The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

De: Brandon Sanderson

Narrado por: Michael Kramer, Kate Reading

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson—creator of the smash-hit science fiction and fantasy series Skyward, The Stormlight Archive, and Mistborn—comes a new science fiction adventure. Narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading.

A man awakens 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?

Note from Brandon:

Sometimes an idea just won’t let go of you for years. The initial seed of this novel was the title that eventually turned into The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. At first there was no story go to with that title, but I wrote it down and kept coming back to it, wondering what that book could possibly be about. Something else I thought about off and on for years was the classic concept of a man waking up in another time and another place, with no idea how he got there. It was when those two ideas came together, and I placed a book with that title into that man’s hands, that this novel was born. I hope you’ll have as much fun with it as I did!

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Wow

Honestly wasn’t really expecting much from this as, although it was Sanderson, the premise didn’t seem super interesting and didn’t seem like Sanderson. How wrong I was! Has everything you expect from a quick Sanderson. A small cast of flawed characters who you absolutely love exploring a world of magic (and in this case science fiction) and bettering themselves along the way. This also had the added benefit of the main character having amnesia (and having to learn about the world at the same rate as us), Anglo-Saxon gods and culture, a wonderfully humorous book-inside-a-book, and cyborgs. It was a Luxury Experience!

I only have 1 thing that the author missed out on.

Great story with great narration. Fantasy and Sci-fi blended together to compose an interesting setting. My only gripe is the inclusion of a martial wizard that doesn't announce that he is casts Fist before knocking someone out. Missed siezing that fish for sure.

great story

fun story. like the much different style of writing compared to much of his other work.

Johnny

I really enjoyed the setting and concept. The character building of Johnny was great. A few surprises in there.

Fun story

At times the thick accent and narration style can be grating, but the story itself is a good one.

Entertaining

Give it a bit to get going, mostly to understand what is going on lol aside from that it is a great book overall.

Brilliant concept sci-fi

It’s a wonderful light read as we travel alternate dimensions, build character and world together in a fun reveal of each onion layer of story.

Over all good book

If you like Brandon’s other books you’ll enjoy this one too. The ongoing dialogue by the “frugal wizard’s handbook” got really old after a few chapters in. I get why he had it in there to give you background info on rules and what can and can’t be done in another dimension. Anyway I got really tired of hearing it go on and on. Other than that it was a cute story.

Nice listen

I found this title interesting, characters were like able and the story remain compelling throughout

Another novel idea, done well

**** Spoiler alert ***

A little bit of a slow start — necessary I guess but it does make it a bit slow.
A downside of audiobooks is being unclear on the spelling of foreign or early medieval names! It makes it very hard to try to find the right early lore and I wished I knew a bit more about the mid-to-late 1st millennium AD on the east coast; I’ve mostly studied Cymru/western England. I did know the Vikings famously raided a monastery on the east coast of England in ?725 but nothing really helped define what century they really started coming in force to the British isles.