Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres and the Methods of Rationality

Yes, this is Harry Potter fan-fiction. I was convinced to check this out after reading Brahm's excellent review on the full 2100+ page collection, but I didn't want to commit to that yet so this review is just for the first of six books this has been broken down into.

And I'm not sure what to think so far. Going into this, I thought this would be like an alt-history of Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts if he was raised by kind, smart parents instead of the Dursleys, but there are a lot of changes to the story that seemingly have nothing to do with that. I don't think that's a bad thing, there are a lot of interesting takes on characters here, but it took me a bit to adjust my expectations.

A lot of the book, especially the early chapters, feel like just term papers with a thin wrapping of the Harry Potter setting and characters. Harry is barely a person, he's just a mouthpiece to spout off the major tenants of the scientific process. It smooths out a bit as the end of the book neared, but at no point does Harry, or any of the other kids for that matter, feel like eleven year old students.

But I kind of started to get into a groove once I accepted the book on its own terms. The fact that this is fan-fiction helped me to think of it as sort of experimental story telling within an established playground, and it seems like the author is leaning into a lot of the over-the-top characterization to get certain ideas across.

I'm enjoying a lot of the different takes on other characters as well (Quirrel, Draco, and Dumbledore to name a few) and the story, in so much as it exists so far, is setting up some interesting possibilities, so I am certainly going to read on, but I think I need a little break from it first.