While I appreciate the author’s candor to admit—at the end, after reading the entire book—that “AI”, including Sudowrite and ChatGPT was used in the writing of it. While I finished reading this book, I cannot even comment on the quality of it because I do not know what is the author’s own skill and what is AI.

I feel utterly duped by the author and the publisher for not disclosing this prior to reading. I am disappointed, if not outright disgusted by the “sleight of hand” that’s being pulled here. The future of what we call “AI” right now is uncertain. But what is certain is that LLM companies have stolen work from published authors, and I find the use of it, by someone who has deemed themselves an author, baffling if not repugnant.

I received the ebook ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, Ragamancers Press. These opinions are mine alone.

I was invested in the scifi-fantasy elements of this book and so glad I got to read this. It does everything that I wanted in this type of book and the characters were wonderfully done. It was a strong debut and had that overall feel that I wanted on the genre. Royce Roeswood has a strong style for the concept and I wanted more in this world.

A mostly successful blend of SF (of the space-opera variety) and fantasy, as the title suggests.

That title refers to an event that occurs more than halfway through and isn't, perhaps, as crucial as its place in the title implies. The fix for the problem sets up for a "twist" that I knew was coming the moment the fix happened, and that I didn't believe would never have come up for anyone previously; but I read a lot of books, so I often see plot twists coming a long way off.

Something else I see a lot of is poor mechanics (punctuation, grammar, usage, vocabulary errors), and this book has many of the usual ones. (Disclaimer as always: I read a pre-publication version via Netgalley, and it is possible, though not highly likely, that there will be another edit before publication.) Excess commas between adjectives, of course, because nobody seems to know the coordinate comma rule; incorrect punctuation of dialog (a capital when the sentence resumes after a mid-dialog tag); apostrophes in the wrong place for things like the Lamplighters' Guild (which presumably has more than one lamplighter in it, so the apostrophe should go after, not before, the S); simple mistypings that happen to be valid words spellcheck doesn't catch, even though they're not the word intended, like "try" for "tray," "It" for "I," "add" for "and," "of" for "on," "she" for "see"; basic homonym errors like "diffuse" for "defuse," "horde" for "hoard," "loathe" for "loath" and (only once) "it's" for "its"; lack of the mandatory comma before a term of address; occasional lack of the past perfect tense where it belongs; and a number of other small issues, like grammatically distorted sentences, unusual word choices and hyphenation issues. It's about average for an indie book (trad-pub books sometimes have just as many errors, but typically different ones), but unfortunately, average means scruffy and, to me, at least, distracting.

What about the story? It's a simple enough plot. This is a universe in which high-ranking wizards are placed in charge of planets, moons, space stations and what have you, and aspiring wizards, after their university training, are sent for a year's apprenticeship - basically an internship - with a master wizard, doing their mundane chores in return for instruction in advanced magic. The protagonist, Ninienne, is such an apprentice, and her master wizard is incredibly old, not entirely compos mentis, and obsessed with portal magic (now mostly obsolete), whereas Ninienne intends to be a researcher in the field of creature healing - magical veterinary science. The creatures, by the way, are often a combination of a couple of Earth-type animals, like Ninienne's frogdog familiar, or the crowhorses that are used for farm work, or even of animal and plant.

There's an odd mix of eras in the worldbuilding; there are interstellar spaceships and androids, but the farming feels 19th- or early-20th-century, and rather than electric lights, the wizard's tower is lit with flame spells. In 1950s space opera style, all the inhabited worlds appear to have entirely Earth-compatible biomes, with no difficulties about being able to eat the local life or farm crops from other planets. Intelligent aliens in the SF sense don't seem to be a thing, but there are dryads and demons and such. It's basically a fantasy universe with a bit of light SF grafted on.

As the story progresses, Ninienne struggles more and more with her mentor, and he looks more and more sinister. Where is his previous apprentice? What about his wife and daughter? Why is he so obsessed with portal magic? Will he near-arbitrarily decide to fail her, in which case her magic will potentially be bound and she will be left in desperate straits? Meanwhile, her closest friend is having a great time in her apprenticeship (a long way away) and isn't much help, the android Ninienne tricks her mentor into buying to do the scut work is, perforce, on the mentor's side because of its programming (even if odd things are happening with it), and there's a guy from a nearby farm who seems to want to be the romantic interest, but Ninienne can do without the complication, given everything else that's going on.

As far as storytelling is concerned, while there's nothing amazing, it's all sound, solid stuff, entertaining, with a decent arc and good emotional beats. The worldbuilding isn't particularly in depth, but it does its job. The characters have believable motivations. It's a good first effort, and although of course I wish the author, like nearly every author I read, could level up his game when it comes to writing mechanics, I've read plenty of books that are far worse in that regard (I'm reading one at the moment, in fact). It earns a spot in the Bronze tier of my annual recommendation list, which is still a recommendation, even if not a high one.

A funny and whimsical read, this book is a good palate cleanser after reading something heavy. This has a mix of genres and will make you laugh. Yes, it was done with AI but it is not meant to be a serious book. Just have fun with it!

".... neverending Hydra of circuitry."- My favorite quote from the book. Just the imagery of that sentence is great.

I went into this book thinking that they meant android as is the phone, not android as in the humanesque robot with AI software. That left me slightly confused for a little bit when Salagrix kept telling the Main Character no android, after essentially stealing her phone ("device") to play on. That's on me, not the author, though. Haha! I do love the multiple plays on "broke" from the title. Brilliant!

It took a little while to get into the story, but I loved the interstitials from the Book World that helped give context to the advancement and usage of technology within said Book World.

The character development was stilted to start, but after a few chapters really kicked in at a great pace. I wasn't connecting with anybody and before I knew it, I found myself suddenly extremely interested in the outcome of everyone's story.

I definitely can't wait to see how this world progresses in future installments.

Side Note (since I both read the ebook and listened to the audiobook):
The narrator has a Ron Howard narrating Arrested Development feel. He's phenomenal at differing voices and tones, especially for the interstitials.
He makes Salagrix sound like Ron Swanson, in an amazing way.

This book is whimsical and funny and a nice light reading in-between my heart-breaking books.
It combines magic, tech and space, which makes for a real interesting cross-genre read. Then there's also a frog dog and a kitchen demon.
Despite the title, this story does have depth and parts to make you think.

I have to put focus on the acknowledgement by the author that AI tools have been used in the creative process of writing this book. I do not endorse AI in art, but I do appreciate the transparency to state exactly how and where it was used, and that the author himself is not sure yet if it's a good way going forward.

3/5 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @victoryeditingngc for the eARC ! Especially for the chance to read the ebook and audiobook simultaneously.

#OopsIBrokeTheWizardsAndroid #Netgalley #Bookstagram

🤖 Written with AI assistance. I appreciate the author made a note re: AI’s assistance in this project. I wish it was at the beginning - I’m not keen on AI taking over creative spaces. I’m not knowledgeable on the writing process to know how this author’s approach varies from the norm. As such, my review stands, but I felt the AI flag should be waved so readers know. 🤖

As someone who doesn’t particularly gravitate towards fantasy set in space, I had a good time with this read. I found it to be fairly cozy, light, and fun. MC is in an crappy apprenticeship, on a less than desirable planet, and would make a seriously questionable bargain to gain a better placement - she doesn’t, but she would if she could. The story follows her ups and downs while there. I think this is a great, light read for anyone who may need a breather from heavier fantasies or romance.

Thank you to NetGalley, Royce Roeswood, and Regamancers Press for this eARC.

While I thought the story was enjoyable and engaging, unfortunately I can’t recommend it. I personally do not agree with using AI to write books and with the note at the end stating AI was used, I can’t rate it highly. The note does state the much of the AI was removed by the final edition. I may revisit this as more information comes to light regarding AI in general but at this time, these are my thoughts. If the idea sounds engaging to you as a reader and you’re okay with AI, feel free to check it out since it was an entertaining read. I would recommend finding a way to move the AI disclosure to the beginning of the book rather than the end. I would’ve rather known that going in so I could choose whether or not to read it.

The author builds not just a world, but a whole universe where magic is normal. Our heroine is sent to a wizard on a dark moon for the last part of her training. Many of her questions to the wizard go unanswered and his tower harbors many mysteries. Characters are well-developed making this an enjoyable and worthwhile read. Don’t miss reading the Statement of Tools. It’s an eye–opener!

This was such a fun ya book that Incant wait to share with readers! It has all the elements of fun supernatural and android powers and a fun heroine off to save the day! I loved it! I know readers will too!