue between Ravirn and Melchior is sharp and cutting, and sounds like two old friends who constantly pick at each other. The add-on features to the real world are consistent (always a plus in fantasy) and well thought-out.

Fans of Roger Zelazny's AMBER books, and especially JACK OF SHADOWS, will enjoy this fun romp, which promises to be the first of a series. Packed with action, mythology, humor, and a resonance of true relationships, WEBMAGE is a great read.

I'm going to start this review with a slight seque - long ago while I was taking a term off to work in a bookstore I decided I would write me a novel. It was a sarcastic in-joke kind of thing that lampooned many of my friends and was all doctored up with references to Norse legends. The good news is that it was never published and lies mouldering to this day in my secret cellars. The bad news is that I failed to contain the virus and it has gone and infected Kelly McCullough. In those days the height of technology was a 110 baud teletype, now we have 1 gigabit LAN drops. It never rains, but it pours.

McCullough uses two primary premises to fuel his plot. First of all, the real true universe is run by the whole cast of Greek gods. In particular, the fates, Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis. Secondly, ritual magic has been replaced by digital magic. The Fates have their own magical internet, Eris - the goddess of discord - has hers, and all the lesser godlets have goblin or troll familiars that feature the latest in flat screen monitors and cool keyboards. Ravirn, the central character, makes a habit of getting in trouble with his grandmother and her sisters. The kind of trouble that is likely to get his thread snipped if he doesn't watch out.

Well, as you might expect, Ravirn, college student and hacker, rarely watches out. Atropos asks him to debug a program for her, one that will severely alter the balance between chaos and law. In a rare flash of integrity Ravirn refuses and his great aunt sets about making his life hades. Ravirn and his trusty familiar Melchior jump from crisis to crisis, making it clear that, even though Ravirn is defending free will, he doesn't have a clue how to use it. He drags his best friend Cerice into the mess as well as a group best described as the league of forgotten familiars.

McCullough's premise is interesting and there are moments when the story rises to the bait and shows signs of becoming compelling. But the hacker/computer metaphor is literally worked to death, becoming a string of in jokes. If you're a geek the story might be fun but to the average reader the story becomes a blur of pseudo-magical command lines. Top that off with a whole cast of nouveau-cool Greek deity references and you have WebMage a novel a bit too in love with its cleverness. Light entertainment, but it lacks the oomph of the books from which it borrows. There is supposed to be a sequel, by which time I hope McCullough discovers that 'cute' and 'plot' are poor bedfellows..

On a technical level (no pun intended), this book is well-written, plotted, and structured. It had a pretty hefty theme of free will vs. fate, and it tends to dominate all else. Sometimes, I had the feeling that the characters' motivations for various actions had more to do with the theme than anything arising from their own natures. This includes the romance, and much of the male lead's behavior. The times he goes into flowery high court mode read false and contrived, as if he were reciting something he memorized but didn't really understand and wasn't all that interested in.

Strike one for romance.

There's a lot of hardcore net geekery (to a very casual user like me, anyway) that often made me skim long sections rather than read. That was something of an occupational hazard, I knew it was going to be a techno-magic fantasy. Still got boring.

The characters' appeareances were cliched (c'mon, pointed ears? Just because they were descended from the Fates? And how, exactly, did that happen? There's *nothing* in the mythology that indicates the Fates had consorts, so how exactly did they get these century-sprawling bloodlines?)

Strike two. It helps when the reader can understand the setting and the magic system.

Lastly--I honestly didn't *care* about any of the characters. I wasn't all that bothered by Fate winning, or Eris' predicament, or the fate of the young lovers. The hero was brash and daring because Hacker Heroes should be iconoclasts. The heroine was fierce and devoted and equally predictable.

It's an intelligent book, a decent read for the money, but I don't consider it a keeper.

Magic has kept up with the times, changing as the world does. So of course magic has gone digital. The three Fates are sisters. Lachesis is the absolute dictator of the Fate family. She measures each life thread. Clotho is the spinner of destiny. She decides the destiny of each. Atropos is the cutter of threads. When her shears cut a thread, the life depending upon it dies, cut off from life.

Prince Ravirn, of the House of Lachesis, is a junior in Classics and Computer Science and his college midterms are looming in the near future. As a child of a Fate, descended from Lachesis's blood line, he is far from your average computer whiz. He is a wizard at hacking viruses and programs. He can zero in on any flaw and manipulate it to his desires. That talent is what causes Great Aunt Atropos to summon him.

Atropos is out to crush free will of mankind. To do this she has spelled a digital virus called Puppeteer. She needs Ravirn to debug the program before she downloads it into the Fate Core. The Fate Core is the place where the destiny of every living thing is laid out. From inside you can rewrite that destiny. However, Ravirn is all for free will. He not only refuses to debug the spell, but actively opposes her.

By Ravirn's side is Melchior "Mel", his webgoblin/familiar. Mel can shapeshift into a sleek lap top or into a blue goblin form. Also with him is Cerice, a sexy sorceress who happens to also be a mean programmer. With Cerice is her webgoblin/familiar, Shara. Problem is that no matter how Cerice feels about Ravirn, there are times she must wonder if Ravirn is working with dysfunctional motherboard for a brain. Lastly, there is the webgoblin underground. But to go against all three Fates, as well as the Furies and other relatives is difficult, to say the least. Ravirn's destiny is now uncertain and it may take all the power of Orion to stop Puppeteer.

***** It has finally happened. Someone has crossed the genres of sci-fi and fantasy to create a magical world that has modern (futuristic) computer hackers. Since I love to play online RPGs and mess around with computers (never mind how), reading this novel was a MUST! I am happy to say that I am in no way disappointed. Author Kelly McCullough has taken characters out from the darkness of mythology and brought them into the light of the modern digital age. Deciding to use a child of the Fates is not unique; however, this magical/digitalized twist is. Out-freaking-standing! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

WebMage tells the tale of a young man in college who's studing computer science and is the descendent of Fate, specifically Lachesis. As a descendent of Lachesis and a computer geek, Ravirn is also a computer hacker, specifically of the gods. The book opens with Ravirn hacking into his Aunt Atropos and learning that she has a desire to end free will, something Ravirn doesn't want to see end. To combat Atropos, Ravirn needs to find a fault in the program and terminate it before Atropos gets it to work.

Mr. McCullough does a very good job of merging our current world with that of Greek mythology. The Fates are very real, the Furies bite at you, and Eris is the goddess of discord (as Mr. McCullough points out nicely, the hackers goddess). The fascinating thing in this series is that the gods and goddess's use computers to execute their magic, something that Mr. McCullough sells very nicely by having the gods computers being living trolls (mainframes) and goblins (laptops/pcs).

WebMage is a very solid 4 star book. Actually I'd say 4.5 stars. Mr. McCullough does a great job describing situations, his understanding of Greek mythology is also very good, I personally thought he did a great job of capturing their personality. The interplay between the characters flows and shows a very human touch. While I wanted to give this book 5 stars, I couldn't give it the additional star. I look forward to reading his next hi what I hope is a series.

I loved this book! Combining gods and computers. What a concept. The more you know about programing and/or hacking the more you will enjoy this. But it was not just a clever idea, it is a great read! Family conflict, the promise of romance if you live that long, great friendships, this story has it all. Kelly McCullough is a WRITER. I have already put the next book on my wish list and intend to add McCullogh to my list of authors that I must read.

This book is a treat, and I'm looking forward to a sequel!

I have read Kelly McCullough's short fiction, and was looking forward to seeing his novel. WebMage did not disappoint! The action is constant, the characters are real and accessible. This book kept me up nights - for all the right reasons.

As for the problems some readers had with the book:

I know nothing about coding except that it's based on zeros and ones. That didn't stop me from enjoying WebMage.

Also, I have loved reading Zelazney for years, but found the Amber novels too scattered. I like WebMage better.

I love the world McCullough has created in WebMage and the idea that the Fates and descendents are still around using upgraded magic is captivating. The downgrade to four stars was because I'm not a coder, so all the codeline and debugging talk got to me.

In the twenty-first century, magic has gone digital with spells being coded on the Mweb and familiars being computers that turn into trolls and goblins. Instead of using the more dangerous chaos energy to cast a spell, powerful sorcerers program their magic leaving it to hackers like Ravirn to find and remove the bugs so that they work properly. Ravirn is a college student who is studying to refine his skills for his family's use.

His kin is descended from the Three Fates and he is a demideity who never ages. When his Great-Aunt Atropos asks for his help on a spell that would replace the chaos of free will with order he refuses. She puts a spell on him that insures no one believes anything he says when he talks about his aunt's endeavor; still he plans to stop the powerful Atropos with his only allies being his cousin with an nth degree of separation Cerice, his familiar Melchior the beautiful computer webgoblin and a didcarded webtroll. Ravirn and company have no chance against his relative, one of the Three Fates but he will die trying because free will means that much to him.

Fans who enjoy the fantasy The Warlock In Spite of Himself and its myriad spin-offs will thoroughly appreciate the madcap and whimsical WEBMAGE. The combination of computer technology with magic spells makes for a whimsical tale of action, adventure, and romance. Ravirn is a charming hero; an idealist fighting for what he believes is worth battling for inside a comedic quirky fantasy. Kelly McCullough shows great promise as a fantasy writer and the audience will hope there is a sequel for this spellbinding book.


Harriet Klausner

I almost didn't buy this book because the combination of magic with computer hacking sounded contrived. I think that the computer aspects of the book (and its sequel) serve to place limits on the way in which magic can be used. Thus the magical aspects are not of the "anything goes" variety. It also works very well with the interaction between the characters. I wouldn't think of this as a computer hacking book at all.

The characters are fun, with enjoyable banter. Somewhat like the Dresden Files books. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)

It's relatively light, and is a quick read, but really lots of fun. This is a great book for when you just want to relax and be entertained. As a side benefit you get to refresh all of that Greek mythology you learned in high school.

I enjoyed the sequel and hope that more are coming.