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Battle of the Linguist Mages
“This is a stand-alone novel with material enough for six... By the halfway point, it had blown my mind twice... an audacious, genre-bending whirlwind.” —New York Times
“It reads like Snow Crash had a dance-off with Gideon the Ninth, in a world where language isn't a virus from outer space, it's a goddamn alien invasion.” —Charles Stross
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 skilfully 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 forty 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!
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
“It reads like Snow Crash had a dance-off with Gideon the Ninth, in a world where language isn't a virus from outer space, it's a goddamn alien invasion.” —Charles Stross
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 skilfully 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 forty 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!
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
448 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 11, 2022
204 people are currently reading
3,735 people want to read
About the author
Scotto Moore
8 books94 followersScotto Moore is the author of BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES, a science fantasy novel, and YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU, a sci-fi/horror novella, both published by Tor.com. For fourteen years, he was an active playwright in Seattle, with major productions nearly every year during that time, and 45 short plays produced during that time as well. He wrote book, lyrics, and music for the a cappella sci-fi musical SILHOUETTE, which won the 2018 Gregory Falls Award for Outstanding New Play, presented by Theatre Puget Sound. He also wrote, directed and produced three seasons of the sci-fi/comedy web series THE COFFEE TABLE; and wrote and starred in the horror/comedy play H.P. LOVECRAFT: STAND-UP COMEDIAN!
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 414 reviews
December 24, 2021
I recieved a copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts are my own
i lost 5 hours of my life reading this
A quick disclaimer that this will be a very negative review. Most people on GR seemed to have a slightly better experience than me. There will also be light spoilers later, which will be marked.
With negative reviews, I like to start with something positive. Reader, I’ve pondered for days to come up with something I liked about this book. And I couldn’t think of a single goddamn thing. I suppose, if I’m being charitable, I could say I found the plot summary interesting. But really I picked this book up because a member of my blogging group chat is a linguist and I was in the mood to be a sadist. Oh how the tables turned.
For the first couple chapters, I did find myself liking our main character, Isobel. She had a strong, very distinct (if annoyingly snarky) voice and all the signs of strong characterization. This is perhaps the first time I’ve read a book where a character loses characterization over time. What started out as a strong personality quickly turned to, ‘I say whatever the author thinks will push the plot forward, but with attitude. Also I might shit in capitalism’. Her character’s not even consistent, regularly waxing about how terrible rich people, this one politician, and capitalism are but being totally chill with working for said politician until the plot demands otherwise. The side characters were hardly better, likewise seeming to exist to fill the required roles to push a plot forward. It got to a point halfway through the book where I couldn’t differentiate between villain A, villain B, etc, with no effect on my grasp of the story.
Writing-wise, this book reads like the 80s info-dumping gush of Ready Player One but it’s sparkly EDM, clubbing crossed with all the bad US-Centric leftist takes on Twitter. Moore seems to have taken personal offense to the phrase ‘show, don’t tell’. Like Ready Player One, if you removed every reference to the Sparkleland of the Sparkle Dungeon video game and the EDM club scene, you’d probably have less than half a book remaining. And while I don’t mind the occasional infodump, especially when it contributes to the worldbuilding, the infodumps here ultimately contribute no substance or relevance to the world at large. Isobel goes off on a multi-page tangent about how the GamerGate equivalent was soundly trumped by good mods, then later on how the Empress of California had all the ICE rounded up and shot and Apple/Google/FB nationalized for UBI and it means jack shit to the plot or characters.
There’s an underlying vibe of performative fake-wokeness throughout the book (see above). If Twitter leftists wrote a book, this felt like that book. Every terrible hot take, every trending political or social topic in the last two years tries to make itself known in this book through Isobel’s inner monologue. Which is why the fact that Isobel takes 40% of the book to realize she’s not working for the “good guys” all the more confounding. Moore makes an interesting choice to have Isobel introduce each side character by explicitly listing their race and pronouns like a weird extended Twitter bio, instead of just…simply using those pronouns. To me, it reads uncomfortably tokenizing. Strong ‘men writing women’ but its ‘conservatives writing leftists’ energy. I should clarify that my goal here isn’t to make any claims about the author’s political leanings, but to simply point out my discomforts and annoyances.
There’s also the following quote (mandatory disclaimer that I read an advanced copy and that the final copy is due to change):
I am, by no means, a linguist. However, I suspect linguistics as a field requires more than shouting out alien, unpronounceable ‘morphemes’ that correlate to some otherworldly occurrence (a power morpheme, if you will). Linguistics as a conduit for magic has so much potential in a fantasy novel. The development of language through various cultures has such a rich evolution over time and I was curious to see how Moore would tap into that. The ‘linguistics’ in Battle Mage, however, felt like the author really wanted to write a book about a coding-esque combat system and dressed it over with poorly-researched linguistic terminology. By halfway through, the cast isn’t even learning words/spells anymore, they quite literally just download them into their brains. For the linguists curious, no we don’t get any further than morphemes.
Light spoilers will begin here
Well Katie, you’ve written so much about the failings of this book, but what about the plot? You know, that’s a fantastic question. And one that’s surprisingly difficult to answer. I’ll start easy. Isobel is the top of the leaderboard of a virtual reality (VR) video game called Sparkle Dungeon. She’s so good she gets recruited to become a beta tester for the next sparkle dungeon game, which quickly turns to a full-time position at an advertising firm where they have her said weird syllables. These syllables turn out to be power morphenes, that can manipulate how people think, which this advertising firm, the current governor of California, and a definitely-not-Scientology leader are going to use to manipulate people. (Isobel works for these people). Seems reasonable so far.
These power morphemes are actually the language of punctuation marks, who are aliens. The punctuation marks ….possessed humanity a long long time ago? Also they live in a place called the logosphere, which is a higher dimension housing all creative human thought. But the logosphere is being encroached upon by the punctuation marks’ alien enemy and threatening to destroy humanity. Someone’s trying to become god, video game characters are popping up in real life, power morpheme aria powered inter…galactic? dimensional? spaceships are apparently a thing, and having power morpheme induced heart-to-hearts with your enemies is also a thing and…. look at some point the what the fuck novelty factor wears off and you’re left with a book so riddled with plot holes it may as well be a plot cave system.
Isobel solves every problem she faces with a deus ex machine-fueled Sparkle Dungeon spell that just conveniently happens to perfectly solve the current dilemma (did I mention at some point the video game spells also work in real life?). If a Sparkle Dungeon spell doesn’t do the trick, that’s okay because Isobel’s ‘really good at improvising’, which lets the author get away with absolutely zero setup or any semblance of foreshadowing. I’ve read back on some of the live-blogging comments I made to my friends as I read and they’re practically incomprehensible.
Overall, I rate this book a 1/5. I enjoy complex books, I enjoy books where the author deliberately makes the worldbuilding complex or confusing, because eventually I’ll figure it out. Here, there was nothing to figure out, just a psychedelic-induced mess. This was hot garbage, but I’m 100% willing to change the rating to 5 stars if the author can hook me up with whatever he was on when writing this.
i lost 5 hours of my life reading this
A quick disclaimer that this will be a very negative review. Most people on GR seemed to have a slightly better experience than me. There will also be light spoilers later, which will be marked.
With negative reviews, I like to start with something positive. Reader, I’ve pondered for days to come up with something I liked about this book. And I couldn’t think of a single goddamn thing. I suppose, if I’m being charitable, I could say I found the plot summary interesting. But really I picked this book up because a member of my blogging group chat is a linguist and I was in the mood to be a sadist. Oh how the tables turned.
For the first couple chapters, I did find myself liking our main character, Isobel. She had a strong, very distinct (if annoyingly snarky) voice and all the signs of strong characterization. This is perhaps the first time I’ve read a book where a character loses characterization over time. What started out as a strong personality quickly turned to, ‘I say whatever the author thinks will push the plot forward, but with attitude. Also I might shit in capitalism’. Her character’s not even consistent, regularly waxing about how terrible rich people, this one politician, and capitalism are but being totally chill with working for said politician until the plot demands otherwise. The side characters were hardly better, likewise seeming to exist to fill the required roles to push a plot forward. It got to a point halfway through the book where I couldn’t differentiate between villain A, villain B, etc, with no effect on my grasp of the story.
Writing-wise, this book reads like the 80s info-dumping gush of Ready Player One but it’s sparkly EDM, clubbing crossed with all the bad US-Centric leftist takes on Twitter. Moore seems to have taken personal offense to the phrase ‘show, don’t tell’. Like Ready Player One, if you removed every reference to the Sparkleland of the Sparkle Dungeon video game and the EDM club scene, you’d probably have less than half a book remaining. And while I don’t mind the occasional infodump, especially when it contributes to the worldbuilding, the infodumps here ultimately contribute no substance or relevance to the world at large. Isobel goes off on a multi-page tangent about how the GamerGate equivalent was soundly trumped by good mods, then later on how the Empress of California had all the ICE rounded up and shot and Apple/Google/FB nationalized for UBI and it means jack shit to the plot or characters.
There’s an underlying vibe of performative fake-wokeness throughout the book (see above). If Twitter leftists wrote a book, this felt like that book. Every terrible hot take, every trending political or social topic in the last two years tries to make itself known in this book through Isobel’s inner monologue. Which is why the fact that Isobel takes 40% of the book to realize she’s not working for the “good guys” all the more confounding. Moore makes an interesting choice to have Isobel introduce each side character by explicitly listing their race and pronouns like a weird extended Twitter bio, instead of just…simply using those pronouns. To me, it reads uncomfortably tokenizing. Strong ‘men writing women’ but its ‘conservatives writing leftists’ energy. I should clarify that my goal here isn’t to make any claims about the author’s political leanings, but to simply point out my discomforts and annoyances.
There’s also the following quote (mandatory disclaimer that I read an advanced copy and that the final copy is due to change):
They don’t have full names. […] they have aliases. They didn’t have jobs, because they were busy trying to undermine capitalism.
I am, by no means, a linguist. However, I suspect linguistics as a field requires more than shouting out alien, unpronounceable ‘morphemes’ that correlate to some otherworldly occurrence (a power morpheme, if you will). Linguistics as a conduit for magic has so much potential in a fantasy novel. The development of language through various cultures has such a rich evolution over time and I was curious to see how Moore would tap into that. The ‘linguistics’ in Battle Mage, however, felt like the author really wanted to write a book about a coding-esque combat system and dressed it over with poorly-researched linguistic terminology. By halfway through, the cast isn’t even learning words/spells anymore, they quite literally just download them into their brains. For the linguists curious, no we don’t get any further than morphemes.
Light spoilers will begin here
Well Katie, you’ve written so much about the failings of this book, but what about the plot? You know, that’s a fantastic question. And one that’s surprisingly difficult to answer. I’ll start easy. Isobel is the top of the leaderboard of a virtual reality (VR) video game called Sparkle Dungeon. She’s so good she gets recruited to become a beta tester for the next sparkle dungeon game, which quickly turns to a full-time position at an advertising firm where they have her said weird syllables. These syllables turn out to be power morphenes, that can manipulate how people think, which this advertising firm, the current governor of California, and a definitely-not-Scientology leader are going to use to manipulate people. (Isobel works for these people). Seems reasonable so far.
These power morphemes are actually the language of punctuation marks, who are aliens. The punctuation marks ….possessed humanity a long long time ago? Also they live in a place called the logosphere, which is a higher dimension housing all creative human thought. But the logosphere is being encroached upon by the punctuation marks’ alien enemy and threatening to destroy humanity. Someone’s trying to become god, video game characters are popping up in real life, power morpheme aria powered inter…galactic? dimensional? spaceships are apparently a thing, and having power morpheme induced heart-to-hearts with your enemies is also a thing and…. look at some point the what the fuck novelty factor wears off and you’re left with a book so riddled with plot holes it may as well be a plot cave system.
Isobel solves every problem she faces with a deus ex machine-fueled Sparkle Dungeon spell that just conveniently happens to perfectly solve the current dilemma (did I mention at some point the video game spells also work in real life?). If a Sparkle Dungeon spell doesn’t do the trick, that’s okay because Isobel’s ‘really good at improvising’, which lets the author get away with absolutely zero setup or any semblance of foreshadowing. I’ve read back on some of the live-blogging comments I made to my friends as I read and they’re practically incomprehensible.
Overall, I rate this book a 1/5. I enjoy complex books, I enjoy books where the author deliberately makes the worldbuilding complex or confusing, because eventually I’ll figure it out. Here, there was nothing to figure out, just a psychedelic-induced mess. This was hot garbage, but I’m 100% willing to change the rating to 5 stars if the author can hook me up with whatever he was on when writing this.
Read
November 22, 2021First off, the title intrigues. How could I not want to read this book? And I'm a big fan of vocalized magic systems (I'm sure there's a better name for that) where sounds are the basis for creation/destruction/etc. One of my fave elements of Dune is that Paul's name becomes a killing word, and if you haven't read the excellent and criminally underrated Vita Nostra and linguistics interests you at all, remedy that now. So the concept behind this book is one of my favorites.
Unfortunately, this book is mostly concept. Big idea stuff reliant on info dumping and mologuing in order to convey complex ideas to the reader. Lots of summations of action that I would have liked to have seen on the page. And the characters themselves are generally cyphers that I could not keep straight or remember who was who from chapter to chapter. They just did not feel like real people to me. Which is a bit surprising because the first 50 pages of the book are very voicy and I thought I was in for a great ride. Alas, it doesn't hold. Overall, the characterization really falls short, as character decisions tend to support plot points, not human emotion or thought, and people's motivations are just confusing and inconsistent.
That is not to say this book is not interesting, and the plot was solid enough even if it was predictable and the ideas themselves are truly cool. So, if you read books for ideas and not an emotional journey, this book might work just fine for you. Some of it is funny and very clever, although it veers into twee on occasion. If you liked Ready, Player One, you might dig this. Alas, not my cup of tea.
Unfortunately, this book is mostly concept. Big idea stuff reliant on info dumping and mologuing in order to convey complex ideas to the reader. Lots of summations of action that I would have liked to have seen on the page. And the characters themselves are generally cyphers that I could not keep straight or remember who was who from chapter to chapter. They just did not feel like real people to me. Which is a bit surprising because the first 50 pages of the book are very voicy and I thought I was in for a great ride. Alas, it doesn't hold. Overall, the characterization really falls short, as character decisions tend to support plot points, not human emotion or thought, and people's motivations are just confusing and inconsistent.
That is not to say this book is not interesting, and the plot was solid enough even if it was predictable and the ideas themselves are truly cool. So, if you read books for ideas and not an emotional journey, this book might work just fine for you. Some of it is funny and very clever, although it veers into twee on occasion. If you liked Ready, Player One, you might dig this. Alas, not my cup of tea.
January 30, 2022
2 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2022/01/27/...
Strange and weird does not even begin to describe this one. I really enjoyed Scotto Moore’s last offering, the novella Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, and thus looked forward to Battle of the Linguist Mages with great excitement. But it appears shorter form may be the author’s forte.
Describing the premise is also going to tough, because I felt the story was only mostly coherent for the first half. The book follows Isobel, who is the self-proclaimed Queen of Sparkle Dungeon, a virtual reality game. She’s great at player her character, a magic user that uses her voice to cast spells, making her the ideal candidate for Sparkle Dungeon’s development team to test a new game.
But during her time testing, Isobel discovers that the agency is actually researching real magic—using “power morphemes” or complex syllables spoken in a certain way that will compel others who hear them to do whatever the caster wants. All this is made possible by extra-terrestrial punctuation marks, and yes, here’s where the story kind of fell apart for me.
With her new powers, though, Isobel rebels against her handlers as she learns more about their dastardly plans. Joined by her predecessor Maddy, they take their fight to the Governor of California herself, a linguist mage planning to use her abilities to turn the country into her own personal empire.
Where do I even begin with this? I suppose the first half of the book was pretty solid. As you could imagine, I was quite intrigued with the gaming angle, and Isobel, being an avid gamer, seemed like my kind of people. A little obsessed with Sparkle Dungeon, to be sure, but I admired her enthusiasm, her confidence, and strong voice.
The ideas in this novel were also interesting and unique. I don’t think anyone could disagree there. A magic system based on vocalization is something I can’t say I’ve come across before, and I enjoyed the way Moore conceptualized it. And then there are the more eccentric elements of the story, and while Battle of the Linguist Mages started to lose me here, there’s no denying it’s all pretty wild.
But unfortunately, that’s really all I can say was positive about my experience with the book. I do think as the ideas got more and more out there, the author started to lose his handle on the plot and the main character’s direction. As the story descended into more madness and surreal territory, my connection to it also started unraveling, and it became difficult to really feel for Isobel or any of the people around her. Gradually they became caricatures, as silly and nonsensical as everything else happening around them.
It’s a humorous novel at its heart, I suppose, but quite honestly, I felt its cleverness and wit had run its course somewhere in the first one hundred pages. I had just enough patience to finish the book, but I’d be lying if I said it was a pleasure or that I wasn’t struggling close to the end.
Overall, if you like your speculative fiction full of crazy and wild ideas, you might have fun with Battle of the Linguist Mages, but personally I would recommend picking up Scotto Moore’s Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You where you can still get your mind blown while having a much more enjoyable and entertaining time. I just think this one went on far longer than it needed to, and the more it went on, the more things fell apart, and ultimately, the story became something that really wasn’t my cup of tea at all.
Strange and weird does not even begin to describe this one. I really enjoyed Scotto Moore’s last offering, the novella Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, and thus looked forward to Battle of the Linguist Mages with great excitement. But it appears shorter form may be the author’s forte.
Describing the premise is also going to tough, because I felt the story was only mostly coherent for the first half. The book follows Isobel, who is the self-proclaimed Queen of Sparkle Dungeon, a virtual reality game. She’s great at player her character, a magic user that uses her voice to cast spells, making her the ideal candidate for Sparkle Dungeon’s development team to test a new game.
But during her time testing, Isobel discovers that the agency is actually researching real magic—using “power morphemes” or complex syllables spoken in a certain way that will compel others who hear them to do whatever the caster wants. All this is made possible by extra-terrestrial punctuation marks, and yes, here’s where the story kind of fell apart for me.
With her new powers, though, Isobel rebels against her handlers as she learns more about their dastardly plans. Joined by her predecessor Maddy, they take their fight to the Governor of California herself, a linguist mage planning to use her abilities to turn the country into her own personal empire.
Where do I even begin with this? I suppose the first half of the book was pretty solid. As you could imagine, I was quite intrigued with the gaming angle, and Isobel, being an avid gamer, seemed like my kind of people. A little obsessed with Sparkle Dungeon, to be sure, but I admired her enthusiasm, her confidence, and strong voice.
The ideas in this novel were also interesting and unique. I don’t think anyone could disagree there. A magic system based on vocalization is something I can’t say I’ve come across before, and I enjoyed the way Moore conceptualized it. And then there are the more eccentric elements of the story, and while Battle of the Linguist Mages started to lose me here, there’s no denying it’s all pretty wild.
But unfortunately, that’s really all I can say was positive about my experience with the book. I do think as the ideas got more and more out there, the author started to lose his handle on the plot and the main character’s direction. As the story descended into more madness and surreal territory, my connection to it also started unraveling, and it became difficult to really feel for Isobel or any of the people around her. Gradually they became caricatures, as silly and nonsensical as everything else happening around them.
It’s a humorous novel at its heart, I suppose, but quite honestly, I felt its cleverness and wit had run its course somewhere in the first one hundred pages. I had just enough patience to finish the book, but I’d be lying if I said it was a pleasure or that I wasn’t struggling close to the end.
Overall, if you like your speculative fiction full of crazy and wild ideas, you might have fun with Battle of the Linguist Mages, but personally I would recommend picking up Scotto Moore’s Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You where you can still get your mind blown while having a much more enjoyable and entertaining time. I just think this one went on far longer than it needed to, and the more it went on, the more things fell apart, and ultimately, the story became something that really wasn’t my cup of tea at all.
January 12, 2022
On my blog.
Rep: lesbian mc, sapphic li, nonbinary side character
Audio galley provided by publisher
Do you ever read a book that’s so utterly nuts, you have no real way of describing what you have just read? No words I choose could ever convey just how utterly insane this book was. I don’t even know how to go about thinking about it.
Let me attempt—most likely in vain—to give you some idea of what this book is about. First of all, there is a video game. Our protagonist, Isobel, is the undisputed champion at this video game, so much so that she is dubbed the Queen. And then this video game, in ways that remain inexplicable to me, starts to spill over into real life. That and there is the discovery of a shadowy group of people learning magic and manipulating everything.
Honestly, a lot of this book I am still really not clear on and ended up just going with the flow.
Which is possibly my first point: as much as I don’t mind not getting everything and just going with the flow, perhaps at times it was too much here. Like, I came out of this book with only a vague idea of what I had just read and that’s really bare bones vague. Granted, this could be that I wasn’t paying enough attention to this one. That’s entirely possible. However, even then, surely I shouldn’t come out of it with so little an idea as to what happened that I couldn’t even begin to explain it?
I will grant, though, that this concept alone is wild, so obviously the book is going to be as wild to accommodate it. And it was, genuinely, nuts. It was as though the author said, “well why can’t this happen” to every seemingly impossible thing. Which is energy I can respect, truly, even if it makes for an occasionally incoherent world. It was that energy that kept me reading this one, even as I got more and more confused.
Because, world and plot aside, the rest of this book is somewhat forgettable (although to what extent I will remember the plot at all, let alone in detail, remains to be seen). The characters were just not that compelling. I couldn’t even tell you much about them. Not to mention the entire thing gave off a “haha look aren’t I funny” tone, without actually being that funny, barring a couple of points.
A quick note on the audiobook too before I close, since that was the format of this ARC: I actually quit listening to it after less than 10% and picked up an ebook to finish off this one because, seriously, they couldn’t have picked a more irritating narrator for me. A lot of what I find irritating about narrators is things they cannot change, basically amounting to how their voice sounds, and how it sounds sped up to 3x normal speed. Here, I just found the narrator’s voice too annoying and the way they read almost a snail’s pace at normal speed. And even when I sped it up to 3x, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get past the irritation of her voice. (Apologies to the narrator, of course, for being so easily annoyed, but that switch to ebook probably made this book a 3 star read and not a 2 star one.)
So. On the whole, I would recommend this book. I’d just suggest you pay a bit more attention to it all than I did.
Rep: lesbian mc, sapphic li, nonbinary side character
Audio galley provided by publisher
Do you ever read a book that’s so utterly nuts, you have no real way of describing what you have just read? No words I choose could ever convey just how utterly insane this book was. I don’t even know how to go about thinking about it.
Let me attempt—most likely in vain—to give you some idea of what this book is about. First of all, there is a video game. Our protagonist, Isobel, is the undisputed champion at this video game, so much so that she is dubbed the Queen. And then this video game, in ways that remain inexplicable to me, starts to spill over into real life. That and there is the discovery of a shadowy group of people learning magic and manipulating everything.
Honestly, a lot of this book I am still really not clear on and ended up just going with the flow.
Which is possibly my first point: as much as I don’t mind not getting everything and just going with the flow, perhaps at times it was too much here. Like, I came out of this book with only a vague idea of what I had just read and that’s really bare bones vague. Granted, this could be that I wasn’t paying enough attention to this one. That’s entirely possible. However, even then, surely I shouldn’t come out of it with so little an idea as to what happened that I couldn’t even begin to explain it?
I will grant, though, that this concept alone is wild, so obviously the book is going to be as wild to accommodate it. And it was, genuinely, nuts. It was as though the author said, “well why can’t this happen” to every seemingly impossible thing. Which is energy I can respect, truly, even if it makes for an occasionally incoherent world. It was that energy that kept me reading this one, even as I got more and more confused.
Because, world and plot aside, the rest of this book is somewhat forgettable (although to what extent I will remember the plot at all, let alone in detail, remains to be seen). The characters were just not that compelling. I couldn’t even tell you much about them. Not to mention the entire thing gave off a “haha look aren’t I funny” tone, without actually being that funny, barring a couple of points.
A quick note on the audiobook too before I close, since that was the format of this ARC: I actually quit listening to it after less than 10% and picked up an ebook to finish off this one because, seriously, they couldn’t have picked a more irritating narrator for me. A lot of what I find irritating about narrators is things they cannot change, basically amounting to how their voice sounds, and how it sounds sped up to 3x normal speed. Here, I just found the narrator’s voice too annoying and the way they read almost a snail’s pace at normal speed. And even when I sped it up to 3x, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get past the irritation of her voice. (Apologies to the narrator, of course, for being so easily annoyed, but that switch to ebook probably made this book a 3 star read and not a 2 star one.)
So. On the whole, I would recommend this book. I’d just suggest you pay a bit more attention to it all than I did.
February 13, 2022
"Except of course that I had no fucking idea what the power morphemes actually "meant" and generally felt like I was speaking some ancient Martian language that was once fluently spoken by aliens born with five sets of vocal chords."
Jesus, where do I even start with this one? Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge but I wish I'd never requested it in the first place. The only reason I pushed through to the last page was because I requested it, and I was so excited to read it because the word "linguists" is on the cover, and I've been starved for linguists and translators as main characters since "Arrival'. Well. Disappointment doesn't begin to cover it.
It's so upsettingly bad. Every single character sounds the same, with the forced slang, the forced pop-culture references, forced mentions of the terminology crafted for the game-within-the-book. The references really were jarring. This book came out a few weeks ago and it already feels dated.
Then there's the matter of character introductions. Someone in another review mentioned it feels almost mocking of diversity in literature and for the rest of the time I was reading this I kept wondering if they were right. It was the same formula for everyone. "(Name) is (race), (pronouns), (general description of clothing or facial expression)'. And it lost its value pretty quickly since bar maybe two or three characters everyone is introduced as white.
Isobel is an annoying protagonist. And sure, a protagonist doesn't have to be likeable to be good. But she's just annoying. Everything about her - from her dialogue (though like i already said, nearly every character speaks the exact same way) to her characteristics. She breaks her NDA within hours of signing one to a person online whom she doesn't even know outside of the game. She's an "excellet strategist" yet every plan she comes up with falls apart within two paragraphs. Her internal monologue is annoying and overflooded with meaningless references or lingo that /tried/ to appear like it was Hip and Cool With the Kids yet failed miserably.
The sapphic romance was the saving grace and the enemies-to-lovers progression felt fine pacing-wise, but their love confessions got brushed aside so easily, it felt like it held virtually no meaning to Isobel.
The plot was a convoluted mess. I just realised that I've completely forgotten the whole plot with the weird scientology-esque cult. It tried to do a million things at once. It's about the game, then it's about the power morphemes, then it's about the cult, then it's about the power morphemes again, then it's about the end of all things. I stopped keeping track of what was in the logoverse and what was in the real world because, frankly, I stopped caring early on.
The first chapter felt like maybe it could be fun and whimsical. It ended up a strangely juvenile mess that tries too hard to be funny and not enough to be a coherent story.
Jesus, where do I even start with this one? Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge but I wish I'd never requested it in the first place. The only reason I pushed through to the last page was because I requested it, and I was so excited to read it because the word "linguists" is on the cover, and I've been starved for linguists and translators as main characters since "Arrival'. Well. Disappointment doesn't begin to cover it.
It's so upsettingly bad. Every single character sounds the same, with the forced slang, the forced pop-culture references, forced mentions of the terminology crafted for the game-within-the-book. The references really were jarring. This book came out a few weeks ago and it already feels dated.
Then there's the matter of character introductions. Someone in another review mentioned it feels almost mocking of diversity in literature and for the rest of the time I was reading this I kept wondering if they were right. It was the same formula for everyone. "(Name) is (race), (pronouns), (general description of clothing or facial expression)'. And it lost its value pretty quickly since bar maybe two or three characters everyone is introduced as white.
Isobel is an annoying protagonist. And sure, a protagonist doesn't have to be likeable to be good. But she's just annoying. Everything about her - from her dialogue (though like i already said, nearly every character speaks the exact same way) to her characteristics. She breaks her NDA within hours of signing one to a person online whom she doesn't even know outside of the game. She's an "excellet strategist" yet every plan she comes up with falls apart within two paragraphs. Her internal monologue is annoying and overflooded with meaningless references or lingo that /tried/ to appear like it was Hip and Cool With the Kids yet failed miserably.
The sapphic romance was the saving grace and the enemies-to-lovers progression felt fine pacing-wise, but their love confessions got brushed aside so easily, it felt like it held virtually no meaning to Isobel.
The plot was a convoluted mess. I just realised that I've completely forgotten the whole plot with the weird scientology-esque cult. It tried to do a million things at once. It's about the game, then it's about the power morphemes, then it's about the cult, then it's about the power morphemes again, then it's about the end of all things. I stopped keeping track of what was in the logoverse and what was in the real world because, frankly, I stopped caring early on.
The first chapter felt like maybe it could be fun and whimsical. It ended up a strangely juvenile mess that tries too hard to be funny and not enough to be a coherent story.
November 16, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eArc in exchange for an honest review!
Firstly, when I heard about linguistics and video games being combined in one book, I was overjoyed. As a linguistic major who uses games to teach language, this is exactly what I wanted to read. However, I have mixed feelings about this book.
Let's start with the positives. The immediate atmosphere as I started to read was cheerful and bright, much like the excitement of playing a new game for the first time. I was intrigued by the intricate worldbuilding carved into the game. Moore created an entire world for the game, right down to landscaping and hierarchy. For fans of Ready Player One and Tron, this might be the kind of setting that you like. Moore did a brilliant job of bringing the game to life, and despite it being a VR game, you feel like it's taking place in real life. The visceral descriptions of the game were the star of this entire book. The imagery in the last part was fantastic, something that you would surely see in a movie. Moore went big with this book, intergalactic even (heh, see what I did there?)
Also, the lead character is sapphic, though I'm not sure how I feel about that with the knowledge that the author is a man.
Now, we move on to the rest. The writing style of this book is very heavy, with a ton of info-dumping that made it very hard to sustain interest. I fought the urge to skip the entire middle and read the ending. There was so much tell and not enough show. I had gotten through 100 pages, and I still wasn't riveted. I was still finding it very hard to keep track of the characters and their avatars, and what the objective of Sparkle Dungeon was in the first place. I also wasn't a fan of the name Sparkle Dungeon, but that's just a personal preference.
Also, the fighting style that we're introduced with threw me off. Isobel fights using power morphemes which work best when they're verbal. These morphemes aren't real words - just a combination of sounds. The more powerful the combination, the stronger your attack is, and you have to experiment to find the right morpheme combination. Which means that Isobel is... yelling gibberish? I didn't like the image of that, especially knowing that it's a VR game, and there are actual people around her. And when the punctuation marks came in, this was the final boss for my imagination. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how it worked in the game despite it being explained.
Though not the biggest part of the book, the part that bothered me the most was the way pronouns were written. The pronouns of each characters are introduced quite literally, like Isobel who introduced herself to the readers as "she/her and white". While I appreciate Moore's attempt at being inclusive, the style of writing felt very tokenising. I would have preferred just straight-up usage of the pronoun instead of each character saying "hey, I use a/b pronouns'. At times, it felt like a mockery.
While this novel is an admirable attempt, I do think there is a lot of room for improvement.
2/5 stars!
Firstly, when I heard about linguistics and video games being combined in one book, I was overjoyed. As a linguistic major who uses games to teach language, this is exactly what I wanted to read. However, I have mixed feelings about this book.
Let's start with the positives. The immediate atmosphere as I started to read was cheerful and bright, much like the excitement of playing a new game for the first time. I was intrigued by the intricate worldbuilding carved into the game. Moore created an entire world for the game, right down to landscaping and hierarchy. For fans of Ready Player One and Tron, this might be the kind of setting that you like. Moore did a brilliant job of bringing the game to life, and despite it being a VR game, you feel like it's taking place in real life. The visceral descriptions of the game were the star of this entire book. The imagery in the last part was fantastic, something that you would surely see in a movie. Moore went big with this book, intergalactic even (heh, see what I did there?)
Also, the lead character is sapphic, though I'm not sure how I feel about that with the knowledge that the author is a man.
Now, we move on to the rest. The writing style of this book is very heavy, with a ton of info-dumping that made it very hard to sustain interest. I fought the urge to skip the entire middle and read the ending. There was so much tell and not enough show. I had gotten through 100 pages, and I still wasn't riveted. I was still finding it very hard to keep track of the characters and their avatars, and what the objective of Sparkle Dungeon was in the first place. I also wasn't a fan of the name Sparkle Dungeon, but that's just a personal preference.
Also, the fighting style that we're introduced with threw me off. Isobel fights using power morphemes which work best when they're verbal. These morphemes aren't real words - just a combination of sounds. The more powerful the combination, the stronger your attack is, and you have to experiment to find the right morpheme combination. Which means that Isobel is... yelling gibberish? I didn't like the image of that, especially knowing that it's a VR game, and there are actual people around her. And when the punctuation marks came in, this was the final boss for my imagination. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how it worked in the game despite it being explained.
Though not the biggest part of the book, the part that bothered me the most was the way pronouns were written. The pronouns of each characters are introduced quite literally, like Isobel who introduced herself to the readers as "she/her and white". While I appreciate Moore's attempt at being inclusive, the style of writing felt very tokenising. I would have preferred just straight-up usage of the pronoun instead of each character saying "hey, I use a/b pronouns'. At times, it felt like a mockery.
While this novel is an admirable attempt, I do think there is a lot of room for improvement.
2/5 stars!
November 24, 2021
The title and cover made me request this book. Look at it, doesn’t it make you think Space Opera with magic and a pinch of language science?
The combination of magic, video games and linguistics, sounded so up my alley that I was really excited when I was approved for an ARC.
Sadly, this was not the book I had hoped it would be. It read like fan-fiction; and I don’t mean the good kind.
I could not connect with the MC. Isobel is the stereotypical gamer: recluse, full of herself, too snarky, but also too gullible.
The linguistics behind the spell casting within the game, although explained, made no sense to me. Power morphemes – so basically “shout gibberish” and you can cast a spell? Add alien punctuation marks and I am constantly thinking WTF?! Maybe I am too much of a linguist and overthinking this?
Here’s what else jarred
- The slang and pop-culture references felt out-dated, by at least a decade.
- Every character introduced themselves by stating their name, race and pronouns; “Hello, I’m …. I’m white. My pronouns are she/her.”
- A male author writing a lesbian (possibly bi) MC.
- Insta-Love
The combination of magic, video games and linguistics, sounded so up my alley that I was really excited when I was approved for an ARC.
Sadly, this was not the book I had hoped it would be. It read like fan-fiction; and I don’t mean the good kind.
I could not connect with the MC. Isobel is the stereotypical gamer: recluse, full of herself, too snarky, but also too gullible.
The linguistics behind the spell casting within the game, although explained, made no sense to me. Power morphemes – so basically “shout gibberish” and you can cast a spell? Add alien punctuation marks and I am constantly thinking WTF?! Maybe I am too much of a linguist and overthinking this?
Here’s what else jarred
- The slang and pop-culture references felt out-dated, by at least a decade.
- Every character introduced themselves by stating their name, race and pronouns; “Hello, I’m …. I’m white. My pronouns are she/her.”
- A male author writing a lesbian (possibly bi) MC.
- Insta-Love
September 11, 2022
The start was okay and the speculative ideas amazing, but it slowly devolved into a complicated web of things I was half trying to connect the dots amongst. Just became sparklingly tedious after awhile.
Want to read
May 15, 2021This is literally the intersection of all of my reading tastes ever. Linguistics + Fantasy? Sign me up.
June 21, 2024
It's silly fun and also surprisingly smart about its linguistic research and its funny skewering of the California tech world
Shelved as 'dnf'
January 14, 2022Thank you to Tor Dot Com and netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.
Dnf at page 100
I was quite excited to read Battle of the Linguist Mages. The idea of mages with magic that had its basis in linguistics that were to battle in a videogame sounded pretty good to me. Unfortunately a lot of the excecution didn't work for me at all.
Our mc is a big fan of the video game and with big fan I mean uber fan. Which is fine. We've all been there I'm sure. However after 100 pages I still didn't have a good feel for her personality or life beyond being an uber fan. She just felt like a vessel to tell this story than a character I was meant to like.
Adding onto that the ending of the first part left me very exasperated with how that piece of information was just dropped. I'm all for mixing fantasy and sc-fi together hence my excitement about the sound of this book. But that just wasn't going to work for me. I put the book down to regrab my thoughts and after a few days I realized I absolutely did not want to know how this sotry continued.
Dnf at page 100
I was quite excited to read Battle of the Linguist Mages. The idea of mages with magic that had its basis in linguistics that were to battle in a videogame sounded pretty good to me. Unfortunately a lot of the excecution didn't work for me at all.
Our mc is a big fan of the video game and with big fan I mean uber fan. Which is fine. We've all been there I'm sure. However after 100 pages I still didn't have a good feel for her personality or life beyond being an uber fan. She just felt like a vessel to tell this story than a character I was meant to like.
Adding onto that the ending of the first part left me very exasperated with how that piece of information was just dropped. I'm all for mixing fantasy and sc-fi together hence my excitement about the sound of this book. But that just wasn't going to work for me. I put the book down to regrab my thoughts and after a few days I realized I absolutely did not want to know how this sotry continued.
April 27, 2022
TW:
gun & knife violence, cult
4.3
Battle of the Linguistic Mages is a weird book, and it's definitely not for everyone, but if you happen to also be a bizarro fiction fan who's studied Analytic Philosophy or has interest in both aliens and linguistics, this book is so much fun. This book has the potential to make a lot of fans of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing very happy.
It's hard to talk much about the plot beyond simply saying that it's insane, and I loved it. There's so much going on it is impossible to be bored, once the ball is rolling.
I also loved that we got to follow Isobel, a competitive, selfish, flawed person who absolutely doesn't seem qualified for saving any part of the world. I thought Isobel was a great character, and she made the more abstract and off the wall points of the story easier to roll with, because she meets them head on with "yes, you're right, this is ridiculous, but I'm going to go deal with it anyway" and you can just shrug it off and dive behind her. There's a nice mash of tones that makes this such a good experience.
While a lot of the academic talk didn't bother me, since I have some background in these concepts, I do think it may scare some people off. I was also a little bothered by how quickly very normal Isobel is able to grasp and embrace these completely absurd concepts.
I also was disappointed to see Isobel's more flawed personality traits disappear in the second half. I feel like she was smoothed over and felt less complicated and unique when the action of the last section kicks in.
This book was a trip, and I had a lot of fun on it. It's full of philosophical content and ridiculous leaps that won't be for everyone, but if this happens to be your sweet spot you're going to love it.
4.3
Battle of the Linguistic Mages is a weird book, and it's definitely not for everyone, but if you happen to also be a bizarro fiction fan who's studied Analytic Philosophy or has interest in both aliens and linguistics, this book is so much fun. This book has the potential to make a lot of fans of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing very happy.
It's hard to talk much about the plot beyond simply saying that it's insane, and I loved it. There's so much going on it is impossible to be bored, once the ball is rolling.
I also loved that we got to follow Isobel, a competitive, selfish, flawed person who absolutely doesn't seem qualified for saving any part of the world. I thought Isobel was a great character, and she made the more abstract and off the wall points of the story easier to roll with, because she meets them head on with "yes, you're right, this is ridiculous, but I'm going to go deal with it anyway" and you can just shrug it off and dive behind her. There's a nice mash of tones that makes this such a good experience.
While a lot of the academic talk didn't bother me, since I have some background in these concepts, I do think it may scare some people off. I was also a little bothered by how quickly very normal Isobel is able to grasp and embrace these completely absurd concepts.
I also was disappointed to see Isobel's more flawed personality traits disappear in the second half. I feel like she was smoothed over and felt less complicated and unique when the action of the last section kicks in.
This book was a trip, and I had a lot of fun on it. It's full of philosophical content and ridiculous leaps that won't be for everyone, but if this happens to be your sweet spot you're going to love it.
December 23, 2021
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
DNF'd @ 10%
Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore sounded like it was going to be right up my alley based on the short description. Unfortunately, it was not working out for me at all. It reminded me of all of the worst elements of Ready Player One in that it relies solely on telling rather than showing. I just wasn't able to hold my interest for any length of time. It does have a fantastic cover though.
DNF'd @ 10%
Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore sounded like it was going to be right up my alley based on the short description. Unfortunately, it was not working out for me at all. It reminded me of all of the worst elements of Ready Player One in that it relies solely on telling rather than showing. I just wasn't able to hold my interest for any length of time. It does have a fantastic cover though.
February 16, 2022
3.5 stars. This was a fun sci-fi fantasy romp with a cool linguistics-based magic system and a sort of multiverse with a big bad threatening to destroy not just our world but every world. It was a wild ride that didn't take itself seriously but still fully committed to the harder sff elements and had a good number of action scenes.
It definitely had its flaws: it was about 100 pages too long and ended very abruptly without wrapping up some of the plot points. It was a little clumsy in some of its attempts at representing queerness (everyone's pronouns were explicitly stated in a weird way, and considering there was only one very minor nb character, this felt performative rather than functional) but I thought the sapphic MC was well written. I've seen other reviews complaining about a male author having the audacity to write a queer female protagonist but there wasn't anything to complain about in his execution. This wasn't a book about the 'queer experience' or the 'female experience', it was a plot-driven story where the main character just happened to be female and queer, and she wasn't fetishized or stereotyped in any way. I like casual queerness in my books and I totally support all writers creating diverse characters so I enjoyed that part of the book.
Overall this was a fun read with some original ideas and would definitely have been a 4 star read if the pacing was a bit better
It definitely had its flaws: it was about 100 pages too long and ended very abruptly without wrapping up some of the plot points. It was a little clumsy in some of its attempts at representing queerness (everyone's pronouns were explicitly stated in a weird way, and considering there was only one very minor nb character, this felt performative rather than functional) but I thought the sapphic MC was well written. I've seen other reviews complaining about a male author having the audacity to write a queer female protagonist but there wasn't anything to complain about in his execution. This wasn't a book about the 'queer experience' or the 'female experience', it was a plot-driven story where the main character just happened to be female and queer, and she wasn't fetishized or stereotyped in any way. I like casual queerness in my books and I totally support all writers creating diverse characters so I enjoyed that part of the book.
Overall this was a fun read with some original ideas and would definitely have been a 4 star read if the pacing was a bit better
April 1, 2022
This is basically Ready Player One for gay ravers. Which is to say that I found it exhaustingly try-hard, but can predict exactly which three of my exes will become obsessed with it.
October 3, 2023
I suspected, just from the blurb, that this book wouldn't really be my style, but I was irresistibly tempted by the promise of a magic system built on linguistics... and on that front, I was quickly and resoundingly disappointed. I'm actually a linguist (PhD), so my hopes might have been unrealistic, but what bothered me most wasn't that it got some technical linguistics stuff wrong. It was that the book is incredibly English-centric.
The magic system and related world-building are not based on any serious consideration of languages or linguistics. It's more like a pile of linguistics-y technobabble and jokes for English nerds. All of the world-building is presented as being about universal human language and human thought, but it's painfully obvious to anyone who's actually studied languages broadly that everything was based on English and English alone. And in a world where English has become globally dominant by virtue of its use by colonizers and empires, where other languages have been violently suppressed and standardized forms of English are still widely used as a tool of oppression, presenting English as universal is not a neutral thing.
I honestly don't have much to say about the rest of the book. There were things that I should have enjoyed--like anarchists, queer romance, and a non-binary secondary character--but the way it was all written felt shallow and ungenuine, almost mocking. The book dragged on way too long with increasingly convoluted plot shifts, and by the last quarter, it was a slog to keep reading. But I might have been more amenable to it if I hadn't been so annoyed about the English thing.
The magic system and related world-building are not based on any serious consideration of languages or linguistics. It's more like a pile of linguistics-y technobabble and jokes for English nerds. All of the world-building is presented as being about universal human language and human thought, but it's painfully obvious to anyone who's actually studied languages broadly that everything was based on English and English alone. And in a world where English has become globally dominant by virtue of its use by colonizers and empires, where other languages have been violently suppressed and standardized forms of English are still widely used as a tool of oppression, presenting English as universal is not a neutral thing.
I honestly don't have much to say about the rest of the book. There were things that I should have enjoyed--like anarchists, queer romance, and a non-binary secondary character--but the way it was all written felt shallow and ungenuine, almost mocking. The book dragged on way too long with increasingly convoluted plot shifts, and by the last quarter, it was a slog to keep reading. But I might have been more amenable to it if I hadn't been so annoyed about the English thing.
December 2, 2021
I received an advance galley of this book via NetGalley.
Battle of the Linguist Mages is a big concept book: a kind of science fiction spin on magic is explored through a rave-themed online role-playing game, of which Isobel is the undisputed Queen. She streams her playing time, has loads of followers, and knows the game like no one else. Therefore, she's psyched to get access to the company and test out some new game mechanics... or so she thinks. The magical spells she can readily master happen to be real, and she's not the only one who knows them. The governor of California does, in fact, and is part of a shadowy cabal intent on commanding power even as a mysterious, planet-destroying entity approaches Earth across the multiverse.
It all sounds pretty cool, and it IS cool in a lot of ways. I finished the book, so it definitely had something going for it. It was not a fast read, though, as it took me a week despite lots of reading time. I had difficulty engaging with it, and I had to ponder to figure out why.
What it comes down to, I think, is that the book is a big flashy concept but it didn't have the depth I wanted. This is a first person book, and I felt like I knew nothing about Isobel as a person. An ex gets mentioned and she's really into Sparkle Dungeon, but that's it. Then there's the pacing: huge action scenes loaded with whimsy, followed by long, drawn-out conversations to explain the whimsy. Perhaps biggest of all is that despite all of that action, I never felt like Isobel or her closest companions were in any real trouble. That's the peril of having characters who are really too powerful from the very start. There's even an unfortunate death near the end that made me wonder if these people could actually suffer, but nope. A lot of drama is lost when characters are essentially gods.
Battle of the Linguist Mages is a big concept book: a kind of science fiction spin on magic is explored through a rave-themed online role-playing game, of which Isobel is the undisputed Queen. She streams her playing time, has loads of followers, and knows the game like no one else. Therefore, she's psyched to get access to the company and test out some new game mechanics... or so she thinks. The magical spells she can readily master happen to be real, and she's not the only one who knows them. The governor of California does, in fact, and is part of a shadowy cabal intent on commanding power even as a mysterious, planet-destroying entity approaches Earth across the multiverse.
It all sounds pretty cool, and it IS cool in a lot of ways. I finished the book, so it definitely had something going for it. It was not a fast read, though, as it took me a week despite lots of reading time. I had difficulty engaging with it, and I had to ponder to figure out why.
What it comes down to, I think, is that the book is a big flashy concept but it didn't have the depth I wanted. This is a first person book, and I felt like I knew nothing about Isobel as a person. An ex gets mentioned and she's really into Sparkle Dungeon, but that's it. Then there's the pacing: huge action scenes loaded with whimsy, followed by long, drawn-out conversations to explain the whimsy. Perhaps biggest of all is that despite all of that action, I never felt like Isobel or her closest companions were in any real trouble. That's the peril of having characters who are really too powerful from the very start. There's even an unfortunate death near the end that made me wonder if these people could actually suffer, but nope. A lot of drama is lost when characters are essentially gods.
January 16, 2022
Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC (audiobook).
This book was not what I thought it would be.
It's a Ready Player One kind of book, just with more aliens and magic of some sense. The games descriped in the book feels like a mix between Crypt of the Necrodancer, Singstar or Stepmania and an mmorpg, which I kinda liked, but the main character felt very annoying as the chapters went by with her just talking about how good she is at playing the games.
Then the book went from zero to a hundred in no time, and the story just went crazy.
I can absolutely see people liking this book, maby if you're more into the linguist- part and a silly/comedic/weird story, but for me it did not hit right.
This book was not what I thought it would be.
It's a Ready Player One kind of book, just with more aliens and magic of some sense. The games descriped in the book feels like a mix between Crypt of the Necrodancer, Singstar or Stepmania and an mmorpg, which I kinda liked, but the main character felt very annoying as the chapters went by with her just talking about how good she is at playing the games.
Then the book went from zero to a hundred in no time, and the story just went crazy.
I can absolutely see people liking this book, maby if you're more into the linguist- part and a silly/comedic/weird story, but for me it did not hit right.
Shelved as 'dnf'
February 21, 2022DNFing. I love linguistics - I studied it at university - and I've been a gamer for most of my life. So I was super keen on this book. Unfortunately, the amount of info-dumping, combined with the reliance on characters we don't meet and events that happen offscreen, slowed the place so much that I just couldn't get through it. For a book so concerned with dance music, the tempo is ridiculously slow.
October 6, 2022
There are some interesting elements in the magic system, especially for gamers. Even though I wasn't really invested in the characters and plot.
The audiobook narration was well done.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The audiobook narration was well done.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 19, 2021
*I received this book as a digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
Thank you NetGalley, Scotto Moore, and Macmillan- Tor for approving my request for this book.
As a warning, I am not a Sci-Fi aficionado, so take my review with a grain of salt.
First impressions from the first few chapters were that this book sounded fun but slang skewed just a teensy bit out of date which is always gonna be an issue when you’re writing a book that is trying to use culturally relevant sayings, memes, etc. It’s just very cringey. One “doggo,” I might have let past, but two or more? I’m sorry, but it’s been years since I’ve heard someone unironically say Doggo.
From the get, Isobel is kind of a snot, but a sort of likable snot. She’s annoying and pretty significantly self-isolating from reality. She’s the Queen of Sparkle Dungeon, topping the leaderboards from the first game's release and refusing to let go of her lead. She’s so dedicated to this game, she puts over everything else in her life. Like, everything. She lost both a job and a girlfriend due to her obsession with this game. I mean, at least she’s somewhat aware that she’s socially not the best.
I struggled to relate to or sympathize with Isobel. I love a good deal of snark, but she doesn’t seem to have an off switch. However, I can admit that her character development does seem to drop her from 24/7 over the top sass to like 22/7, so that’s good. She’s also extremely gullible. Like, super duper easy to influence. She also suffers from insta-love, so get ready for that side plot. Alternatively, could be seen as insta stockholm syndrome?
As for the progression of the book, it’s about 0 energy level for the first quarter of the book and then it ramps up to 100 and unexpected percent. I was excited for this book because I enjoy linguistics and fantasy novels, as the title and summary sort of made me think I would get. I mean, that stuff is very minorly there (very VERY minorly, to be honest). The logic being presented for the power morphemes and how they work was, uh, shaky and unclear in my personal opinion.
That being said, there were a few moments where I did find myself enjoying the book, namely “combat” scenes. Unfortunately, I’d say my enjoyment wasn’t enough to outweigh my boredom and confusion. I’m sure there is an audience out there for this book, but I am not a part of it.
Lastly, I want to point out that this is written by Scotto Moore, he/him according to his GoodReads and website bios, and includes a lot LGBTQ characters which is great! However, the main character is either a lesbian or bisexual woman, and there’s just somthing about a man writing a main character who is a woman, especially a woman of the LGBTQ community, that feels a little off if not done immaculately. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m a used to reading #ownvoices novels, which this clearly isn’t. Maybe I’m just being nitpicky or sensitive or something, but it just felt very performative the way Moore wrote some of the characters.
-Lastly, bullet points of things both included and not included in my review
-Not #OwnVoices
-Sci-Fi more than Fantasy
-Also very culty, which is fun!
-Basically propaganda about how propaganda is bad which is sort of funny
-Not easy to follow, especially for a sci-fi newb
-Absolutely cringe worthy use of fun internet slang that no one has used unironically since like 2012.
2 out of 5 😬 I do applaud the ballsiness of the plot, though. Execution was simply lacking in my opinion.
Thank you NetGalley, Scotto Moore, and Macmillan- Tor for approving my request for this book.
As a warning, I am not a Sci-Fi aficionado, so take my review with a grain of salt.
First impressions from the first few chapters were that this book sounded fun but slang skewed just a teensy bit out of date which is always gonna be an issue when you’re writing a book that is trying to use culturally relevant sayings, memes, etc. It’s just very cringey. One “doggo,” I might have let past, but two or more? I’m sorry, but it’s been years since I’ve heard someone unironically say Doggo.
From the get, Isobel is kind of a snot, but a sort of likable snot. She’s annoying and pretty significantly self-isolating from reality. She’s the Queen of Sparkle Dungeon, topping the leaderboards from the first game's release and refusing to let go of her lead. She’s so dedicated to this game, she puts over everything else in her life. Like, everything. She lost both a job and a girlfriend due to her obsession with this game. I mean, at least she’s somewhat aware that she’s socially not the best.
I struggled to relate to or sympathize with Isobel. I love a good deal of snark, but she doesn’t seem to have an off switch. However, I can admit that her character development does seem to drop her from 24/7 over the top sass to like 22/7, so that’s good. She’s also extremely gullible. Like, super duper easy to influence. She also suffers from insta-love, so get ready for that side plot. Alternatively, could be seen as insta stockholm syndrome?
As for the progression of the book, it’s about 0 energy level for the first quarter of the book and then it ramps up to 100 and unexpected percent. I was excited for this book because I enjoy linguistics and fantasy novels, as the title and summary sort of made me think I would get. I mean, that stuff is very minorly there (very VERY minorly, to be honest). The logic being presented for the power morphemes and how they work was, uh, shaky and unclear in my personal opinion.
That being said, there were a few moments where I did find myself enjoying the book, namely “combat” scenes. Unfortunately, I’d say my enjoyment wasn’t enough to outweigh my boredom and confusion. I’m sure there is an audience out there for this book, but I am not a part of it.
Lastly, I want to point out that this is written by Scotto Moore, he/him according to his GoodReads and website bios, and includes a lot LGBTQ characters which is great! However, the main character is either a lesbian or bisexual woman, and there’s just somthing about a man writing a main character who is a woman, especially a woman of the LGBTQ community, that feels a little off if not done immaculately. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m a used to reading #ownvoices novels, which this clearly isn’t. Maybe I’m just being nitpicky or sensitive or something, but it just felt very performative the way Moore wrote some of the characters.
-Lastly, bullet points of things both included and not included in my review
-Not #OwnVoices
-Sci-Fi more than Fantasy
-Also very culty, which is fun!
-Basically propaganda about how propaganda is bad which is sort of funny
-Not easy to follow, especially for a sci-fi newb
-Absolutely cringe worthy use of fun internet slang that no one has used unironically since like 2012.
2 out of 5 😬 I do applaud the ballsiness of the plot, though. Execution was simply lacking in my opinion.
July 24, 2022
In reality, Isobel is an unemployed music publicist. But in VR, she's the Queen of the Sparkle Realm, all-time leaderboard champ of a series of dance-music themed action-RPGs. And then things get weird, as it turns out that Magic is Real, she's roped in as a junior researcher at a PR firm working with the creepy Governor of California and a legally-distinct-from-Scientology religious movement. But these earthly villains are obstacles before the Thundercloud, a multi-dimensional reality devouring monstrosity that only Isobel and her allies can stop.
Snow Crash runs through this book like a skeleton, and there's a lot of ways in which this is a kind of Gen-Z update of Stephenson's classic. Our real-life pauper/virtual hero protagonist, the idea that language can become a magic weapon, two shadowy cabals battling it our for the soul of California. The difference is that Battle goes cosmological in scope, hopping into alternate dimensions and across the universe chasing its quest, with the main character assuming literal godhood and cutting down skyscraper sized demons with her signature Blades Per Minute sword.
But the difference is that Snow Crash was built around a solid mythological/scientific core, and Battle runs entirely on vibes. And I gotta say, the vibes are real mid. The first time you cut down a gigantic horned reality eating demon, that's dope. Fifth time is a chore. The plot and characters just kind of float around, with vaguely anarchist politics that power is bad, mmkay, and those currently in power are least situated to wield it. The lack of limits erases any stakes, and the only part of the writing that's consistently enjoyable are the EDM-themed puns. Shame.
Snow Crash runs through this book like a skeleton, and there's a lot of ways in which this is a kind of Gen-Z update of Stephenson's classic. Our real-life pauper/virtual hero protagonist, the idea that language can become a magic weapon, two shadowy cabals battling it our for the soul of California. The difference is that Battle goes cosmological in scope, hopping into alternate dimensions and across the universe chasing its quest, with the main character assuming literal godhood and cutting down skyscraper sized demons with her signature Blades Per Minute sword.
But the difference is that Snow Crash was built around a solid mythological/scientific core, and Battle runs entirely on vibes. And I gotta say, the vibes are real mid. The first time you cut down a gigantic horned reality eating demon, that's dope. Fifth time is a chore. The plot and characters just kind of float around, with vaguely anarchist politics that power is bad, mmkay, and those currently in power are least situated to wield it. The lack of limits erases any stakes, and the only part of the writing that's consistently enjoyable are the EDM-themed puns. Shame.
April 13, 2023
Okay I’ll admit it, I didn’t finish this book but I am putting it as read because I spent 200 pages just begging it to get better and I think that’s worthy of a book in my reading challenge.
This book was SO frustratingly bad. I’m so sorry if the author is reading this. It was almost good. I was almost engaged when I read it, I was almost excited to pick it up. But it was soooo irrational, lacking internal logic, and poorly written. The writing I could have accepted (it was very very colloquial, “sign my silly ass up” and “like, really?”) but with the story being so far fetched and unearned it didn’t work. Also, when the writing was more traditional and expository I would zone out. I wanted to like this book so badly and maybe that’s why I’m so bummed I couldn’t enjoy it.
This book was SO frustratingly bad. I’m so sorry if the author is reading this. It was almost good. I was almost engaged when I read it, I was almost excited to pick it up. But it was soooo irrational, lacking internal logic, and poorly written. The writing I could have accepted (it was very very colloquial, “sign my silly ass up” and “like, really?”) but with the story being so far fetched and unearned it didn’t work. Also, when the writing was more traditional and expository I would zone out. I wanted to like this book so badly and maybe that’s why I’m so bummed I couldn’t enjoy it.
September 3, 2024
Where do I begin to explain Battle of the Linguist Mages. It has some good and some bad and a lot of confusion after the first half for this person.
The first half of the book was very interesting and introduced us to our main character Isobel, a gamer girl who is slightly obsessed with a game called Sparkle Dungeon. A game that she is very good at and is top of the leaderboard. In that way Isobel is a relatable character to me as I love gaming and love to learn about the mechanics of a game. The idea of Sparkle Dungeon and using vocal prompts to play the game was very fascinating. I loved how the author made this mechanic into the game and created a whole world within this game.
The plot I really can't say what happens, the first half was pretty easy to understand to me. Isobel was hired to be a game tester because of her skill and abilities at Sparkle Dungeon but while she was working there she discovers a more sinister plot behind the scenes. They are trying to gather power morphemes, vocal codes that people can use to control other people just by speaking a series of phrases and words. They want to use this for their own nefarious purposes and Isobel breaks away from them to stop their pursuit of this. After this the book loses me and my investment in the plot was lost with it. I can't say what the plot was or where it was going. I struggled getting through the last half of the book and couldn't figure out what was going on with it.
Things that I didn't like in this book were how every character was introduced using their pronouns, like he/him white guy it got old really fast and kind of took me out of the book a little bit. I also didn't like how insta lovey the relationship between Isobel and Maddy was, I felt like it went to fast and quick for me. It didn't feel believable to me and could have used more development. The humor was funny at first but quickly lost it's stride in the first half and got more dated and cringy as the book went on.
Not my favorite book and was hard to get through at the end but some things like the game itself were things I wished could have been done more and what I hoped for.
The first half of the book was very interesting and introduced us to our main character Isobel, a gamer girl who is slightly obsessed with a game called Sparkle Dungeon. A game that she is very good at and is top of the leaderboard. In that way Isobel is a relatable character to me as I love gaming and love to learn about the mechanics of a game. The idea of Sparkle Dungeon and using vocal prompts to play the game was very fascinating. I loved how the author made this mechanic into the game and created a whole world within this game.
The plot I really can't say what happens, the first half was pretty easy to understand to me. Isobel was hired to be a game tester because of her skill and abilities at Sparkle Dungeon but while she was working there she discovers a more sinister plot behind the scenes. They are trying to gather power morphemes, vocal codes that people can use to control other people just by speaking a series of phrases and words. They want to use this for their own nefarious purposes and Isobel breaks away from them to stop their pursuit of this. After this the book loses me and my investment in the plot was lost with it. I can't say what the plot was or where it was going. I struggled getting through the last half of the book and couldn't figure out what was going on with it.
Things that I didn't like in this book were how every character was introduced using their pronouns, like he/him white guy it got old really fast and kind of took me out of the book a little bit. I also didn't like how insta lovey the relationship between Isobel and Maddy was, I felt like it went to fast and quick for me. It didn't feel believable to me and could have used more development. The humor was funny at first but quickly lost it's stride in the first half and got more dated and cringy as the book went on.
Not my favorite book and was hard to get through at the end but some things like the game itself were things I wished could have been done more and what I hoped for.
June 20, 2022
I loved parts of this book SO MUCH. The parts that were sparkle-blasting and gay were absolutely phenomenal, as were all the cool asides about linguistics. I loved this hard(ish) sci fi explosion of magic and glitter and discopop VR. The energy that the beginning of this book brought though, unfortunately, was unsustainable I guess because it really flagged for me in later sections as it became less about the really cool videogame and corporate world and more about inscrutable alien punctuation politics.
Want to read
October 8, 2020https://www.tor.com/2020/10/05/book-a...
"Following last year’s incredible novella, Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, we are delighted to announce the acquisition of two novels by Seattle-based playwright, Scotto Moore. His debut novel, Battle of the Linguist Mages will be published in hardcover, ebook and audio from Tordotcom Publishing in early Winter 2022, and followed by a second novel in 2023."
"Following last year’s incredible novella, Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, we are delighted to announce the acquisition of two novels by Seattle-based playwright, Scotto Moore. His debut novel, Battle of the Linguist Mages will be published in hardcover, ebook and audio from Tordotcom Publishing in early Winter 2022, and followed by a second novel in 2023."
January 15, 2023
✨Sparklepunk✨
February 14, 2022
Isobel is Queen of the Sparkle Dungeon and has been for the first four games. No one has been able to match her combination of magical spell utterances and dance moves. When she receives an invitation to play-test Sparkle Dungeon 5 for money, there’s no way she can turn that opportunity down. She soon learns that her in-game spell casting spells make her a valuable asset in a plight where the entire universe is at stake, and it’s hard to tell whom she can trust.
The first half of this book was a solid five star read. From there, there were a lot of interesting plot twists, but mechanics/world building wasn’t always there. I really liked the idea of magic based on vocalizations; I don’t think I had seen a concept like that before. I see a lot of people state that they really like this author’s novella Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, and I definitely want to check it out after reading this book.
Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.
The first half of this book was a solid five star read. From there, there were a lot of interesting plot twists, but mechanics/world building wasn’t always there. I really liked the idea of magic based on vocalizations; I don’t think I had seen a concept like that before. I see a lot of people state that they really like this author’s novella Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, and I definitely want to check it out after reading this book.
Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.
September 14, 2022
This started out very cool and interesting and went RAPIDLY downhill. The characterization became weaker the further into the story I got and the plot evolved from light "here's what you need to know" exposition to nothing but exposition. :( I was super excited at the beginning of this and I'm sad it couldn't deliver.
April 10, 2024
talk about ~right up my alley~ !!!
first of all- gay. second of all, sound! music! linguistics! aliens! video games!
i wasn’t in love with the writing style but i think the concept and plot are fantastic! a lot of gamer talk, a lot to keep track of, but overall a pretty delightful read! lots of twists and turns!
first of all- gay. second of all, sound! music! linguistics! aliens! video games!
i wasn’t in love with the writing style but i think the concept and plot are fantastic! a lot of gamer talk, a lot to keep track of, but overall a pretty delightful read! lots of twists and turns!
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