Fun concept, mediocre execution. I’ve seen this book most often compared to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but honestly I think it’s closer to Brandon Sanderson’s The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. (Which admittedly came out a decade later.) Sanderson did it much better.

The premise: a modern-day nerd discovers that all life is a computer file and he’s able to edit it. It takes him less than a week for the feds to be after him for bank fraud, so he retreats in time to become a wizard in medieval England.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) Our Protagonist Martin is not the first person to discover this computer file – he discovers a loose society of about 20 male wizards scattered over medieval Europe (the women having gone even further back to Atlantis, apparently). The bulk of the book consists of Martin apprenticing under Philip, who teaches him how to use his coding powers like cheat codes for real life. It felt similar to Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree, in which the chapters mostly felt like excuses to show how Martin keeps levelling up his skills. Also like Legends and Lattes, the real conflict only starts about 75% of the way through the book.

This is a book that absolutely does NOT pass the Bechdel test, and the sole female character with any screen time is the only character I thought was even remotely sympathetic. If you want a book where the premise is “modern-day person goes back to medieval times and tries to act like a god,” just read Sanderson’s book instead.