gnightsally's review
4.0
Quick Thoughts:
Quick read
Delightful
Great for kids
Positive Lessons
Magnus Opum is a great fantasy read! Sitting at about 200 pages I read this in the span of a football game. Giants vs Redskins to be exact. The main character, Magnus sets out on a quest to eliminate an enemy of the land, but not all is what it seems in this delightful little novel. In even a quick read through you’ll notice the author loves playing around with preconceived notions of everyday words, animals, and people. I am not even sure how half of the races that you encounter would be pronounced, let alone spelled if you were just hearing it via an audio book. Nevertheless, they are fun to read about and imagine. The author touches on some briefly like the Gleeprogs who evolved enough to be able to walk on land but not quite enough to breathe air. Therefore, they walk around with large bowls of water over their heads. Others, such as the Cherines, are talked of for a long while as our hero travels across the land on his journey, but each society has an audible describing factor that makes it easy to remember and differentiate between them.
Full review here:http://www.thevalkyriescall.com/review-magnus-opum-by-jonathan-gould/
Quick read
Delightful
Great for kids
Positive Lessons
Magnus Opum is a great fantasy read! Sitting at about 200 pages I read this in the span of a football game. Giants vs Redskins to be exact. The main character, Magnus sets out on a quest to eliminate an enemy of the land, but not all is what it seems in this delightful little novel. In even a quick read through you’ll notice the author loves playing around with preconceived notions of everyday words, animals, and people. I am not even sure how half of the races that you encounter would be pronounced, let alone spelled if you were just hearing it via an audio book. Nevertheless, they are fun to read about and imagine. The author touches on some briefly like the Gleeprogs who evolved enough to be able to walk on land but not quite enough to breathe air. Therefore, they walk around with large bowls of water over their heads. Others, such as the Cherines, are talked of for a long while as our hero travels across the land on his journey, but each society has an audible describing factor that makes it easy to remember and differentiate between them.
Full review here:http://www.thevalkyriescall.com/review-magnus-opum-by-jonathan-gould/
chelsea_not_chels's review
3.0
More reviews available at my blog, Beauty and the Bookworm.
It's very rare that I don't know what to make of a book, but Magnus Opum was one of those instances. Let me give a brief outline of the plot to start to explain why this is. Magnus is a Kertoobi, who are kind of like hobbits except that they don't live in houses build into hills and they have some other weird customs instead, but they do frown upon people having adventures. One day, Magnus' brother gets wanderlust and goes off, writes for a bit, and is then never heard from again--until some Doosies, all of whom love gossip, come bearing news of his death. Magnus sets out to find out the truth about his brother's death, see the sights his brother saw, and perhaps even seek revenge. On the way, he gets swept up with a Cherine named Shaindor; Cherines are all obsessed with goodness and beauty, and also happen to be in a perpetual war with Glurgs, the awful, hideous race who killed Magnus' brother. Of course, nothing is what it seems, and as the story goes on Magnus has to adjust his vision of the world and come to terms with his new discoveries.
In theory, this all sounds fine, but something about Magnus Opum just rubbed me the wrong way. Partly it's because it's so silly that it's hard to tell if it's meant to be a satire of these sorts of fantasies--where a person goes off and has adventures and comes back changed and everything--or if it's meant to be serious in its own regard. The abundance of made-up words, analogies, and metaphors all contributes to the general silliness, as does the fact that all members of each race are the same as each other--all Doosies love gossip, all Cherines love beauty and music and goodness, all Glurgs are ugly and horrible (or are they?) and to be feared, and so on. This is one of my pet peeves in fantasy. Not all humans are the same; all humans have different wants and dreams and personalities, and these races being painted with such broad strokes is one of the things that made me lean toward it being a satire--because I wanted to like it, but... I don't know. Thank heavens that the story became more complex than it originally seemed, because I was on the verge of not finishing it from sheer exasperation. I was hoping that things would turn out to be not quite what they seemed, and they did--but there the twists ended, and everything went back to being predictable once again.
That was my other issue with this story. It was predictable. There were no big twists, no big reveals, no "hooks" that pulled me along and kept me reading. Magnus was an interesting character, going against the grain of his race as he does, but is also stereotypical in that regard. The epic "quest" here didn't seem to be one as such, and the ultimate conflict...isn't. Everything is resolved so nicely and neatly, and there ultimately didn't seem to be anything propelling the plot forward other than random coincidences. This is a silly story more than a compelling one, and I'm sure some people value it for that; personally, I found myself wanting something more, something more complex, something with a little more body and a little more plot. Would I read other books by this author? Maybe. I think I'd probably want to sample them first, to see if they're more up my alley than this one is. It wasn't bad, it was just...meh. I think there was a lot of potential here, but it wasn't fleshed out or utilized as fully as I think it could have been, and came off as more juvenile than anything else. To others, this might not be the case, but to me...this one wasn't a hit.
2.5 stars out 5.
I received this book free from Awesome Indies Books in return for an honest review.
It's very rare that I don't know what to make of a book, but Magnus Opum was one of those instances. Let me give a brief outline of the plot to start to explain why this is. Magnus is a Kertoobi, who are kind of like hobbits except that they don't live in houses build into hills and they have some other weird customs instead, but they do frown upon people having adventures. One day, Magnus' brother gets wanderlust and goes off, writes for a bit, and is then never heard from again--until some Doosies, all of whom love gossip, come bearing news of his death. Magnus sets out to find out the truth about his brother's death, see the sights his brother saw, and perhaps even seek revenge. On the way, he gets swept up with a Cherine named Shaindor; Cherines are all obsessed with goodness and beauty, and also happen to be in a perpetual war with Glurgs, the awful, hideous race who killed Magnus' brother. Of course, nothing is what it seems, and as the story goes on Magnus has to adjust his vision of the world and come to terms with his new discoveries.
In theory, this all sounds fine, but something about Magnus Opum just rubbed me the wrong way. Partly it's because it's so silly that it's hard to tell if it's meant to be a satire of these sorts of fantasies--where a person goes off and has adventures and comes back changed and everything--or if it's meant to be serious in its own regard. The abundance of made-up words, analogies, and metaphors all contributes to the general silliness, as does the fact that all members of each race are the same as each other--all Doosies love gossip, all Cherines love beauty and music and goodness, all Glurgs are ugly and horrible (or are they?) and to be feared, and so on. This is one of my pet peeves in fantasy. Not all humans are the same; all humans have different wants and dreams and personalities, and these races being painted with such broad strokes is one of the things that made me lean toward it being a satire--because I wanted to like it, but... I don't know. Thank heavens that the story became more complex than it originally seemed, because I was on the verge of not finishing it from sheer exasperation. I was hoping that things would turn out to be not quite what they seemed, and they did--but there the twists ended, and everything went back to being predictable once again.
That was my other issue with this story. It was predictable. There were no big twists, no big reveals, no "hooks" that pulled me along and kept me reading. Magnus was an interesting character, going against the grain of his race as he does, but is also stereotypical in that regard. The epic "quest" here didn't seem to be one as such, and the ultimate conflict...isn't. Everything is resolved so nicely and neatly, and there ultimately didn't seem to be anything propelling the plot forward other than random coincidences. This is a silly story more than a compelling one, and I'm sure some people value it for that; personally, I found myself wanting something more, something more complex, something with a little more body and a little more plot. Would I read other books by this author? Maybe. I think I'd probably want to sample them first, to see if they're more up my alley than this one is. It wasn't bad, it was just...meh. I think there was a lot of potential here, but it wasn't fleshed out or utilized as fully as I think it could have been, and came off as more juvenile than anything else. To others, this might not be the case, but to me...this one wasn't a hit.
2.5 stars out 5.
I received this book free from Awesome Indies Books in return for an honest review.
abookishaffair's review
4.0
This will mark my third Jonathan Gould book. I now know that when I open a book by Gould, I'm in for an adventure. I know that I'm going to read something totally original, endlessly creative, and interesting. I know that it's probably going to be unlike anything else that I've ever read. There are a lot of good books out there but if you are looking for something like you've never read before, check out Magnus Opum (or Gould's other books for that matter). You most definitely will not be disappointed.
Magnus Opum is checks all those boxes. What I loved most about this book is probably all of the different creatures. Gould has quite the imagination. The description of the borse cracked me up. Borses are a mix of cows and pigs and everyone fights for theirs to be the largest. Just the thought of that was hilarious to me.
Okay, I also loved the satire. Gould has a sort of dry sense of wit that is very funny to me. And well, I also really liked the way that Gould plays with language. At points, this book reads an awful lot like a Dr. Seuss book for grown ups if Dr. Seuss dealt with higher subject matter and didn't rhyme as much. Oh and this is definitely a compliment.
Bottom line: This book has a little something for most anyone!
Magnus Opum is checks all those boxes. What I loved most about this book is probably all of the different creatures. Gould has quite the imagination. The description of the borse cracked me up. Borses are a mix of cows and pigs and everyone fights for theirs to be the largest. Just the thought of that was hilarious to me.
Okay, I also loved the satire. Gould has a sort of dry sense of wit that is very funny to me. And well, I also really liked the way that Gould plays with language. At points, this book reads an awful lot like a Dr. Seuss book for grown ups if Dr. Seuss dealt with higher subject matter and didn't rhyme as much. Oh and this is definitely a compliment.
Bottom line: This book has a little something for most anyone!
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