Sorcerer

Dear Spellbook, Volume One

By: Peter J. Lee

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Hello stranger, my name is Tal, and I’m not an adventurer—those people are crazy. I’m just a sorcerer who is masquerading as a wizard. Oh, and I’m searching for answers about my parents’ mysterious deaths. Also monsters and other foes seem to show up wherever I go.

All right, I see it.

My new traveling companions are seasoned adventurers and are teaching me their ways—or at least they were before something happened to Time.

The same day is repeating itself over and over, and I’m the only one aware of the resets. If I ever want to get past this day—and the horrific hangover it always starts with—I’ll need to find a way out by myself.

It turns out there are mysteries aplenty to unravel in this remote forest town of Crossroads, where I’m living the same day over and over. But my most vital resource might already be in my possession. My previously useless Spellbook is starting to exhibit some very strange abilities, and they could be just what I need in my quest to escape this temporal prison.

This is my story. My diary of sorts. Don’t judge too harshly, I had a rough day.

©2023 Peter J Lee (P)2023 Portal Books

More DnD then the DnD movie! You should read this.

It low key is more DnD (or what ever your TTRPG of choices is) then the new DnD move.

Its a time loop story that dose not start with someone screaming good morning. Even better the loop is varied and relatively short with events from before the loop starts thrown in to mix it up. It honestly gave me big vibes from Stargate SG-1's time loop episode and from The Adventure Zone (DnD podcast) time loop arc The Eleventh Hour.

Zero stat block clutter

The MC is likeable though spends a GREAT deal of time stuck in his own head.

It is a solid sword and board entry in to Progression Fantasy and should be celebrated.

Great

I really liked this book. It had a good balance of world building, mystery and humor. I liked the other characters a lot as well although I wish they had a bit more page time.

Looking forward to the sequel!

Finished in 4 days. Which is near "can't put it down" territory. The 12 hours went by fast, as the author did well keeping it interesting with a good mix of lore, action, dialogue, and character development. The lead characters have distinct personalities, which Travis did great portraying. I'd recommend this to any fantasy addict.

It’s good

Good time loop book with a progression system I like, wish the ending was different but will definitely get the next one.

Least annoying time-loop book I’ve listened to…

This book was a surprise. I normally approach time-loop books with trepidation. This is because the vast majority of them eventually devolve into frustrating outlandishness due to the corner the author writes themselves into, or they just get really boring.

To be honest it was only because Travis Baldree was the narrator that I took the chance. On the whole this is a well written and interesting audiobook. It’s definitely worth the credit if you are into the S & S genre. That said I have two complaints: The first is that, while the jumping around from pre-loop backstory to “current” loop plotting is a big part of why the story stays interesting, the way this back and forth is written will be confusing for listeners who are not fully engaged.

With audiobooks most of us are listening while performing some other task, and in this case it’s very easy to suddenly realize you have no idea when or where the action is taking place due to the abruptness of the narrative bouncing around. My second complaint is the ending of this book…

The ending comes out of nowhere. It’s as if the book had anywhere from an hour to 15 hours left, and the author just arbitrarily dropped their pen at the end of a random chapter. At the very least they should have written an epilogue or afterward. As it stands now the ending leaves the reader/listener feeling particularly unfulfilled.

In spite of all this I did find this book unique and compelling in a number of ways, and I think it is worth the credit. I am looking forward to the next installment.

Exceptional

This book has an intelligent protagonist that uses their head and isn’t obscenely overpowered from the get go. Combined with the phenomenal narration I eagerly await the next book.

Review

I’ll keep this review simple, the downside to this audible series it is it starts off very slow. There is action there is a good universe, but the main character is the biggest issue. I like the idea with the ability to reverse time. Let’s just say took a while for the main character to actually start taking advantage of this ability. Because of this makes the series kind of slow. But apart from that, the universe is very unique great supporting characters. It might not be for everyone.

A Time Lopp story with a nice fantasy twist

This is a fun read. I am often not the biggest fan of time loop stories because they can seem pointless and repetitive but this one avoids that trope through its novel (pun intended) perspective and interesting world building.

Am i dumb?

I can’t figure out the loop. I have no idea what is going on. Why? Just when I thought i knew what was going on, I was lost. Is this on purpose? Do things just change but we don’t know why? I still never memorized all the team names or who they are and what they do. I’m so sad. It seemed like it is going to be good. All I know is if there ain’t a summary at the start of book 2, no one is going to know what is going on. I will wait until the series is finished, redo book 1 before moving on to the rest of the series, assuming people are reporting the series is good.

Abrupt ending

Entertaining story, great narration. Cons: lots of flashbacks & switches to viewpoints of anonymous characters. Most importantly, the book just stops, with no build-up or climax. It's like this was half of a much larger book & the author just sliced it randomly in half.