🎧 The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson @BrandSanderson @MichaelKramerVO @KateReadingVO #LOVEAudiobooks @SnyderBridge4

Posted April 24, 2023 by Robin in Book Review / 7 Comments

🎧 The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson @BrandSanderson @MichaelKramerVO @KateReadingVO #LOVEAudiobooks @SnyderBridge4The Frugal Wizard's Handbook of Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
Narrator: Michael Kramer, Kate Reading
on April 11, 2023
Genres: Science Fiction Fantasy
Length: 9 hours, 11 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Kickstarter
Goodreads
Amazon,  Libro.fm,  Barnes & Noble,  Apple
half-flame
One StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star

A man awakes in a clearing in what appears to be medieval England with no memory of who he is, where he came from, or why he is there. Chased by a group from his own time, his sole hope for survival lies in regaining his missing memories, making allies among the locals, and perhaps even trusting in their superstitious boasts. His only help from the “real world” should have been a guidebook entitled The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, except his copy exploded during transit. The few fragments he managed to save provide clues to his situation, but can he figure them out in time to survive?

During the pandemic, some writers couldn’t write a book, others delivered like nothing was going on, some changed drastically what they were writing. But, Brandon Sanderson was/is a little different than everyone else out there and he not only delivered on his promised contracts but also wrote not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 non-contracted books.  He then had the biggest Kickstarter of all time and now we are here with the second of those books The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England.

This is the only book of the 4 written that isn’t set in the Cosmere and while it does have at least one character from the Evil Librarians series in it, this is really just an exercise in fun.  Welcome to the multiverse where you can purchase your own dimension to own.  This dimension will be similar to the earth you know but set back in Mediaeval times along a different historical path.  You being from a technically advanced dimension will seem like a Wizard to the dimension you have landed in.

Johnny wakes up with no memory of who he, where he is or how he got there.  All he has is battered pages of a handbook for his dimensional jump to a new dimension in Medieval England.  As he goes on quests to help some of the people he meets initially more of his memories return.  We learn it is quite freeing to forget who you are, as you can reinvent yourself into a new person without the history of who you used to be.

This is supposed to be a lite story with some adventure, some silliness, some magic and some redemption.  Overall I had a good time in the story.  I like Johnny and his discovery of the man he used to be.  For me some of the best parts of the story were the handbook itself.  Can I have a dimension with talking bananas, Plague dimensions at a super discounted price if you want to try and save a world.  There are many trademark and legal subscripts to the handbook for the company selling them to be safe.  Always read the fine print

(4) Legal note: Our Plague-free Guarantee™ is void for all customers who refuse personal medial nannites. Enter your dimension at your own risk. Maybe bring a prefitted casket.   

Overall it’s not my favorite Sanderson story.  There is the cheeky humor, the scifi aspect, the rediscovery of self and a new dimension with magic on it.  But the overall flow was a little off for me and it took me awhile to warm to the world and the magic in it.  Specifically how “boasting” worked to win battles.  The story is unique and interesting as always.  Sanderson does have a great imagination and has given us another look into just how packed full of stories his mind is

I think this would be great for those who really like gaming quests and are more in the YA realm.  The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England is more of a Middle Grade to YA book.  Which makes total sense since Sanderson wrote this story as a gift for his son.

Just a note for readers of the ebook and hardbacks.  There are great illustrations throughout the story for the reader.  I had both and while I listened to this book, I did go through the ebook to see all the great artwork as it was a lot of fun to see it in the context of the story.

Narration:

Michael Kramer and Kate Reading are beyond pros in the narration world.  They are a dynamic duo that always do a superb job and really I can’t say enough about how well they narrate EVERYTHING they do together.  I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

Listen to a clip HERE

About Kate Reading

Kate Reading is an Audie Award–winning narrator with hundreds of titles in many genres. She has received numerous Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, as well as being named Narrator of the Year, and Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her narration has been recognized as Reader of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and by Booklist’s 2019 Top of the List, for the American Library Association. She and her husband, narrator Michael Kramer, record at their home studio in Maryland, Madison Productions.

About Michael Kramer

Audiobook veteran Michael Kramer has recorded more than two hundred audiobooks for trade publishers and many more for the Library of Congress Talking Books program. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner and an Audie Award nominee, he earned a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award for his reading of Savages by Don Winslow.

About Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child Brandon enjoyed reading, but he lost interest in the types of titles often suggested to him, and by junior high he never cracked a book if he could help it. This changed when an eighth grade teacher gave him Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.

Brandon was working on his thirteenth novel when Moshe Feder at Tor Books bought the sixth he had written. Tor has published Elantris, the Mistborn trilogy and its followup The Alloy of Law, Warbreaker, and The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, the first two in the planned ten-volume series The Stormlight Archive. He was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series; 2009’s The Gathering Storm and 2010’s Towers of Midnight were followed by the final book in the series, A Memory of Light, in January 2013. Four books in his middle-grade Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series have been released in new editions by Starscape, and his novella Infinity Blade Awakening was an ebook bestseller for Epic Games accompanying their acclaimed Infinity Blade iOS video game series. Two more novellas, Legion and The Emperor’s Soul, were released by Subterranean Press and Tachyon Publications in 2012, and 2013 brought two young adult novels, The Rithmatist from Tor and Steelheart from Delacorte.

The only author to make the short list for the David Gemmell Legend Award six times in four years, Brandon won that award in 2011 for The Way of Kings. The Emperor’s Soul won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novella. He has appeared on the New York Times Best-Seller List multiple times, with five novels hitting the #1 spot.

Currently living in Utah with his wife and children, Brandon teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University.

Rating Breakdown
Plot
One StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Writing
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Characters
One StarOne StarOne Star
Dialogue
One StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Narration (Audio)
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Overall: One StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Robin
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Posted April 24, 2023 by Robin in Book Review / 7 Comments


7 responses to “🎧 The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson