Spell or High Water
The adventures of an American hacker in Medieval England continue as Martin Banks takes his next step on the journey toward mastering his reality-altering powers and fulfilling his destiny. A month has passed since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn’t be going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses, and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers. Thankfully, Martin and Philip are invited to a summit in Atlantis for all of the leaders of the time-traveler colonies, and now Martin thinks this will be a chance to try again with Gwen. Of course, this is Martin Banks we’re talking about, so murder, mystery, and high intrigue all get in the way of a guy who just wants one more shot to get the girl. The follow-up to the hilarious Off to Be the Wizard, Scott Meyer’s Spell or High Water proves that no matter what powers you have over time and space, you can’t control rotten luck.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
3mentions
3people
2015–2018years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- So far this year, I've read the following:
- Revelation Space
- Armada
- I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire
- The Sleeping Dragon
- Wizardry: The League of the Crimson Crescent
- Snow Crash
- Scythe
- Off to Be The Wizard
- Spell or High Water
- An Unwelcome Quest
- Thunderhead
- Everlost
- Replay
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- The Amulet of Samarkand
- Everwild.
I'm currently reading A Conjuring of Light and The Way of Kings.
I was able to read so much more than I usually can because of audiobooks. I had a long commute for a couple months, so that helped me knock a book every week or so off my list.
Of the books I've already read this year, I think I would recommend Scythe and Thunderhead the most, but Snow Crash is a must-read, and Stranger in a Strange Land is pretty interesting, but I think a lot of it was lost on me because of the time period-specific language used throughout; it made it hard to understand the interactions between people.
As far as what surprised me? Probably Snow Crash. For some reason, I read somewhere that Ready Player One ripped off Snow Crash and while reading it, I just couldn't understand why they would think that... the two are really nothing alike. Pretty much the only common ground is a virtual world...
- Last year I gave myself a Zuckerberg-style goal to read a book every two weeks. It started well, but some months were harder than others (usually when the book wasn't very good, so I would switch to podcasts for a few weeks, before getting back on track).
Here's an unordered list of the best:
[BUSINESS / SELF-IMPROVEMENT]
- "Work Rules!" - about Google's culture and values
- "Search Inside Yourself" - about mindfulness, meditation, and the impact on your life.
- "What got you here won't get you there" - Liked a lot more than I expected.
- "Re-read Innovator's Dilemma" - a great classic; never gets old.
- "How will you measure your life" - from the same author. Also excellent.
- "The Best Service is No Service" - good overview on why Amazon's customer service is so good
- "Crucial Conversations" - half is common sense; half is good tips to practice everyday.
[PROGRAMMING]
- "Fluent Python" - was afraid it'd be too basic, but not really. Enjoyed it a lot.
- "Think Complexity" - about algorithm complexity, data structures, etc. Great read.
- "Python Data Science Handbook" - meh.
- "Fundamentals of Deep Learning" - good intro. Helped me solidify some concepts from Andrew Ng's ML course
- "Deep Learning" - by Goodfellow and Bengio. Just started, but really liking it.
[STARTUPS] (all excellent; in order)
- "The Hard Things about Hard Things"
- "Zero to One"
- "The Founder's Dilemmas"
- "The Launch Pad"
[FICTION]
- Trilogy: "Off to be a wizard / An Unwelcome Quest / Spell or High Water"
- "Infinite Jest" - tried but failed to finish. May try again later.
- "Ready Player One" - nice, but repetitive after a while. Good read before the movie comes out.
[NON-FICTION]
- "What If?" - xkcd FTW
- "How to Read a Book" - good concepts, but should be a 10 pages blog post, not a book
- "Spark" - Science of the Exercise and the Brain - Long, but good
- "Sugar Shock" - still reading; hopefully will help me cut my sweet cravings
[BIOGRAPHIES]
- "The New New Thing" - about Jim Clark's life, one of the very first entrepreneurs
- "Machines of Loving Grace" - about the research and the rise of AI
- "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"
- "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" - About Pixar's story. Liked more than Isaacson's biography
- "The Innovators" - great summary of computer industry, from the 1800's till today
- "Ghost in the Wires" - Kevin Mitnick's story. Had started years ago, but finally finished it
- "Idea Man" - about Paul Allen's story. Quite an impressive man.
- Was light year for me:
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain - Jim Bernheimer
Origins of a D-List Supervillain - Jim Bernheimer
The second is a prequel of the first. I haven't read the third in the series. Light reading about a guy's descent into villainy.
Yes Please - Amy Poehler: I love memoirs. I just didn't love this one. It read a lot like Leslie Knope was the author, but there was an obscene amount of name dropping that kept interrupting the flow of the book for me.
Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir - Eddie Huang: Like I said, I'm a sucker for these things. Picked it up, because the series reminded me of a 90s Asian version of Everybody Hates Chris. The absurdity and random profanity was a little off-putting at first. Remembering how I felt as a black boy doing some of the same dumb things in the 90s really put it into perspective though.
The Serpent of Venice: A Novel - Christopher Moore: The follow up to Fool. It's a different take on Shakespearian story-telling. I can't recommend his novels enough.
Quantum Lens - Douglas E. Richards: I read this solely because I liked Wired and Amped. No-frills action with a sci-fi element. You probably won't get engrossed, but you will be entertained.
Spell or High Water & An Unwelcome Quest - Scott Meyer: Books 2 & 3 in a series about a group of guys who can manipulate reality through writing scripts. Good, but not my favorite.
Armada: A Novel - Ernest Cline: Ah yes. The long awaited sophomore effort from the author of Ready Player One. This book fell harder than it deserved to, because people where expecting it to be analogous to Ready Player One. Spoiler: it's not. The novel does have its short-comings. Repetitive dialogue, shoe-horned classic pop-culture references and shallow writing plague this book. If you've got time for a short novel, give it a whirl, but don't expect anything amazing.
Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson: Book 2 of the Stormlight Archives. If it's an epic by Sanderson, do yourself a favor and board the hype train. You won't be disappointed. It's everything you want in a long fantasy novel without being bogged down with side-plots and details.
Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson: This is a standalone novel with a tie-on to Words of Radiance. I'm only halfway through it. Would recommend so far, especially since it's free from the author.
