Sufficiently Advanced Magic

Sufficiently Advanced Magic

2017 • 625 pages

Ratings70

Average rating3.9

15

Surprise surprise, I will be controversial again. This book is bad. I'm about 2/3 in and it's just not worth this time I wasted on it already.

Here we have our people who get magical powers from a goddess if they complete puzzles in a tower. Corin's brother went in, never came out, so... yeah. Corin wants to go in and find him. He goes in, gets entry level power, goes to magic uni to level up to go back in to find him.

This thing is fucking LONG, man. Not even justified long, because it can be that way without feeling like a bogged down crawl though molasses. Here it just looks like no editor was ever found, which sucks, one could have probably broken out the red pen of doom and carved out huge chunks of unneeded stuff. Now what are these unneded things?
Corin is a magical version of some sort of an engineer, okay? He makes magical items. He also narrates the book, so it means we have to read him thinking about shit. Not interesting stuff. Like how to make basic level items that he doesn't really know how to, so it means endless brainstorms of shit that he will probably not make.
What is worse, every time he finds a goal... it just gets disovered he will need to do 75 other shit before he gets to it. Not kidding. To get to his brother he needs to get to the tower, get little power, get to uni, build items, build items for his buddies, but for that he needs mana, but he has very little, he needs crystals, but those cost cash, so he needs to learn to make crystals to make times, to sell, to get cash, to get more supplies, to make the better items for team, to get to exams, to get points, to get into elite dorm, to get better supplies, to get more points, to get to elite military, to get to tower, to get to brother... (spoiler, he is only been to school in less than aa semester, we are nowhere near)
Why the fuck am I doing this to myself, people? Kill me. Just take me out and kill me.
The nonsensical story structure and world building doesn't end here. The power levels have like aa gaillion rating systems. Like depending on what class he is, where on his body his mark is, then mana levels, then rated in gemstone names, all gemstone levels also rated by letters. Fucking why? Oh, also, classes can kinda do the same things with different technique, so more mumdo-jumbo.

By now you probably get why this is slow. So much useless information you have to exactly learn or you won't get shit. By the way, people can work above their level, as I said classes kinda merge in some ways, so it all means. Thanks.
I sound salty becuse I am.

And now let me talk about Corin, this cardboard idiot. Imagine a character who is probably a shitty robot, masquerading as a person, but is failing. That's right. It's him.
His personality is awkward. I am convinced the author is trying to write a protagonist with autism (engineer type with autism, so original), but this was just uncomfortable. Corin is absolutely oblivious to everything in life. In their society they have nobility and peasants and it took him 17 years to realise it means.... read carefully now, I will go deep... that they are not all treated equal. LE GASP? He also benevolently concedes that it's WRONG. I'm baffled.
Oh, also, Corin, our resident genius is even worse. Beatin C3PO in the robotic department our dude excells. He never cares about dating nobody. Doesn't even really cares. Then a dude asks him out and in the span of 2 seconds he realises he is gay. A dude he didn't even think about or care about at all. He didn't even really properly LOOKED at him. BTW, other dude is also a pseudo-Asian foreigner royalty from an enemy country for maximum angst-possibility points.
Why are you fucking useless, Corin? Why? What comes next?

Other than it being a retarded way of making a character behave, how far can we go from subtlety? Yes, the dad dislikes how Corin is not in the family battlemage business, but he himself likes this. We got the message of being yourself and not worrying about others' expectations. We don't have to literally check all the “different” boxes that exist. I “can't wait” for him confronting his dad about “yes, I am a family disgrace, who is autistic, besties with peasants, gay, literally fucking someone from a country that will inevitably attak us”. No cheese, please. (I am 100% sure his bro is alive btw, wonder what he can be hiding after THIS. He's probably a weed-smoking communist furry, none of which dad would like, prolly. I hope he has nipple piercings and a soul patch.)

Everyone loves this, but to me it was misery. Impractical choices, “how are you even alive?” characters, a worldbuilding that reads like I'm trying to learn the wikia of some RPG by heart, slooooooooow.
I don't recommend it, I won't continue, I probably won't try another series by the author. Just leave me alone now.

Good night and let me leave this tower of terror!

June 29, 2018Report this review