This was my first Brandon Sanderson book. I know many people who have read the Mistborn series and loved it, and I'm pretty sure I would also love it. But they are such large books that it's hard to jump into them. I'm not good at jumping into big books. I'm also very bad at jumping into books that are generally loved by a lot of people. It's a lot of pressure okay. But this little beauty felt like the perfect way to jump into a Brandon Sanderson book.
The first thing that caught my attention was the title, which just immediately sucks you in. Second is this cover, it just promises whimsy and a good time. Third was the actual plot of this book. I'm so happy it wasn't time travel, I'm not good with time travel books. I get confused, the tenses get confused, and then someone becomes their own grandfather and it gets weird. And sometimes too sciency, and my brain isn't built for that.
Parrell dimensions, however, are those I can get behind. I do like a good multiverse, and it doesn't surprise me that humans found a way to make money off of those multiverses. It's just good math.
What I really love about this book is for a good two-thirds of the book you have zero idea now what's going on. All of this is told through the eyes of our main character John, who thanks to stumbling face-first into a portal to another dimension, has zero memories of who he is. Throughout the story he starts to piece it all together as he discovers this medieval world he's stumbled into. It's the memory lost and for a first-person narrative that makes this a lot of fun.
Not only do you get to learn this new world along with John, but you get to meet the real John as well. We learn what people from the modern world think of him, and we know what the people of this old world think of him. And, then we get to meet the kind of man John finds himself to be. So despite all the humor, battles, and weird futuristic science, is a heartwarming story of self-discovery.
While there is a lot of science in this, Sanderson pulled from a lot of classic science fiction tropes, so it was easy to follow along with the tech. Also, the amount of research that went into the medieval aspect of this aces. I know very little about that time, I don't normally read a lot of books based there because they tend to get a little dry with a lot of details about things that aren't my cuppa. Sanderson managed to avoid that but still had a lot of detail about the villages, way of life, and the people. All of which we say through John's eyes or learned about through other characters.
I really liked a lot about this book from the easy world-building and the characters as well. I loved the twists as John got his memory back, and the ending was great as well. I didn't feel like a single t didn't cross as I hit the last page, but I was sad that the story was over. I could read a whole series with this cast of characters. Only I'm not sure what else they could be doing, or where they would go. But I did this cast so much that I would follow them on another adventure.
I know this all sounds very serious but the comedic timing on this one was also perfect. No moment felt forced, and a lot of times I was laughing out loud. In fact, I found myself a little sad that I'd checked this one out from the library. Because this is one of those books I would have highlighted and mark the crap out of. There were so many solid moments that I adored. Even a few I had to share with other people because they lead into jokes we tell each other.
Easily though my favorite part of this where the little breaks where we got pieces of the actual handbook to medieval England. Those moments give such Terry Pratchett vibes mixed with a little Douglas Adams as well. Both of those things were aces in my book, those are two of my favorite comfort authors.
This was a fun read and I'm so happy it came across my library's for you section. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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