Battle of the Linguist Mages

By: Scotto Moore

Narrated by: Justis Bolding

Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

In modern-day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire. Isobel is the queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game Sparkle Dungeon. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes" - unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when skillfully pronounced. But Isobel’s reputation makes her the target of a strange resistance movement led by spellcasting anarchists, who may be the only thing stopping the cabal from toppling California over the edge of a terrible transformation, with 40 million lives at stake.

Time is short for Isobel to level up and choose a side - because the cabal has attracted much bigger and weirder enemies than the anarchist resistance, emerging from dark and vicious dimensions of reality and heading straight for planet Earth!

©2022 Scotto Moore (P)2022 Recorded Books

Overly cute and derivative

If you have never read Ready Player One this book will be a little easier to listen to but there isn’t enough new material here to make it worth the time.

Tons of fun

I had a blast with this book! It felt like injecting glitter and cotton candy in my veins. It's fast, idea dense, clever, snarky, and tons of fun.

Good overall

I really wanted to give this 5 stars but the last few hours of the book seemed to drag on with unnecessary complications that are never fully resolved. Still, the book is a lot of fun.

Fun, clever, snarky, and maybe not for everyone

I _loved_ this book. It was pure catnip (and X‽) from about three sentences in. Wordplay, semantics, snark, and glorious typography. Memes, and music, and linguistics, and some deeply weird ideas. Plus a VR-based MMO that's well enough described, it sounds like a hit game in real life. If you think "Ready Player One", but add...well, a lot of weird fun (yes, more than RPO), and aliens, and a reality eating monster, and lots and lots of glitter, you're in the ballpark.

This book has what might be my favorite two sentence line in any novel, when a certain, ahem, character introduces itself. However, it contains both spoilers and profanity, so I won't repeat it here. I don't want to get hit with Takedown Notice.

It's not for everyone. Read the reviews here, and see if you "identify" with any of the folks making comments, you'll find your level. If it's not your thing, give it a pass. But if you give it a chapter or two, and it clicks, it's going to really, really click.

Is it perfect? No. Is it maybe too long, and could have used some tightening up in editing? Well, I'd say the same thing about "Order of the Phoenix". No one hits every shot. But a lot of them _do_ land here, and if they land for you, you're going to have a blast listening to this story.

I hate to give short shrift to the narrator's performance, but they were _perfection_ for this novel. Clearly distinct voices for the various characters, and an absolutely sublime vocal combination of glitter, cotton candy, and snark for the main character's voice. [chef's kiss emoji]

Ridiculous and far too woke for me

While I was lured in with the "linguist" part, It felt as if the story tried too hard to be unique, different, and woke. It (over)reached for too many novel ideas and just became outlandish. The constant attention to gayness and pronouns was distracting and overindulgent.

Lost interest before finishing

I still have about 5 hours to go and find I just don't want to listen to this anymore and it has gotten so strange I don't really care how it ends. The narrator is fine, it's the story that has gotten too strange to enjoy.

Way too long

This should have been half as long. I was practically banging my head against the wall getting through the second half. Just goes on and on and on.

Heavy Handed?!

Imaginative YA action fantasy dulled by heavy handed, tedious and repetitive preaching from a southpaw?! The choir will love it?!

1/3 Really Good, 2/3 Boring

Parts of this book were really good. The concept is definitely unique - well, it borrows from several other ideas but combines them in a truly new way. If you are looking for books that are true to the liberal mindset, this is your book! It has almost all female characters, features heavily on pronouns, and makes certain to touch on all the bases. The main idea is that humans have figured out that language can be used to manipulate reality which leads to some really amazing new skills. It mergers the idea of video games/virtual reality with melting away reality until the two essentially become one. Saying more would lead to spoilers. I did enjoy the performance of the narrator quite a lot. Parts of this book were really intense and I could not tear myself away. However, about 2/3 of the time it seemed to really drag and I found myself often asking, "Why do I care?"

In short - if you have some extra credits, give it a listen.