Review: good book, great price, first book in series slightly better
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 20, 2012
This book was very good; although I liked the first book slightly better.  The first book looked at the world of magic from a single person's viewpoint with character development and a coherent sub world of magic.  The second starts to deal with grander visions of changing the world and uber magic powers.  By this I mean that the hero seems to be developing more and more powers and starting to influence world events.  This can become the death of a series as the hero becomes so powerful that realistically it becomes difficult to develop credible villains and plots that pose a challenge.  (An example of this spiral would be the Dr. Strange comics where his powers just kept growing where the challenges started to be universe wide.)Also, although the sexual tension between the hero and his two potential girlfriends, Jules and Rei, is palatable it feels more high school than college age.  Frankly at his age I would expect him to at least try and make his move on one or both by now, teenage hormones being what they are.  With none of them being in relationships I would expect a strong move to clarify the situation by one or all three of the parties involved, especially since it is implied the girls are at least aware of the situation.  Growing up in Las Vegas and hanging out with strippers I also find it very hard to believe Dieter could be this nave.But this is nitpicky.  I do not readily give out 4 or 5 stars but this book clearly earned them edging closer to 4.5 but I wanted to differentiate from the first book.  An incredibly fun read and hopefully the start of many more from this author.I like the authors approach to pricing, because I like inexpensive, but think he could easily start to compete with the big boys soon