The Reluctant Magi

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Mark Douglas is a business consultant on his way to a new project when, through mysterious circumstances, his car drives off the road and into an ancient Greece-style fantasy world, running right over a wise old magi. Mistaken for the deceased, Mark finds himself forced to accompany the young huntress Atissa on a mission to warn the Helcenaean city Riadnos about an imminent invasion by the Assanaten Empire.

Kion is a named warrior of the city of Saggab, known by friends and foes as Kion the Dancer. He is sent to investigate the fate of the wise old magi Mark ran over. To fulfill his mission in a warzone, he is forced to infiltrate the invading Assanaten force.

A story about a modern man trying to survive in a world of warriors, magic, and ancient gods fighting for supremacy.

--------

Check outLanatir's Review below.

Book 1 on Amazon- A professionally edited version has been published under the title "The Reluctant Magus by Julius Marx".

On hiatus.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2023
Author: Nemki

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 218
Views: 27,944

Chapters(17 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(4)

LanatirRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I really like this story. It's set in a bronze age world that feels real, with a weighty history, all communicated by the author with a minimum of infodumping. It's a great example of showing, not telling.
I'm going to be a bit vague about the plot to avoid spoilers.
The MC isn't overpowered (so far) and in fact mostly has no idea what he's doing. Not in the idiot sense, but in that he doesn't know the geography, the politics, the magic, the religion, none of it. He's a smart guy despite being a true transplant, and the story treats this really well.
The story largely follows the MC (a transmigrator), a Gifted hunter from near his landing zone, and a Gifted warrior trying to track him down, as they struggle to survive in a Bronze Age world. This is especially challenging for MC because he largely lacks era-critical kniwledge. Fortunately, a lot of his people skills still apply, and he leverages them to good effect. It's fortunate because he keeps getting dropped into worse and worse situations! It's all very dramatic, in a good way.
There are more than a few chapters from other perspectives, but for me they didn't feel intrusive. This aspect might be a turn-off for some.
The grammar is excellent. The pacing is good, though it does slow down here and there. All the characters feel like real people.
Overall, I highly recommend this story. I just binged the whole thing and I can't wait for more.
occipitallobeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is it.
It's really very good. I'm only a few chapters in thus far and will update if the quality takes a nosedive, but the 'man gets transported into a Bronze Age world with no absurd superpowers' is actually a really interesting concept. There are other RR novels that have tried similar things (one transporting a girl into the age of Henry VIII, for instance) but this one carries a certain verisimilitude that makes it compelling.
Strongly recommend giving it a try.
UnDeadPuffRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Prose is good, dialogue is well written. The characters and their situations feel realistic. I feel gripped by the painted action and developments, and I'd be quite happy to follow along were the story not constantly diverted from what should be the actual protagonists to be served "Side story #44 - Adventure in the woods". I'm sure those characters will become significant at some point, but their current story is vastly unimportant and does nothing but constantly break the expected continuity. After a while I ended up just skipping those chapters, and that doesn't make for a good time.
That whole "multiple protagonist" deal ends up with so many POV switches to give a tennis match observer a neck ache. There's grammar and punctuation issues as well as weird stylistic choices here and there.
EphemeralDustRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Overall this story is great. The characters are well written, interesting and overall likable. Some have their quirks and things you don't like about them, but that just makes them more relatable. I think the idea of a regular man who is so regular that even the gods don't see him is a very interesting idea.
My only complaint, and why I didn't give this 5 stars, is that it's slow, especially in book 2. Lots of things happen off screen and we are told they are happening, but we see none of it. If you skipped from book 1 to the last 5 chapters of book 2 you would be caught up. To make this slowness worse is the half a dozen povs we get. Kion's story was interesting, until we realized midway in book 1 that his entire purpose doesn't matter because the person who assigned him the job already resolved it themselves.
This didn't ruin my enjoyment just made me want to get past it to the other stuff only to realize I am caught up and will need to wait a year to get more.