Battle of the Linguist Mages, by Scotto Moore
(Tordotcom)
This is a deliciously psychedelic romp through the virtual
worlds of gamers, linguists, philosophers, cultists, and political power
players. Isobel is the Queen of Sparkle Dungeon, a medieval rave-themed VR game.
Her prowess makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power
morphemes"—dense units of meaning that can warp reality when skillfully
pronounced. As she masters level after level of power morphemes, she realizes
the driving force behind them—and her beloved game—is a shadowy faction led by
the Governor of California, bent on developing the arcane art of combat
linguistics to create a totalitarian empire. This faction is out to recruit Isobel,
but so is the resistance movement of spellcasting anarchists. Unfortunately for
everyone, the faction has attracted much bigger and weirder enemies than the resistance,
emerging from dark and vicious dimensions of reality.
The story is jam-packed with ideas, action, and just plain
fun. I mean, really, combat linguistics? I loved the characters, even
the evil, scheming governor. I’m not a gamer, although many of my friends are,
so I’m sure some of the hilarious Easter eggs and in-jokes went by me. If there’s
a fault in the book, that is its length. There’s a limit to how many didn’t-see-it-coming
twists one storyline can sustain and even whimsy falters after so many pages. Still,
I enjoyed the linguistic mages enough to look forward with anticipation to Moore’s
next book.
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