6.0 KiB
Looking for a story... Some guy who had "The Twist" basically a magic negation power. He's an otherwise normal dude from our world in a magical medieval setting, he's a thief who calls himself names like Tony Stark and Peter Parker.
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Author: u/Hgx72964jdj *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4ffziq/looking_for_a_story_some_guy_who_had_the_twist/
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Score: 15
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Created: 2016-04-19T04:36:30
Post:
It was an ongoing story when I lost track of it maybe a year ago. I'm asking you folks because I might have found it here, but I'm not sure. I don't remember the name of the story but I think it was published on a personal blog as opposed to fanfiction.net or something. Not sure.
The protagonist is a successful theif because his power allows him to steal magically guarded valuables. All he has to do is touch the vault/ward/enchantment and the magic is neutralized. He has trouble controlling his power though, which means he can't use those magic devices himself and he might accidentally break his cover if he's not careful. For example by shaking somebody's hand who is wearing a magic ring or something.
He uses his money to fund a university/think tank/Menlo Park to develop technological stuff like concrete and watermills and batteries (he's not an engineer and has no special technical skills so he plays the "eccentric genius" role to give his hired blacksmiths etc "inspiration" about stuff he has meta knowledge about). He also as an identity as a travelling bard who plays the guitar I think.
He calls himself comic book superhero names in the hope that someone else from our world will recognize it and seek him out. He has no idea how he wound up in that world and has no idea how to get back to ours.
Comments:
u/MrCogmor [+10] *
Here you go http://www.paultwister.com/
u/Hgx72964jdj [+2] *
Nice! Thanks man.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate*
Having seen this thread I thought I'd give it a read. Since I'm nearly at the end of the first book, I was wondering how you thought the other ones stacked up, comparatively speaking.
u/Hgx72964jdj [+3] *
Not sure really. There's parts I like about this story and a few parts where the author could have done much better too. I'm working my way through book 3 now, I'll report back when I finish or get bored.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate*
To me it sort of reads like an oral history or something. A story from 1000 arabian nights, which is meant to be told round a fire and ended with a hook each evening to bring people back. The descriptions though, they have no life to them. It plods, stolid and slow and this angel girl, she does not interest me. In general the character interactions are like the story itself: they get the point across but there is no sense of fun. It is not a bad story, but I can't really call it a good one either. Does that change in the next book?
u/Hgx72964jdj [+4] *
Yeah that's pretty spot on. It's an interesting setting and premise but the author isn't exploring it like I wanted, just turned the story into generic fantasy romance.
A bunch of stupid shit happens in book 3. The author has zero knowledge of guns or the military and it shows. Things aren't making sense at all right now and I'm getting bored with it.
u/abcd_z [+5] *
A bunch of stupid shit happens in book 3. The author has zero knowledge of guns or the military and it shows. Things aren't making sense at all right now and I'm getting bored with it. Same here. I stopped reading when Actually, when I put it like that, it really shines a spotlight on that scene's flaws.
There's also the problems I had with how the dragon and her underling blame Paul for the consequences of him not following the dragon's plans, even though they never actually tell him what those consequences will be until after it's too late to do anything about it. Dragon: "You will obey me!"
Paul: "You haven't given me any reason to trust you, and you're been basically manipulating me ever since I came to your attention. Instead of following your orders, I shall do the reasonable thing and get as far away from you as possible."
Dragon: "Fool! Because of your actions, every single living thing on the planet has died twice over and it's all your fault!" Out of curiosity, what are some of the larger problems you see with how the author handled guns/military?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate*
Ah, a shame. In that case would you mind spoiling me on how the first book ends? I probably won't finish it but I'm still a little curious.
u/Hgx72964jdj [+2] *
Big battle at the evil wizard tower, they use his car as a battering ram and wreck it. They catch the evil wizard and none of the main characters die. April loses her magic.
That's all I remember really.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate*
Cheers. That'll save me some time.
u/None [+2] *
Perhaps you should put that in a spoiler tag...
u/FenrirW0lf [+2] *
I've never heard of this story before but I'm well into book 1 now. Thanks for the recommendation!
u/Kuratius [+2] *
I'm done with the story now, (all up to the latest chapter) and I can say with some certainty that I liked it, but I do admit that it had some glaring flaws and logical errors in it. But in the end, I got too distracted by the romance to care much about that.