Wizard's Guide to Wellington by A.J. Ponder

Ponder- in the tradition of The Princess Bride and Terry Pratchett ! lives in a hundred year old house overlooking Wellington harbour – the perfect place to keep an eye on stray taniwha while not missing out on coffee.Īwards include, Sir Julius Vogel Short Story Award 2012, with Frankie and the Netball Clone, runner up for Arc and The Tomorrow Project’s 2012 competition: The Future Always Wins, with Dying for the Record, and co-winner of the Northwrite 2013 Collaborative Writing Competition with Ahi Ka Quest Sneak Peek of Quest New adventure from A.J. Ponder is the author of Wizard’s Guide to Wellington as well as numerous short stories and plays. As of this writing you can get the ebook for only 99cents.A.J. Quest is available in ebook, paperback, and in audio formats from multiple retailers. *Thank you to Story Origin and the author for providing me with a free reviewer code. I certainly hope Benjamin Fife returns for the next two books. I like to complete series in the same format I start them in. Will I continue this series? Yes, but mostly likely not until they release on audio. If you do pick up this book, I really hope you choose the audio version. He even reads subtext and emotion into the really underdeveloped relationship between Johnathan Goodfellow and his father. He handled the large cast of characters the only way he could, by giving each one a different voice. The narrator Benjamin Fife was amazing as he always is. The constant jumping from one character to the next makes it hard to care about any of them and also keeps them from developing. They are separate and seemingly unrelated to each other. Which brings me to this book’s one major flaw. Like a Dungeon Master was trying to bring several campaigns together in one story.

I suspect this book may be a novelized D&D campaign-or several. The rest of the characters felt like stereotypes of D&D classes. There was an opportunity for some real deep feels here. I felt like their plot thread was never fully developed to it’s fullest potential. These two are the characters that I connected with most. There is a wizard named Goodfellow who is trying desperately to reconnect with his adult son, Johnathan. The Characters are all likeable enough and each has their own thing that draws you too them. The story does get a little serious towards the end, which I fear may be setting the tone for future installments.

Quest is a fun read is you are just looking for surface level adventure and humorous antics. It has jokes sprinkled throughout by a Douglas Adams style narrator, character intro’s that read like D&D character sheet summaries, with gimmicks that could have carried the novel if they had to. Quest is a fun little side quest of a read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Photo by Skitterphoto on Audiobook Review of Quest: book one in the Sylvalla Chronicles

Wizard's Guide to Wellington by A.J. Ponder