Good Book: ‘Her Majesty’s Wizard’ by Christopher Stasheff
Have I read it recently? Sort of
This book has one of the best (in my opinion, of course) alternate world premises I’ve read so far. It’s quite clever and unique. On the flip side, this does have one characteristic which may put off a lot of you… I’m going to present the two things separately and in the aforementioned order, and you can do what you will!
The protagonist is a PhD student in college, his dissertation deadline looming ominously. You aren’t told what his PhD is in (or I’ve forgotten), but it’s most likely history or literature. He finds this little thing in runes and some unknown language, has apparently been working on translating it instead of his dissertation (tsk tsk), finally translates it and POOF. Hello alternate fantasy world! And you know the best part of this alternate fantasy world? The magic. Because magic is poetry. Yes, that’s right, reciting poetry grants you the power to manipulate the forces of magic at will. I thought it was a fascinating concept when I first read it, and after several rereads and years since then I still think it’s a fascinating concept.
Anyway, the rest of the story is a nice mix of high fantasy, sword and sorcery, and Stasheff’s taste for mixing the modern and the medieval. With, that is, one addition. I tend to forget this, but Her Majesty’s Wizard is quite… heavy-handed on the Christian morality. Roman Catholic, really, minus much of the hierarchical administrative aspect. That’s partly due to… well, story/world related things. So if for some reason you absolutely despise that sort of thing, then you’ll probably not enjoy this. If you merely dislike it, read it anyway because the rest of the story is pretty awesome. If you like it, well then why do I need to make excuses for you?!
Oh, and there’s a dragon.
I don’t mind books full of Christian morality (duh), but it’s hard to read preachy stories. I mean, if I want a sermon, I can get much better material than your crappy story, Mr. Author! Starting with the Bible itself! So stop preaching at me and tell your story already, will you? Oh, you don’t have a story, just a very badly disguised, weak sermon? I’m sorry, then, good-bye. I’ve got real stories to read (and real, sound sermons, too). #aargh
So, I wonder what exactly do you mean? I don’t mind it being Catholic at all (Chesterton has something bad to say about Calvinists every other paragraph, and I still think he’s awesome), but I don’t think I can handle a preachy book, especially after knowing how great the story could’ve been.
Hm, I shouldn’t have posted it without rereading. Well, whatever. We can miscommunicate over Twitter later ;)