Outlier Mage: Magic Tech

Outlier Mage, Book 1

By: Ken Pence

Narrated by: Greg D. Barnett

Lee had expertise in different sciences and 24th-century tech due to learning machines that could transfer an expert's knowledge.

He had the latest high-tech weapons. He had acquired the latest protective equipment. He was sixteen and got his great-grandfather's A.I., Anna, to find him a planet that had magic. His A.I. hacked a portal to take him there. He might have bitten off more than he could chew.

The planet Anna found was called Trace or similar in the local language. The language was not one of the known languages and dialects. There were no electromagnetic transmissions, but Anna had recorded groups and individuals flying without apparatus and the civilization appeared fairly advanced with fairly large cities and vibrant trade. Tiny surveillance drones had noticed strange phenomena all over the planet. Individuals appeared to make things happen when using strange words and weird arm movements. It appeared to be magic. Thus begins the story of the Lee's travel on the planet, Trace, as the Outlier Mage.

About the series: Lee felt like he spent his whole life in training. He wanted to experience life on his own—without parental influence. He explained to his father, his grandfather, and even his great-grandfather that he wanted to have exciting adventures like they talked about at family gatherings. He wanted to pioneer an unexplored planet like his grandfathers had done. He had the training and had accumulated the best equipment over the last two years. He could never get permission before, but now he was legally an adult, and they couldn't stop him—especially if they didn't know about it. Lee would never have found this civilization on his own. The world in question had only been found because of Anna (his great-grandfather's A.I. was getting bored with Lux). Lee was considered brilliant and that intrigued the A.I., Anna.

Lee wanted a world without the technology that would give him all the advantages of a simpler world. He could now live thousands of years with the new nanites unless he was killed by violence. He could portal to hundreds of worlds all over this galactic arm. Those worlds became familiar, and he functioned well with his escorts. He could speak over fifty different Earth and alien languages. He could talk with his synthetic companion, Anna, who manifested as a cougar, through his subdural communicator. He wanted to experience a world with magic, and Anna may have found one. He didn't speak the language and wanted to experience reality without everyone equal to him in technology. Lee hoped his training would compensate for his lack of life experience.

©2024 Ken R Pence (P)2024 Podium Audio

Loved the book version but the audible is better

I loved this author’s “Lux” series, and this outlier series is equally good. I looked forward to the Audible version of this “tech+magic” tale, and wasn’t disappointed. I found the narrator did a great job with all the characters voices, and the story was compelling. My wife won’t read SciFy but will listen to these tales and even enjoys them! (A new milestone). Keep this series coming, Professor! And get the audible versions out, too. Looking forward to Outlier 3. Highly recommended

Loved the kindle version & now the audible version too!

Enjoyed listening to this book as I enjoyed reading it, have done this with the Lux books/audibles and this is just as good if not better!

Good

I have listened to all of the first series and preordered this book. I like the series very much. Duane

MC science and magic Is really cool

The MC is pretty much a God with what he can Do. We are talking Nanomites Sci fi with a ability to use magic in a way that meshes with his futuristic knowledge. He can pretty much do anything short of creating life.

However he is a bit too Altruistic for me. His contributions are high, but there's no real reason. He just does amazing things for people for nothing at all. Some people like that, but it does feel normal in my eyes.

Great story! An awesome start for a new series!

A couple of thousand years into the future our hero calibrates his birthday by walking through a portal! Just what every 18 year old wants, magic!

Writing could be smoother

This was like a poorly written version of Portal to Nova Roma, Matthews writing is more smooth and has an exciting storyline. This book has action but for some reason his progress isn’t very exciting, it sort of just happens. The narrator is fine but he stops and starts at times, but that could be due to the book itself. I just wish the writing was better, otherwise the story is fine.

Poor Blend of Science and Fantasy

I genuinely don’t like complaining about things, but when I listen to a story and the bad outweighs the good; the good no longer feels relevant to talk about.

The best way I can describe this book in an analogy is that it’s like a child’s drawing who clearly has a talent for drawing but they still have serious quality issues.

As for the book itself; the creativity, premise, and vocabulary are pretty good, but the interpersonal interactions, plot, and consistency are quite lacking.

For example:

Towards the beginning of the book, the MC is introduced to an attractive like aged girl, and with little to no quality interaction with each other, he’s already calling her his girlfriend. It gets worse, though. When the MC leaves on a mission of some kind, he’s introduced to an even more attractive like aged girl. Without any discourse, explanation, or conversation; the first girl is somehow relegated to “a girl I found interesting, and nothing more.” Keep in mind, the last interaction with the previous girl was nothing short of affectionate and still under the pretense of “girlfriend.”

This was probably the most annoying of the faults I found with the book, but some more include that the MC somehow, because of “super advanced technology”, is super smart, has a blade that can cut through anything, and has knowledge and know-how to fight, strategize mass combat, and can effortlessly implement his knowledge into his newfound magic to literally vaporize his enemies.

In full transparency, I only read about half the book. With what I’ve stated already, however, it was enough for me to know I wasn’t going to enjoy the rest of it.

A few more gripes because I feel like mentioning them, were:

Sidelining the AI companion to a literal background character; the plot being held together by the MC’s motivation of “I was bored”; and a poorly blended mix of sci-fi and fantasy magic.

So, if it wasn’t obvious at this point, I don’t recommend this book.

Incomprehensible genre mixing

This book has a serious case of genre confusion.  the description portrays this book as a hard science fiction story with magic… it is not. The hard science fiction was cringe and not internally consistent.

Cringe with no fluidity

The dialogue is very clunky and poorly written. I would get a refund if I could.