WebMage

Ravirn, Book 1

By: Kelly McCullough

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Ravirn is not your average computer geek. A child of the Fates - literally - he’s a hacker extraordinaire who can zero in on the fatal flaw in any program. Now that 21st-century magic has gone digital that makes him a very talented sorcerer. But a world of problems is about to be downloaded on Ravirn - who’s just trying to pass his college midterms.

Great Aunt Atropos, one of the three Fates, decides that humans having free will is really overrated and plans to rid herself of the annoyance - by coding a spell into the Fate Core, the server that rules destiny. As a hacker, Ravirn is a big believer in free will, and when he not only refuses to debug her spell but actively opposes her, all hell breaks loose.

Even with the help of his familiar Melchior, a sexy sorceress (who’s also a mean programmer), and the webgoblin underground, it’s going to be a close call....

©2006 Kelly McCullough (P)2014 Audible Inc.

A fun story with some good and bad

I enjoyed this book, the magic system is pretty unique and fun to listen to. I like that Ravirn spends most of the book getting rekt because he is physically weak with a powerful mind. Mel is a great character, and one of the best wizard's familiar type characters I've ever seen. This story does have a lot of bad to go with the good.

The love interest (who's name I refuse to actually learn) is horrible. The first physical description of her is what her boobs look like, and that's a pretty accurate summery both of how female characters are represented in this book and of the love interest's personality. She is just a walking pair of tits, a prize for Ravirn to win. She is also distantly related to Ravirn which made the romance pretty disgusting.

As a computer info major, some of the techno-babble stood out as stupid. The big one is the characters specifying exact file locations instead of shortcutting the process with slashes, which I feel like should be common knowledge to master hackers. The idea of a virus killing the entire mweb is also pretty laughable, having the entire mweb on one server proved to me right away that the fates are incompetent. Eris' set up of hundreds of micro computers hosting many virtual servers makes way more sense for the sake of both security and organization, which is pretty funny as she is the goddess of chaos.

This book needed a female editor and the author probably should have talked with more computer experts, but overall this book was good. I recommend you read it for the interesting story and magic system and just do your best to ignore the sexy lamp love interest.

Okay for a quick listen

I liked this book enough. but find it lacking something in the characters.
A couple of strange setup outs also made it feel like the romance genre, such as loves scenes or describing clothes in detail.
overall worth listening to, but I think the author has some improvements still to come.

worth a deal price

vikas had the most annoying female voices. the concept of magic being shaped by technology is a weird twist, but not deal breaking. it has many Percy Jackson elements to it. worth the 4 bucks on sale. not sure about 15.

Narration is Beyond Painful

The story feels dated. Writing style is hokey — perhaps is targeting young teens?

Beyond that, the narrator is absolutely PAINFUL!

It's something new for me

I was quite skeptical going into this book. it was free and about to go out of the free catalog so I gave it a shot.

I wasn't disappointed, but it was something unexpected for the most part. The story was decent, but what all it brought to the table was what made it stand out. It did good limiting the lust of the young characters, but there was some sexual content, but it wasn't overbearing. You have guns, mythical beings, technomagic, and even some mythological stuff thrown in. Could it of been better, yeah. but for free it was well worth the time to listen, even though I do listen at 1.75 speed.

Little bit confusing, good story thou.

Well written story. Author might want to right a prequal book to better prepare tge reader for all the tech/magic mumbo jumbo.
Was really difficult to determine if most of it was in ther real world or virtual or some kind of matrix world. a bit confusing. liked the story thou.....

not what i was expecting

from the picture on the front of this book i was expecting some Dresden like story. i was pleasantly surprised when the story had nothing in common other then the main character being male and able to use magic. great story and great characters. you won't be let down

Interesting concept

Would you consider the audio edition of WebMage to be better than the print version?

I originally read the Ravirn series in paperback format, and I have to admit the tone and pacing in the audio format are extremely good.

What does Vikas Adam bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He definitely brings Melchior to life

Outstanding story, Narration needs some work

Narrator didn't sound as if he had read it beforehand. Caught his stride about a third of the way through.

I'm only on chapter 5 so...

take this with a grain of salt, but the whole thing if reading code and URL addresses? well... this is weird and gets in the way of the story. I understand they code magic, but code is not a reafing material... I will give it a chance since the narrator is great (I picked it because of him). But there is only so much that good narration can do to a book to save it....