Customer Reviews

Wizard at Large (Magic Kingdom of Landover, Bk 3)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The third book in the series starts off with very excited Questor who is positive that he can now revert Abernathy the court scribe and talking terrier back to his human form. During the incantation Questor sneezes and instead of tranforming him, he transports him. To Earth and in the castle/fortress of the original heir to Landover, Michael Ard Rhi. Much had been made of this guy in first two installments and Terry Brooks does not disappoint. This is one of the authors best villians. Ben immediatly crosses back over to go get him. Willow comes along. Leaving Questor in charge, hence the title of the book. Questor now has the task of recovering a magical bottle complete with a evil bottle imp that is reeking havoc in the land. All thanks to the filthy and meddling G'home Gnomes, Philip and Sot.

The one thing that I have always liked about this series is that in the beginning, the hero is just as clueless to the world Landover as the reader. The world starts off small and Brooks is great at adding layer after layer with each book. The last book was more focused on the character growth of Ben. Here it concentrates more on Questor, Abernathy and, surprisingly, the ambiguous River King. There is a great battle between wizard and dragon, but there is also another incident that happens on earth that, while good, strains belief even for a fantasy. All in all, a great book and fans of the series will not feel cheated. Makes you definitely want to get the next one.

In this sequel to The Black Unicorn, Questor Thews' latest attempt to break the spell on Abernathy succeeds in sending him to Earth with Ben's medallion! To make matters worse, Abernathy was swapped for a bottle containing an evil imp, one with the power to cause great trouble in Landover. Now it is up to Ben and Willow to retrieve Abernathy and the medallion from Earth, and for Questor Thews to limit the bottle's damage. But, it soon appears that neither side will find their tasks easy.

This is another great book, from a really fun series of fantasy books. I didn't expect a lot out of the Landover books, the premise sounded a little immature to me. But, I nonetheless found these to be a fun series of books with interesting characters and suspenseful stories. I really enjoyed this book, Book #3 in the series, and do not hesitate to recommend it, and the rest of the series to everyone!

I loved how Brooks split the story between Ben's old world and Landover, especially since Willow and Abernathy were exposed to the good ole' USA; though I hated to see Willow suffer. If you are a fan of the Landover series, you'll love this third installation. As usual, there is lots of excitement and tension going on between characters. I feel for Abernathy's longing to be completely human again...seeing as how he is the central character in this story. Wizard at Large also gave me a little more respect for Quester's magic capabilities...I said for his capabilities, not for him; he's messing up as usual in this story, so the comedic part of the Landover series carries on. Bottom line, Brooks fans won't be disappointed, but they usually never are:)

The landover works are very well done, with stand out characters. Action, missteps, all done with great skill. Keep up the good work!!

If you like books like this one, might I suggest another I've recently come across. The Unsuspecting Mage by Brian S. Pratt. It's another fantasy adventure sure to please. I highly recommend it.

I have enjoyed a lot of things in life and Terry has been one of the enjoyments. In fact, I believe I read Sword of Shannara before any of Tolkein. In the Wizard at Large, he continues the story and brings it to our world again. Excellently written for the adventurer.

This was the first Brooks' book I read, and after I read this one - I oredered the rest of the series. This book is still better than the rest, but I might feel this because the others were repetitive.

If you've already read the other books in the Landover series, you might find this one boring, as i did for the other books.

I've read all but three of Terry's book, I haven't read HOOK, RUNNING WITH THE DEMON, or A KNIGHT OF THE WORLD, and let me tell you, this was his worse book by far. Don't get me wrong, it was an alright book, and a necissity for the landover series, I just didn't enjoy it as much as the other. This book seemed like it moved real slow, and at parts I had to force my self to keep reading it, but if you like Terry Brooks and his landover novels, this is a must read book.

A nonstop action book that you can not put down its a great book for anyone who likes Magic and fantasy!!!!!!

I loved this book and think that everyone who likes Terry Brooks will to. I read it in under a week. So again I would Like to tell you to read this book Terry Brooks lovers. One of the reasons I liked this book is because it is action and adventure I hope all of you readers out there who like that read this book!

While Brooks is not a great comedic fantasy author (see Terry Pratchett for someone who is) he is generally a good fantasy author. I keep listening to the Landover CDs hoping to get past Cameron Beierle's horrible readings and I can't.

Apparently the original audiobooks were done by "Dick Hill" and released on cassette only. These new CDs suffer greatly from issues like:

*Frequent mispronunciations of words (Foliage becomes "foilage" for instance);
*a completely phony sounding "hard boiled detective" voice for Ben Holliday (I am convinced Beierle is NOT a native english speaker as he often rolls his Rs or makes a soft "D" instead of an "R".);
*Randomly changing pronunciations of character names (the fairly simple word "paladin" is usually mispronounced "puhLADin" although in book 2 he freely changes back and forth between the two pronunciations.
*His female voices are atrocious. Willow sounds like Carol Channing imitating Marilyn Monroe's "happy birthday, mister president" performance. Willow pronounces "Ben" something like "Byeeeeehn".

Wizard at Large particularly suffers from having inappropriate pauses in the middle of passages where one would expect an editor to remove the dead space. In fact the whole series seems like nobody did any kind of production oversight or direction of the audiobooks at all.

On the plus side, Cameron does a fine job with second and third tier characters like Questor Thews, Abernathy and the G'home Gnomes.