Cursed and Consulted by Rick Cook

Rick Cook had a possibly decent idea, but stretched it well past what it could carry. Mind you, I have started in Book 3 of a series.

I haven't read books 1 & 2, but they went like this - geek goes to another world where magic works, becomes powerful through his knowledge of computing, has adventures, gets the girl, settles down as local aristocrat while remaining endearingly democratic in appearance, if not in substance. This is another installment of adventures.

Cursed and Consulted is an omnibus. I read all of The Wizardry Cursed which is book 3, and started on the The Wizardry Consulted, but can't work up enough interest to finish it. The first book, which I haven't read, may have been interesting enough to carry the cliched plot, characters, and setting, the third isn't. Only the comic relief, which was the incompetent ninja dwarfs, kept me reading. Okay, the comic relief was a bit heavy handed and not brilliant, but still funny.

I don't mind a totally cliched plot if it is done in an interesting way or has other redeeming virtues, like a consideration of ethics or interesting characters or great prose. I won't be keeping this book, as it doesn't have enough extras to hide the cliches. And why did I buy it in the first place? It came as a pack of 4 books on eBay, and I wanted 2 of them.

The Wizardry Cursed was first published in 1991