Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is like a glass of water - refreshing , simple but colourless and tasteless . You drink it and forget it . There are 2 kinds of 2 stars ratings . One kind is when you are angry because the writer really messed up and delivered a sub par piece of writing (Jordan anybody ?) . The other is a happy rating because the book is simply worth it . The Unsuspecting Mage belongs to the second category . I have been for the first (and last) time mislead by advice on Amazon and actually bought the first 2 installements . I read both books in about 7 hours , don't really regret it but won't be buying the sequels . What are the weaknesses ? There are many but all probably originate in the fact that what we got is a transcription of an AD&D session . 1) There is no plot . Even if I wanted to give spoilers , I could not . James , a young student , crosses a door and finds himself in another world . He meets a magical character who tells him "Go to X ." and "I won't answer any questions ." . Then he disappears . So James tries to find X and gets involved in fight every couple of days (of course he always winns) . Between fights he sleeps in Inns and eats stew . Sometimes he eats sliced goat . He also drinks ale . After X he will go to Y . And after Y to Z . The places are not actually important , like in an AD&D session what is important is the travelling because it enables to set up ambushes what leads again ... to fights . 2) The fights are despairingly identical . A module of between 7 - 12 riders , brigands , thiefs , soldiers rush James . He takes out 4 or 5 with magically propelled stones (later metal slugs) while his companions hack down the rest . One almost hears a Dungeon master saying "Brigand 4 is touched by knife . Critical hit to femoral artery . He falls bleeding . Brigand 5 slashes with a sword at Miko . Miss . Your turn now James ..." 3) James is a very bad AD&D player . Example 1 : On one of his stops he goes looking for 2 missing persons (a peasant and a child) . Using a magical compass he finds their location in an abandoned ruin where supposedly a necromancer lived once - typical AD&D situation . He gets in a fight with a necromancer who turns out to be a girl from his world . Interrupting her while she is trying to summon a demon he kills her and liberates the child . Now what would every player do ? In this very intriguing situation , it seems necessary to stay at that place and to find out why this girl was there . When did she come and how . However James would not even ask the questions . He gets on his horse and rides away like if finding summoned demons and killing necromancers was as usual as eating a stew . Example 2 : James goes on an errand while his friend Miko sleeps in an Inn . Getting back to the Inn he sees Miko tied up and gagged in the bed . Of course he enters the room and gets hit on the head by a horde of brigands standing behind him . No worry , he'll escape easily by using some simple spells . Yet a good AD&D mage player would never let himself surprise so stupidly . He'd use a spell checking on unfriendly beings or alternatively leave a trap spell on the door when he has to leave his friend sleeping in an unknown and potentially hostile environment . Yet James would never think of it . Of course I understand why the author lets him to behave so stupidly - if James was never kidnapped (and boy does he get kidnapped often !) it would eliminate dozens of pages describing fights accompanying his liberation . However stupidity always irritates . 4) The worst part as far as I am concerned is the characterisation . The characters are 2 dimensional , don't evolute , have no past , no motivation or psychology . The villains are anonymous shadows whose role is to appear , slash with a sword and die Even the main hero James is a hasty sketch with whom it is hard to identify . In conclusion - if you have time and money to spend on a very simple account of a series of Ad&D modules , you will get here a refreshing and fast read that will put no stress on your little grey cells . However it is not necessary to go beyond the first book . The following will be only more of the same . En evil God using an evil Empire as a tool stands in a fight with a good God using James as his tool . Don't get concerned about the motivations - the evil God will be evil only for the fun of it and is there anyway only to provide a frame in which fights can take place . After 124 000 ambushes , kidnappings and slashings James will prevail and return home with loot , XP and several new spell levels , ready for the next session with another evil God .