An Unwelcome Quest
Written by Scott Meyer
Narrated by Luke Daniels
4/5
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About this audiobook
Ever since Martin Banks and his fellow computer geeks discovered that reality is just a computer program to be happily hacked, they’ve been jaunting back and forth through time, posing as medieval wizards and having the epic adventures that other nerds can only dream of having. But even in their wildest fantasies, they never expected to end up at the mercy of the former apprentice whom they sent to prison for gross misuse of magic and all-around evil behavior.
Who knew that the vengeful Todd would escape, then conjure a computer game packed with wolves, wenches, wastelands, and assorted harrowing hazards—and trap his hapless former friends inside it? Stripped of their magic powers, the would-be wizards must brave terrifying dangers, technical glitches, and one another’s company if they want to see Medieval England—and their favorite sci-fi movies on VHS—ever again. Can our heroes survive this magical mystery torture? Or will it only lead them and their pointy hats into more peril?
Scott Meyer
Scott Meyer has worked as a radio host, a stand-up comedian, an office worker, and a theme-park ride operator. (He held those jobs in the order they’re listed, which is probably the opposite of what you’d expect.) He has written for several video games and created the comic strip Basic Instructions, which ran online and in various alternative weekly papers across the country for nearly a decade. Scott is the author of the Magic 2.0 books and several other novels and comics collections. Scott and his wife live in Phoenix, Arizona, to be close to their cats.
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Reviews for An Unwelcome Quest
293 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Liked the first and second book, and liked this. Good narrating, easy listening.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing book. I hope the rest of this series will be completed soon.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The story was fun, but the banter/dialogue between men and women felt forced and unreal. I eventually quit listening because of this.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The storyline is fun at times, annoying at others just as annoying as it must have been for the characters. The biggest issue I have with this is that the chase team skips days of work that the others had to accomplish to move onto the next task yet never catch up until the climax. This becomes so much more pronounced during the desert scene. They should have easily caught the lead team by this space due to what the lead team was dealing with.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I enjoyed listening. It was funny. I have completed the 6 books now.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great books, a unique take on tech and fantasy. The vocals on the audiobook versions are excellent ?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great books. Very funny and clever. Great voice actor. A++++++
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not as much depth as the other books, just felt that it dragged on. Still enjoyed it and I am looking forward to the rest of the series
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley. Of course, I ended up going ahead and buying the audiobook version because Luke Daniels is a fantastic narrator.
Scott Meyer's Magic 2.0 series is fantasy with a science-fiction hook: a computer hacker named Martin discovers an all-powerful file that lets him control reality, so he travels back to medieval times and pretends he is a wizard. This fails spectacularly when he meets all the other hackers who had the same idea.
An Unwelcome Quest is the third book in the series. The first two weren't perfect by any means, but they were at least funny and light on their feet where this one quickly wears out its welcome. It's a huge shame, because this series was exactly what I was looking for when I wanted to have a few laughs during my commute. One definite bright side is that Luke Daniels continues to bring his A-game as narrator. Also, I occasionally enjoyed the last quarter or so after gritting my teeth and slogging through the fairly dire middle.
I think the only reasons I made it through this installment in the series are because I wanted to know what happened to the characters and the fact that I received a review copy. Unfortunately, one of the first big changes in An Unwelcome Quest is that the events take place almost entirely in the magical world instead of jumping back and forth between modern times and the past. This means that treasury agents Murph and Miller don't even appear during the story. Their presence is sorely missed. Meyer also splits up his cast of heroes into two groups, with Martin - the main character in the earlier books - relegated to a supporting role in an ensemble.
The book opens with Todd, a psychotic ex-wizard, escaping from prison. He kidnaps half of the characters and forces them to run through a badly designed RPG campaign. When Martin and the remaining wizards realize their friends are missing, they rush to the rescue and run through the same campaign in slightly different ways. Both sets of wizards bicker endlessly at every turn, and the effect is more sour than funny. It doesn't help that Meyer includes constant explanations and recaps at every turn, in case you weren't paying attention during the previous chapter. This repeats ad nauseam.
There is also a running joke that all the enemies in the game have the same basic attack pattern, which does nothing but undermine the already very low stakes. In fact, the villain explicitly the wizards that the obstacles they face will only annoy them without actually killing them until they reach the climax. That final sequence is basically the only part of the book where it feels like the characters are in even mild danger.
In the end, An Unwelcome Quest feels like an over-padded novella. There are entertaining moments here and there, and I did actually laugh out loud a few times. Unfortunately, getting to those good parts required slogging through a lot of tedium and redundancy. I might be willing to read another book in this series if Meyer somehow course-corrects, but it'll take some pretty glowing reviews to convince me. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I enjoyed it enough to buy the rest of the series to read. [I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.]
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A nice addition to the series. Meyers is good at throwing the characters into new situations to stop the series becoming stale. The charachters are a bit 2 dimensional but there is just enough depth and growth to keep the story moving.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I think this is the best Magic 2.0 story yet. The intrepid magicians who discovered a computer program that lets them do practically anything they want have been captured by a former apprentice they had banished for his unethical applications of the program. Todd was Gary's apprentice, who used the file to torture the villagers in the past where most of the people collected themselves to enjoy the fruits of their magical labors. He was banished to a high security prison in Florida after being made computer safe...or so they thought.
Thus begins the latest saga of our friends, Martin, Phillip, Gwen, Brit, Gary, and Jimmy/Merlin (But Jimmy's not really a friend). Along with others, they are caught in Todd's manipulation of the mysterious file. They must complete a quest that is life threatening and do it without the powers they had grown so accustomed to using to make their lives cushy. Sharp humor, cultural references, geek nods abound. There's a Star Trek movie joke that made me laugh out loud (You'll know it when you see it).
They must complete a quest that Todd has created to wreak his revenge on those he blames the most for his punishment. The trouble is, he's not very creative, and the perils they must face, though truly deadly, have a predictability that are mostly surmountable. Todd's not very happy about this. He's going to take care of them one way or another. I think Scott Meyer did a great job this round and you won't be disappointed if you enjoyed the first two books.
I received an advance copy though Netgalley.