By Scott Meyer
Read by Luke Daniels
Reviewed by Gabby
Get Spell or High Water here
Spell or High Water Overview:
A month has passed since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn’t be going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses, and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers.Thankfully, Martin and Philip are invited to a summit in Atlantis for all of the leaders of the time-traveler colonies, and now Martin thinks this will be a chance to try again with Gwen. Of course, this is Martin Banks we’re talking about, so murder, mystery, and high intrigue all get in the way of a guy who just wants one more shot to get the girl.
Spell or High Water Audiobook Review:
STORY
The Good:
I enjoyed hearing about the society of Atlantis, completely run by women, with man-slaves doing all the hard labour. It was an interesting idea and although the whole ‘Brit the elder’ and ‘Brit the younger’ did my head in a bit, I liked the concept of the same person from two different times occupying the same space in time. Even more interesting was the fact that the younger one hated the older one.
I liked that this time around the story had three different perspectives, so we didn’t have to focus on Martin all the time. There was Martin, then Jimmy’s perspective and then Phillips perspective. I thought that making Jimmy the bad guy again was a bit lazy on Meyers part, but it actually worked quite well and I suppose saved us from having to get to know a new character. This book is still funny, although didn’t quite get as many laughs out of me as the first one did. Ultimately, it’s not an intense, hard core sci-fi. Most of the characters are just as confused about the whole time travel thing as we are. It’s a light hearted, easy listen and perfectly enjoyable.
The Bad:
The sequel to ‘Off to be the Wizard’ just isn’t as good as it’s predecessor. Parts of it felt very rushed. We start off with Martin getting a new apprentice, which is exciting and new. But before we even learn much about his apprentice, or how everyone’s doing, Phillip and Martin just abandon him for Atlantis. Then we don’t even hear about Roy until the end of the book. Then there’s the part of agents Miller and Murphy. I think that sub-plot would have done really well with a bit of closure. Sure it potentially sets things up for a third book, but really seemed as if they just fizzled out of the story.
I found parts of this audiobook hard to listen to. Everything just became very circular and repetitive.
Martin: ‘I like Gwen’.
Gwen: ‘I’m a boring bitch’.
Phillip: ‘someone is trying to kill Brit the younger’.
Brit the Younger: ‘I hate Brit the Elder’.
Brit the Elder: ‘ you’ll understand someday’.
Jimmy: ‘I’m good at manipulating people’.
I think I honestly just summed up most of the story with that dialogue. Granted there were some funny and original moments, but I think that one of the main problems was that there wasn’t anything particularly new or exciting about Atlantis. It was just built by the computer program and all we heard about in the first book was how the computer program is used. As a listener I wanted something really new and interesting. Meyer just didn’t deliver. I couldn’t even really get into the whole ‘attempted murder’ mystery. Because it was just so dull. I never once really imagined any of the characters to be in any danger because they always seem to have magic backups and they can’t actually die in any normal sense. The plot was pretty weak and predictable. In fact, the whole thing felt like going on holiday, where you expect your hotel to be really nice and everything to be amazing and different, but when you get there, everything is much the same and you’re still bored.
Like I said before, this isn’t a hard core sci-fi. The humour and original ideas saved the last audiobook and although those things are still present here, it just wasn’t sufficient enough to make this audiobook better.
IDEAS
The Good:
Atlantis, time travel, the same person from different times occupying the same space. All great and funny and original. The whole thing with women running Atlantis I found particularly amusing. Firstly because there was still corruption and inequality in this supposed paradise. Secondly, even though the men were delegated tasks such as gardening and cooking, they were under the impression that they were still the dominant gender and the reason Atlantis was even running. The men would shy away from things such a politics, building and engineering as these were ‘women’s tasks’ and no man would be seen dead doing any such thing. It was amusing that even though Meyer reversed the stereotypical gender roles of our modern society, sexism was still rampant.
The Bad:
The whole Brit the elder and Brit the younger thing really irritated me. It was an annoying storyline that really didn’t interest me much. Certainly I liked the concept, but it would have been so much better if the two hadn’t been like bickering siblings. They never did anything interesting as a pair and only seemed to resent the fact that them being in the same room should have been physically impossible. I found both characters to be dull, shallow and pretty irritating.
Also, Atlantis. Just a big dome built by a program. That sort of ruined the setting for me a bit, because there was absolutely nothing magical or mystical about it. What could have been an amazing story about an ancient lost civilisation became very artificial. There was no sense of excitement because the place hadn’t even been hard to make! I think that sometimes the story could have benefited by making things a little more difficult for the characters. If everything wasn’t so easy then there would have been a real sense of danger and mystery.
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CHARACTERS
The Good:
Phillip is still my favourite and I also quite liked Ampix. Mostly because they both gave Martin a hard time. Phillip is witty and although his romance storyline was very predictable, I still enjoyed him. Luke Daniels did a great job of his voice. I loved that he continued to use his majestic wizards voice, consistency in narration is very important!
Ampix must be the Atlantian version of jock? The fact that he tried to copy Martin in an effort to attract Gwen was very funny, particularly since Gwen is clearly asexual and wouldn’t be attracted to Ryan Gosling even if he danced naked in front of her. Ampix had some great scenes with Martin and the antagonist, so even though he was a very minor character I still liked him a lot.
The Bad:
I still don’t like Gwen. I think part of that may be to do with the voice Daniels has chosen for her? But mostly because she’s dull and only really serves as a filler.
I’ve already mentioned the Brits and how they really were the most useless characters. I think Meyer is much better and writing men than women. The only way he can seem to write female characters is if they fit into a pre determined stereotype. (Bossy, plays hard to get, dotes on her man, whiny etc.) not only is this poor writing, but it detracts from the story. All of the characters, regardless of gender need to be strong (in the written sense) otherwise you find yourself only interested in one characters actions and perspectives.
NARRATOR
The Good:
I really like Luke Daniels and he’s gotten a lot of positive feedback on both Audible.com and Good Reads. His tone is captivating and his comedic timing is excellent. He creates a great deal of diversity between the different characters and never fails to inject a lot of personality into their voices. Jimmy is a great example of this, he sounds slimy, manipulative and little bit seedy. I thought that fit his character very well. Phillip is another good example, sounding like a wise old professor. It’s quite similar to the professor in Futurama actually!
The Bad:
Urgh. Alright so it’s not that the voices for the females in this audiobooks are bad it’s more that they didn’t increase my fondness for the already dislikable characters. Gwen is already so dull she could have done with having some life injected into her. Ida and Brit the younger sounds whiny and Brit the Elder just sounds like a school principle. Granted she didn’t have that much dialogue so Daniels didn’t have that much to work with, but still. Just because they are annoying characters it doesn’t mean their voices should be annoying!
Ultimately though, I got over the females voices. I just sort of blocked Gwen from my mind and focused on the story which made it a lot more enjoyable.
I hope you enjoyed our Spell or High Water Audiobook Review, come back soon!