Bob, a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed, shotgun-wielding ex-garbage man, chases his family’s killer—the gray-skinned Galvidon—through the realms of the mysterious Astraverse. The trail leads him to Hub, a world in turmoil populated by wizards, blue elves, faeries, giants, dragons, and unfortunately, plain old humans. Chained by his addictions and haunted by his past, Bob must find a way through this dark, magical realm and uncover its secrets, or lose all hope of ending Galvidon once and for all.
See through the haze of smoke. Glimpse the dragon. Follow Bob across the Astraverse.
-Goodreads
Book Information
- Title: Bob the Wizard
- Series: Standalone
- Author: M.V. Prindle
- Page Count: 546
- Genre: Science Fiction Fantasy
- Rating: 4.25/5.0
- Date Read: July 22nd, 2024
Opening Thoughts
Bob the Wizard by M.V. Prindle hit my personal SPFBO-9 TBR very early on. Controversy aside regarding AI artwork, the original cover really appealed to me. Even though the newer cover is still solid, I feel the original cover still fits the story better. The newer cover set other expectations for this read that didn’t really happy for me. I’ll get to that more in a bit. With that being said, I still regret waiting so long to finally get to this story as I truly enjoyed it!
One of the reasons I finally made the push to get this one read in July was I also got my hands on a physical copy of the original cover. I found it being sold second hand online and it turned out it was being sold by someone from the Booktube community that I consider a friend that I’ve respected his feedback regarding many things book for a couple of years now.
Pacing
The pacing of Bob the Wizard worked fairly well for me. I thought the story progressed rather smoothly with only a handful of noticeable edit issues. This was by no means a long read at 546 pages but some readers may have differing opinions on that. It still felt like it read quickly though. It never felt rushed to me but when I had moments to sit down and read, the pages seemed to roll bad in chunks. I didn’t have any issues with names of characters or locations with this story either.
World Building
The world building was really good. This is one of those areas I wanted to pause and touch on my previous expectations versus realities. The newer cover had me thinking this might be comparable to Harry Dresden (Dresden Files) in the fact of a wizard in a more modern or futuristic world. Though that might not have been as accurate a expectation on my part, the actual story turned out to be such a good world to get lost in. This book was complex in the fact that it actually encompasses many worlds. Though most of the book takes place in a more primitive or medieval world with plenty of twists and turns along the way.
As the story unfolds we are given plenty of depth to the current world along with more and more history over time filling in backgrounds of other worlds. I can’t imagine these types of tales can be easy to tell. I know I’d struggle with a single world and it’s history, let alone adding multiple layers to that. In this case, this was such a job well done by Prindle.
Character Development
The character development was right up there with the quality of world building for me. We see so much growth for so many characters in Bob the Wizard. Obviously, our biggest growth is of our protagonist Bob. That is only the start. So many characters enter Bob’s story and we see a lot of growth for many of them. A couple of my favorites characters were Bernard, Osivia, Gorrelai and even Kelael. I did wish we would have seen more of the briefly mentioned Hilda at the beginning of the story. I loved her spunk!
Roundup & Recommendation
Overall, I had so much fun with this read. I’m glad that I was able to add a physical copy to my collection. I think this story would really appeal to fans who enjoy their fantasy to have some elements of science fiction for sure. If you struggle with tech or more modern items showing up in your fantasy worlds, you might struggle with this one a bit. I can’t think of any other stories to compare this to. M.V. Prindle has a very unique story to tell here and I hope this isn’t the end of this world in the future.
Scoring
World Building 4.25/5
Pacing 4/5
Character Development 4.25/5
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