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A review by subplotkudzu
With a Single Spell by Lawrence Watt-Evans
3.0
As with my review of the first Ethshar novel, these are stories of young men striving tooth and claw to live ordinary, boring lives in a fantasy world that has lots of places for people to do just that, but our protagonists have to have some unusual things happen to them first.
This second volume is a little more cynical than the first (and I supposed I should have mentioned that lack of faith in humanity as being part of Watt-Evans' Mundane Fantasy tales), and not quite as pleasant, but it does provide some stronger internal mysteries for the reader to work out and all told gives a satisfying conclusion. Our hero in this one has slightly more of a character development arc - he's a nominally better person at the beginning than at the end - but that's a minor part of the tale.
It's an amusing enough way to kill an afternoon. It's not funny, or heroic, or gritty. it's quotidian, which is such a strange thing for fantasy that it deserves review.
This second volume is a little more cynical than the first (and I supposed I should have mentioned that lack of faith in humanity as being part of Watt-Evans' Mundane Fantasy tales), and not quite as pleasant, but it does provide some stronger internal mysteries for the reader to work out and all told gives a satisfying conclusion. Our hero in this one has slightly more of a character development arc - he's a nominally better person at the beginning than at the end - but that's a minor part of the tale.
It's an amusing enough way to kill an afternoon. It's not funny, or heroic, or gritty. it's quotidian, which is such a strange thing for fantasy that it deserves review.