Off to Be the Wizard

More humor than fantasy, suspension of disbelief is helpful. That said, the premise makes you think. I enjoyed the characters (nearly all male) and most of the situations. Quick read, will dig into the sequel.

I have to compare this to the Spellsinger series - both were humorous fantasy, and multiple books released over a relatively short time. Foster's characters are slightly better (a wisecracking otter! a Marxist dragon!) and the world has actual magic. The magic here is technology, as the world is apparently running in a computer program (another theme for this year's reading). Meyer's writing in this book is better than Spellsinger, though some of the dialog is a bit sparse.

Though Spellsinger was written in the early 80s, I have to give the nod to Foster's female characters. This novel's Gwen is mostly in the background. Balancing that, the first book of Spellsinger stops well short of the end of the story - the sequel was already written, and needed. Off to Be the Wizard comes to a nice ending, while also leaving open the door for a sequel.

I have high hopes for the series from this once-local author, and I hope I can find the sequels in local used book stores (as they were published here in Seattle).