Customer Reviews

The Wiz Biz

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

 

 

I love these books. During a recent move, I lost my copy of Wizard's Bane, the first book in this wonderfull series. I was very sad when I found out it was out of print. Then I saw this book on Amazon. The first 2 books in the series, reprinted together! I bought it, read it, and almost burned it. The editing is so horible, it almost ruins the story. Paragraphs run together, or are split for no apparent reason. Quotation marks and other punctuation are missing, extra, or in the wrong place. In some places text is repeted. The editor who let this piece of unmitigated junk go to print aught to be exiled to Siberia. This story is a must read, but only buy this book if there is no way you can get your hands on a copy of the original printing.

I enjoyed the original books. The story is lots of fun to read. But the copy-editing and typesetting in this edition are truly despicable. Words are mis-spelled, parahgraphs are run together, and numerous other mistakes.

Why couldn't they just have published this edition from the same master layouts as the original two books? It looks like the typesetter for this edition copy-and-pasted the two books togehter in his word processor; and then allowed his cat to walk on the keyboard before generating the master files for printing.

The Wiz Zumwalt books by Rick Cook are very entertaining. I judge books by how often I go back to re-read them, and each book in this series has been read by me at least four times each. In the case of 'The Wizardry Compiled' and 'The Wizardry Cursed' a few more times each. Some authors produce series where readers continue to buy mainly out of loyalty to characters and the author's world (like Thomas Covenant: the Unbeliever, which by the time I gave up (after the second book of the first trilogy) I was moaning 'Oh Good Grief, when will it END? '), Rick Cook's Wiz stories are endlessly entertaining.

But then, as a computer programmer myself, I relate really well to computer languages as a form of magic!

He says he won't be writing any more Wiz books for the near future, but he better change his tune, because I have cooked up a really wicked geas, and it will make him start cranking them out unless he relents and does it: ONE MORE TIME!

Well, Rick Cook, whataya

In the first book, the programming is real, the characters are real, the action is great and the book is completely irresistible. Maybe I don't get out of my cubicle enough, but this is the best portrayal of programmers I've found in fiction. Most fiction deifies scientists as unapproachable intellects, where Wiz Zumwalt deifies himself while nicely walking the edge between bumbling techno-nerd and a character who's been given a little too much rope with which to hold a plot consistently together. To paraphrase MIT Computer Science professor Joeseph Weizenbaum, this novel satisfies any old time computer hacker's megalomaniacal fantasies of omnipotence, and then some.

This wonderful book is actually two books for the price of one: Wizard's Bane and The Wizardry Compiled! These novels tell the story of Walter Irving "Wiz" Zumwalt, a computer programmer extraordinaire who is hijacked from Earth, and brought to a world where magic works, but technology doesn't. The wizard who brought over Wiz is dead, and no one can figure out why he was brought, but when Wiz discovers that magic can be handled just like programming, the nature of the world turns upside down. The Dark League has had its own way too long, and now they are about to find out what happens when a hacker turns his attention against them.

This is a great book, one that I have enjoyed reading several times. The system of magic that Rick Cook used was a fascinating breath of fresh air, and I must say that I enjoyed the stories and characters immensely! I highly recommend this light-hearted swords-and-sorcery fantasy to you.

Cook's captivating effort gets up and running from the git-go. Moira, a hedge witch, the term itself conjures up wonderful imagery, is saddled with a magically and socially inept Cupertino MacJockey, with the appropriate initials of WIZ. Adventure and accident prove that even pencil-necks can develop a personality. Wiz makes a pleasant and believable transformation into a protagonist. This guy's no Errol Flynn, but that's really part of his charm. Those of us without rippling biceps, and killer instincts grudgingly see Wiz as someone to relate to. The first book runs to a predictable but completely satisfactory conclusion. The second book begins with domestic disenchantment, and is a little slow. How, we ask ourselves, does Cook top the last book? It would seem, at the outset, that the author killed the bad guys WAY too early. But Cook has a trump tucked behind his singleton and plays it pretty well. The second half of the book is good, but not as absorbing as the first. The imagery in this book was lush and inviting. The Wild Wood was not quite as nasty a place as it could have been, but it was a fun place to be. I was a little disappointed that Cook put in certains adjectives. I have no kick with a little colorful language, but I think the book would have been the better for the deletion of f&$k. Granted it's part of life and hard to get away from, but it seems like this was gratuitous. Other than that, these books were wonderful! first

Nice little story.

A modern programmer thrown into the world of magic. Unique look at a magic system that is based on computer language...story does a good job of telling the whole story so that you aren't left hanging for the second book, but does leave you wanting to further explore what happens to Wiz and his firey hedge-witch.

I felt the end was a bit rushed, but still it was great.

"The Wiz Biz" and the sequal "Wiz Biz II: Cursed and Consulted", about a Silicon Valley programmer transported into a world where magic exists, are fun and compelling. It's a clever idea and it is well, if not artfully, executed. The characters are types, but not stereotypes. The author, Rick Cook, while creating a beautiful, buxom mate for his main character, rises well above the kind of stereotype that would confine the audience for these books to young men. The world is well imagined and there's lots of humor. The more you know about about programming and the computer world the more in jokes you'll catch but there's plenty there for the merely peripherally geeky. Business schools could assign these books as a intro text to illustrate the reality of consulting, the pitfalls of charging in with a "great solution" before reviewing the current environment, the importance of considering the long term consequences before acting and the importance of creative thinking.

A good summer read.

This was the first Wiz book I read and was overjoyed when I found that I could get two books for the price of one. A great book for anyone who has spent over 5 hours glued to their computer.

Yes, it's Rick Cook's first two Wiz books in one cover, that's clearly explained, but think how short a life books have these days. For a publisher to commit to this allows another "generation" of readers to have Rick's first two stories. Also, it saves your firsts for the shelf and gives you a handy readers copy