Hurled into an alternate universe where magic works, master hacker Walter "Wiz" Zumwait found that spells were a lot like computer programs. In spite of the Wiz's unprepossessing appearance, he defeated the all powerful Black League and won the love of Moira, a beautiful red-haired witch. But now Wiz has to deal with a couple of computer criminals from his own world who have forged an alliance with the destructive forces of primal chaos, and with the dragons, who have powerful magic of their own.
Rick Cook is a journalist, computer hacker, and fantasy author best known for his "Wiz" series of books. Since his hospitalization in 2000 he has not resumed fiction writing.
Again, Cook's on fabulous form here. Book 1 sets the scene and is amazing, but both of these novels branch things off interestingly and I enjoyed every word on every page.
As I sought out information on Cursed and Consulted, I was delighted to find out that I'd missed a fifth book. I thought I had all of Rick Cook's books! A hunt!
In any case, I love his books. In the Wiz books, it really helps to have a consultant or computer geek in the family. Not the modern geek with his internet/webpage knowledge, but the old-fashioned nerd who can build a computer from scratch and whose native languages include Ada, C, C++, Basic, Cobol, etc. The humor is sly, especially regarding middle and upper managers. It also helps to have some knowledge of D&D. Again, not the modern role-playing on-line games, but the old-fashioned kind where dice were rolled to determine characters and few of the characters came from a box.
If you have these (geek and D&D), you'll appreciate the Wiz books. Otherwise, you may miss the humor.
As I stated in the beginning of this, there are five Wiz books. Cursed and Consulted contains books three and four. In this particular omnibus, I liked the fourth (2nd half) of the book more than the third (1st half). The third book was heavier than the fourth, particularly since I identified the bad guys as guys I'd hung around with in college. Geeks gone bad. The fourth book was lighter and featured Wiz on his own, without his faithful friends/followers.
Great continuation of the story. I read it on my nook.
The first set of books (Wiz Biz) had many spelling and formatting problems. Many more than the occasional one you see in most books. But I'm happy to report that this second installment is much better.