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A review by pendragyn
The Oathbound Wizard by Christopher Stasheff
1.0
Nostalgia had me borrowing this one from the library after rereading the first one and... oof. I have almost no memory of this book, because I'd blocked it out apparently. Probably in part because of the awful Abbot and Costello-esque banter between Matt and Narlh (the half dragon/half gryphon that apparently Del Ray convinced Stasheff to add to the book.)
The other reason I likely blocked this book from my memory was the characterization of Matt. It's supposed to be three years since the end of the first book, and in that time Matt hasn't learned anything about keeping his temper in check or watching what he says. He hasn't figured out more about how magic works. He has somehow become a worse person than he seemed to be in the first book, not helping people clearly in need of help for no clear reason at all, unlike how he acted in the first book. (He wasn't fitting into the amoral skeptic cliche well enough I suppose, by leaping to their rescue without some external motivation.)
The other reason I likely blocked this book from my memory was the characterization of Matt. It's supposed to be three years since the end of the first book, and in that time Matt hasn't learned anything about keeping his temper in check or watching what he says. He hasn't figured out more about how magic works. He has somehow become a worse person than he seemed to be in the first book, not helping people clearly in need of help for no clear reason at all, unlike how he acted in the first book. (He wasn't fitting into the amoral skeptic cliche well enough I suppose, by leaping to their rescue without some external motivation.)