The Engineer Wizard

The Genie and the Wizard, Book 1

By: Glenn Michaels

Narrated by: Commodore James, Jordan Byrne, Bennett Cousins, Rachel Bieber, Gene Blake, Jamie B. Cline, Chris Rickabaugh, Mary Philips Dukes

Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Paul Armstead is your average American senior citizen and electrical engineer. He's 61 years old, unremarkably unattractive, and a self-proclaimed science fiction nut. He's lived the American dream in drab, typical fashion without a single noteworthy event in his rather mundane life.

So how does he end up fleeing from one end of the world to the other, dodging government dragnets; evil, nightmarish monsters known as the Oni; good wizards; bad wizards; beautiful women; spies; and wizardly spells?

Well, it is entirely the genie's fault....

©2015 Glenn Michaels (P)2015 Glenn Michaels

Hurry up with the 2nd one!

review requires twenty words. word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word word. and because I always try to do more than the bare minimum. ...word!

Love it when they have a whole cast

First, I greatly appreciate it when a cast is used to add more character to the audiobook. It always seems to make the story come alive for me. The story itself was imaginative and unfolded at a good pace that kept me listening start to finish. Literally. The hero was believably capable despite or perhaps due to the ignorance of his situation and not having anyone tell him what is and isn't possible. Without any spoilers I will say that he made me want to laugh at his ingenuity and his resourcefulness while questioning his ability to judge others intentions. Overall I thought it was highly addictive and I can't wait for the next release.

What a great production

The way in which this book was narrated is the way all books should be narrated with individual Actors playing rolls. This is more like a radio drama then it is an audiobook.. great work.

Mixed Opinion, not sure if I'll listen to Book 2

Overall I did not enjoy the story. For me, the story did not become interesting until about half way through the book. The first half is spent with main character obtaining his new wizard skills, learning how to use them and running away from the "bad guys". None of this I found of much interest. For me the story picks up when the protagonist meets Cappy....finally some human interaction and dialogue. Anywho...it picked up at the end and I am on the fence about purchasing book 2.

Very Good.

Starts off a little slow then gets better and better.
I liked the main character as a person. That allways helps.

Not a bad story

Michaels did a much better job than I could have so I can't complain. The premise was great and the story was pretty good. The dramatization was ok as well. It wasn't Sandman, by any means, but it wasn't bad. And I'm sure they had a much tighter budget, so, well done. The story gets better as you get into the book with it finally coming into its own with the addition of a romantic interest. I am looking forward to the next book. The idea of a modern scientist with the ability to manipulate the laws of physics is pretty fun. I really enjoyed how he used modern contrivances and scientific principles to completely flummox the traditional wizards. Overall, well done. As Michaels grows in his craft I'm sure the books will increase in quality. As I remember it, I didn't think too much of how the first Harry Potter book was written either. Rowling got better as she honed her skill.

Quotes are fun, how do you know if you have too much

I guess after ready player One everybody wants to put in that nostalgia feel. It’s not bad but when it’s forced it just runs the flow. How many people’s internal dialogue is nonstop movie quotes, like really? Honestly, it just took away from this story for me. When they’re at the expo it was great and lined up perfect.

Good Story, Performance ok

Any additional comments?

Not a big fan of the canned review questions, so this is it...
I liked this book and decided to get audio to listen to on the commute. The story is as entertaining an audio as expected, and i will be listening to it again. I liked the story in print and the audio is just as engaging. In fact I am monitoring the progress on the sequel.. That aside, I think they could have done a better job with voice casting. Some of the voices just do not match the character. For example 'Celeste' is suppose to be Austrian, Blond, green eyes, born 700+ years ago, and living in France, yet her accent is clearly not Austrian or French. In parts it actually sounded Indian. Just not in keeping with the character. Same with several of the other voices. Good performances, but the casting seemed off. Outside of the casting, the performance is solid and engaging.

Meh

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Long winded way of getting through the story. More brevity would have been nice.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I found the concept intriguing and thought that there were (and there are) some interesting possibilities for the story line. However, for a brand new wizard who knows little to nothing about what he is doing, his spells reflecting the lack of knowledge and the consequences that go along with that fact, to suddenly whip up an advisor(s) who just happened to have the knowledge and knowhow. Inconsistent.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narration style was more of a dramatization. Distracting. A single narrator with a range of inflection is my preferred style.

Any additional comments?

May or may not get the second book. If I need a distraction from a particular genre' (clearing the reading palette as it were), then perhaps.

Just..No

The Engineer Wizard by Glenn Michaels is the first book in The Genie and the Wizard series. This is a DNF review. After a very strenuous attempt to listen and make it though, I got to about the 1/2 way mark before deciding I just needed to move on.

It has been a very long time since I have posted a DNF review. Making it just short of the half-way mark before throwing the towel in is a big deal for me and I feel I need to speak my mind about my thoughts. After all …. that is kind of the whole point of having this review blog. So let me begin…

Paul is a 60+ year old engineer that happens upon a genie and becomes a wizard. The how and the why are probably the best part of the story and it just goes to sh*t after that. Although I can appreciate the author trying to assure the reader of Paul’s sci-fi nerdiness, I found the movie and sci-fi culture references more than over the top. I love Easter Egg references, but the full on constant quotes were just too much and too often. And for someone that is not only educated, but well read Paul still appears to be incapable of having an actual thought without quoting someone else. Very little of Paul’s own internal dialog contained original thoughts. It reminded me very much of my children when they were pre-teen. Not exactly something you would expect from a senior. Paul also seemed unable to actually problem solve anything by himself and was always seeking out the form of help in histories (some fictional) man-folk. Now we dive into the predictable “the most beautiful women EVAH” entering the scene in which he gets an insta-crush on. Again..not something you would expect from someone in their 60’s. I started to get some pulled muscles from all the eye-rolling. The author sets the scene in the beginning about what a “great guy” Paul is, but honestly I felt he was a typical man-child. The beautiful women must be good and her man-friend must be evil that needs to be stopped and obviously Einstein and Holmes would have the answer to everything….

I was really hoping to find a great read in this book, but it just didn’t work for me.

Audiobook Thoughts PNG
HOLY SOUND EFFECTS BATMAN! Why? I think this is the first audiobook I have listened to that contained sound effects. I understand the thought behind it, but my imagination is a pretty vivid thing on its own and the only thing the sound effects accomplished was distracting me from the dialog. I will say after the first 3 or 4 chapters the sound effects did calm down some. The various narrators (see the above list) seemed to do a good job narrating the story, but because I was just not diggin’ the storyline It was really quite hard to say if they accurately portrayed the voice of the story. On a more personal note one of the male narrators sounded exactly like my brother, but I think I managed to put this aside and not allow it to affect my ability to objectively view the narration.

I rate The Engineer Wizard 1 out of 5 Bullets. DNF