A brief break from Emma M Lion. As you likely recall, in order to read about said Miss Lion, I had to sign up for a Kindle Unlimited trial, and going all out, I signed up for two months for $.99. So, in addition to Miss Lion's journals, I'm going to use my two months to explore other books as well. This week we have a book from an author that I have a space opera or two of his. I was curios to see what this book fantasy book of his offered.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
The Wizard's Butler by Nathan Lowell DNF 29%
Lowell is a very popular indie author. This book has a rating of 4.4 stars from over 10,000 ratings. It is a well loved and popular book. However, the eagle-eyed reader will have already noted that I wasn't captivated.
This is a cozy fantasy written before cozy fantasies became a thing. This story is set in our contemporary world. The premise is that an unemployed former Army medic, Roger, is hired as a butler to look after a rich gentleman in his mansion for one year. The gentleman in question, the wizard of the title, is showing signs of dementia and his relatives hope to ship him off to some sort of care facility after a year, and turn his mansion into millions, for themselves. They say he claims to be a wizard, but they think he's more than a little round the bend, aided by the fact that he sort of acts like he is when they're around, for some reason. But he is one, with a tribe of pixies and fairies looking after him.
At first Roger doesn't believe in the pixies that the wizard claims that keep the mansion dust free and the fairies who mow the yard, but he can't come up with a better explanation, since there is no dust in the mansion, and the lawn never needs mowing. By the time I gave up on the book, he'd come around to accepting the wizard, pixies and fairies.
However, up to that point the story was mostly a slice of life story Roger learning how to be a butler and look after the house. Other than being told about how the wizard became a wizard, not much, if anything, out of the ordinary happened. Except that once, some how the coffee tasted like vinegar coming out of the coffee maker. And whiskey disappears from a saucer left on the kitchen table. Hmm...
Lowell spends a great deal of time and words describing mundane details. A great deal of time and very mundane words. For example, he has Roger decide that he needs to learn how to cook, so Roger comes up with a plan to learn via online videos presumably on YouTube. (I highly urge you to check of Glen & Friends on YouTube if you enjoy cooking - but I digress.) However, the mansion doesn't have internet installed. A major problem. You and I would just call our local internet provider monopoly and order it up. But not so with Lowell. He has Roger contact a friend who apparently does this as a business, and then spends 7 pages (!) having his characters go over the house deciding just where to install the internet router and wires. This consultant even finds a place in Roger's butler's office where he can place his laptop computer when not in use, i.e. near a wall socket where can be charged when not in use. I kid you not. The downside is that he'll have to unplug it and carry it over to his desk to work on it. I guess extension cords are not invented in this world. And what had me shaking my head even more was that she'd even buy him a laptop from a "big box catalog" as part of the project, because, I guess, Roger apparently never had one before and wouldn't know what one to buy. This was published in 2020, mind you. No laptop, only a cell phone? Kids. I guess.
Now, I don't need a lot of action to keep my interest. Indeed, I really prefer slow-paced books. But in those cases I do need to be entertained by the writing, and the characters. In this case, I found neither entertaining. In cozy books there are almost always colorful characters to liven thing up. This is not the case here. Everyone is every bit as bland as the mundane narrative style Lowell writes in. Everything about this book is as exiting as watching grass grow or paint dry. So why this book is both very popular and highly rated? I must be missing something. But what? However, the same thing happened with that book about the junkyard and the missing maple syrup that I reviewed last year. I just don't get it. Clearly I'm clueless as to what makes books popular.
But never fear, I soldier on. Seven weeks more of Kindle Unlimited. Fingers crossed I'll find some gems. Not that I really need to. Emma is a true gem.
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