I enjoyed the heck out of this book! The writing is fun, witty, and intelligent, and the story moves rapidly in unexpected pathways. It is very much told in layers - at the top you have a romp of an adventure story, flashy and fun; then you get some insightful commentary on some of the nature of society, and the long term effects of capitalism, religion, and politics; deeper still, it meditates on the nature of existence and the universe, and what makes someone an individual. There were multiple times when I was surprised by the direction the author chose, as the book winds its way along.

Definitely makes me wish I could play Sparkle Dungeon!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore.

This book was weird. The premise is (in very simplified terms) about a girl who plays an online Dungeon Crawler game and who has worked her way to the top of the score board for it. But unknown to her, some of the elements of casting spells in the game can be translated to the outside world. These random soundbites can be strung together to influence the physical world around you. And she has become a prime target for the corporations exploiting this to use as a weapon.

That still sounds good. But then other things get added to the plot - punctuation marks as aliens seeking refuge, rogue punctuation marks, different planes of reality and how everything miraculously translates between them all. Not to mention the writing style.

The writing style put me off and made me want to DNF this book multiple times. Like the blurb on the cover, I now have a headache. References to our world are made throughout. Things like DRM, David Guetta, doggo, etc. It felt forced. And then there's the mandatory introduction of each new character by their name, race and gender in one or two sentences when they first appear. I get it. It's good to make these things clear, but it did not feel natural. It reminded me of fanfiction (and not the best ones either).

I really thought this book had some great potential, and I really would have liked to see a bit more from some of the side characters. But the entire experience was not one I enjoyed. It was just a bit too much done in a way that felt insincere.

It was clear from the first page I would either love or hate this book. The problem, all these many pages later, is that I still don't know where I fall. There are aspects I love, but grew weary of, yet I don't see what could have been cut out or trimmed down...Mainly I think I'm going to need more people to read this so we can talk some things out. Let me know.

couldn't finish this one for some reason. I think others might like it, though! I came for the linguistics, which is one of my favorite fields of study, but couldn't justify staying. I think it was just too big of a book with too few characters that I connected with. But I'd say try the first fifty pages, it might be your jam!

Battle of the Linguist Mages was certainly a different style of book, and there were things I liked about it and things I wasn't so keen on. Let's start with the positives. On the plus side, I loved the idea behind the piece and the way language and linguistics were woven into the story. The book also had a cult vibe about it that will appeal to all the gamers and general pop-culture fans out there. Isobel is perhaps not a 'likeable' heroine, but she is definitely snarky and memorable. The story opened strongly and immediately caught my interest; however, it started to lose me a little towards the end, which leads us to the negatives. The two principal difficulties I had with the book were: 1) the logic behind the "power morphemes" was sometimes a bit tangled, requiring a lot of face-value acceptance of how it all worked; and 2) I felt as if the latter part of the book became unnecessarily convoluted. Granted, I was reading late at night and was a little tired, but there were times in the second half when I had to backtrack, because clearly I'd missed something somewhere. Overall, Battle of the Linguist Mages was an entertaining read with a fresh twist, but at times there was almost too much going on. For me, it was a 3.5-star read.

I had a lot of fun with Battle of Linguist Mages, it's literally the most perfect read if you get a lot of joy out of words and etymology and fantasy.

I finished this two days ago and still have no idea what I read. This book is pure and utter chaos. While that at times can be fun, it can also be incredibly disorientating. The stakes change so frequently and dramatically that it's occasionally hard to remember why the characters are doing certain things. The magic system is a big hand wave that makes anything and everything possible, and new mechanics are introduced with little explanation other than "well why not?" This book is best enjoyed quickly and with little analysis.

Did I enjoy this book? I'm honestly not sure. I didn't hate it?

A quick note about representation: as other reviewers have noted, this is not an #ownvoices novel. The author is a white man, and the main character is a queer woman with a female love interest. While I was skeptical about this representation, I actually thought it was done well, with little of the objectification that some male authors subject their female characters to. I also thought this was an excellent example of how to normalize pronoun and race descriptions in character introductions - Moore gave every character's pronouns and race upfront and without commentary or judgement. While I didn't love the book, I was impressed by this.

Thank you NetGalley, Scotto Moore, and Macmillan- Tor for approving my request for this book.

As a warning, I am not a Sci-Fi aficionado, so take my review with a grain of salt.

First impressions from the first few chapters were that this book sounded fun but slang skewed just a teensy bit out of date which is always gonna be an issue when you’re writing a book that is trying to use culturally relevant sayings, memes, etc. It’s just very cringey. One “doggo,” I might have let past, but two or more? I’m sorry, but it’s been years since I’ve heard someone unironically say Doggo.

From the get, Isobel is kind of a snot, but a sort of likable snot. She’s annoying and pretty significantly self-isolating from reality. She’s the Queen of Sparkle Dungeon, topping the leaderboards from the first game's release and refusing to let go of her lead. She’s so dedicated to this game, she puts over everything else in her life. Like, everything. She lost both a job and a girlfriend due to her obsession with this game. I mean, at least she’s somewhat aware that she’s socially not the best.

I struggled to relate to or sympathize with Isobel. I love a good deal of snark, but she doesn’t seem to have an off switch. However, I can admit that her character development does seem to drop her from 24/7 over the top sass to like 22/7, so that’s good. She’s also extremely gullible. Like, super duper easy to influence. She also suffers from insta-love, so get ready for that side plot. Alternatively, could be seen as insta stockholm syndrome?

As for the progression of the book, it’s about 0 energy level for the first quarter of the book and then it ramps up to 100 and unexpected percent. I was excited for this book because I enjoy linguistics and fantasy novels, as the title and summary sort of made me think I would get. I mean, that stuff is very minorly there (very VERY minorly, to be honest). The logic being presented for the power morphemes and how they work was, uh, shaky and unclear in my personal opinion.

That being said, there were a few moments where I did find myself enjoying the book, namely “combat” scenes. Unfortunately, I’d say my enjoyment wasn’t enough to outweigh my boredom and confusion. I’m sure there is an audience out there for this book, but I am not a part of it.

Lastly, I want to point out that this is written by Scotto Moore, he/him according to his GoodReads and website bios, and includes a lot LGBTQ characters which is great! However, the main character is either a lesbian or bisexual woman, and there’s just somthing about a man writing a main character who is a woman, especially a woman of the LGBTQ community, that feels a little off if not done immaculately. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m a used to reading #ownvoices novels, which this clearly isn’t. Maybe I’m just being nitpicky or sensitive or something, but it just felt very performative the way Moore wrote some of the characters.

-Lastly, bullet points of things both included and not included in my review
-Not #OwnVoices
-Sci-Fi more than Fantasy
-Also very culty, which is fun!
-Basically propaganda about how propaganda is bad which is sort of funny
-Not easy to follow, especially for a sci-fi newb
-Absolutely cringe worthy use of fun internet slang that no one has used unironically since like 2012.

2 out of 5 😬 I do applaud the ballsiness of the plot, though. Execution was simply lacking in my opinion.