Mage Against the Machine
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4.6 • 14 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Harry Potter meets The Terminator in this action-packed adventure about a young man who discovers that everything he believed about his world is a lie.
The year is 2120. The humans are dead. The mages have retreated from the world after a madman blew up civilization with weaponized magical technology. Safe within domes that protect them from the nuclear wasteland on the other side, the mages have spent the last century putting their lives back together.
Nikolai is obsessed with artifacts from twentieth-century human life: mage-crafted replica Chuck Taylors on his feet, Schwarzenegger posters on his walls, Beatlemania still alive and well in his head. But he’s also tasked with a higher calling—to maintain the Veils that protect mage-kind from the hazards of the wastes beyond. As a cadet in the Mage King’s army, Nik has finally found what he always wanted—a purpose. But when confronted by one of his former instructors gone rogue, Nik tumbles into a dark secret. The humans weren’t nuked into oblivion—they’re still alive. Not only that, outside the domes a war rages between the last enclaves of free humans and vast machine intelligences.
Outside the dome, unprepared and on the run, Nik finds Jem. Jem is a Runner for the Human Resistance. A ballerina-turned-soldier by the circumstances of war, Jem is more than just a human—her cybernetic enhancement mods make her faster, smarter, and are the only things that give her a fighting chance against the artificial beings bent on humanity’s eradication.
Now Nik faces an impossible decision: side with the mages and let humanity die out? Or stand with Jem and the humans—and risk endangering everything he knows and loves?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Barger's debut novel is a valiant but doomed attempt at blending urban fantasy and postapocalyptic, post-singularity science fiction. The fantasy story line is led by Nikolai Strauss, a young wizard who's spent all his life behind the Veils that conceal wizard communities. He's been told that all nonmagical humans perished in a nuclear holocaust years ago, but the humans survived and now live under the deadly rule of the artificial intelligences known as Synths, and cybernetically-enhanced former ballerina Jemma Burton is one of the Runners who support the underground human resistance. Nikolai and Jemma's stories are set to collide, but Barger takes a frustratingly long time to get there. Nikolai is a petulant protagonist whose heroism rarely feels fully earned, and Jemma is a so-called strong female character whose ostensible strength and independence are secondary to Nikolai's eventual need to rescue her. Barger strives for something original, but his writing and story are heavily reliant on and weakened by overfamiliar tropes and clich s.
Customer Reviews
For a first Novel, ambitious, rough, and creative!
There is opportunity here in this beginning novel. The characters are interesting and while they have some two dimensional qualities, and some stretched premises, that is mostly overcome with good storytelling and complex plot development, which kept the story moving past any rough spots, which fortunately were few. I enjoyed the entire book from beginning to end, and am very interested in seeing how the story, and the characters develop!