2.1 KiB
The Trickster's Apprentice [PDF WARNING!]
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Author: u/traverseda With dread but cautious optimism*
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Score: 1
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Created: 2015-01-28T02:52:22
Post:
Comments:
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (46 minutes later)
Here's a copy to read on the Smashwords website without needing to download it, if people are wary of downloads.
u/traverseda [+1] With dread but cautious optimism (50 minutes later)
The formatting is just so bad though.
u/CaptainLoggers [+2] (13 hours later)
I only read this representative first chapter, but I'm afraid I'm not terribly impressed. It fell into the trap of explaining things at a cellular or molecular level without actually producing interesting or novel solutions to problems. Doing an almost correct job of justifying a magic system through current scientific understanding doesn't mean anything unless that explanation is novel in universe (partial transfiguration) or is used in a novel way. Saying that he had the ability to "increase or decrease order" or some similarly traditional magic mumbojumbo could have explained the shelter, healing, and brain-buster just as well, and the extremely wordy modern explanations didn't make the conflict any more novel or interesting.
It didn't help that the character didn't stand out much either.
It called to mind Ra, which I think did a really good job of providing the physics of magic in a way that made the magic and physics more interesting and brought out narratively significant changes to both.
Of course, I might just be salty that despite all the time and effort put into medical and cellular explanations for how the magic worked, he still got a few things obviously wrong.