I tried. I really tried! I listened to seven chapters of Wizards Alley by James Haddock and still haven’t figured out what this story is about! The narrator – Daniel Wisniewski – is superb, but the story leaves much to be desired.
Wizard’s Alley starts out promising. Two wizards duel in an alley. A stray bolt of magic knocks a street urchin unconscious. When the boy awakes, he discovers he can do magic. After that, however, the story takes a less than promising turn as Scraps, the street urchin turned wizard, goes around town, stealing, healing, and fighting various people. While his intentions are good – to provide for those less fortunate – his actions are somewhat questionable.
The main complaint I had with the first seven chapters (because I’m not reading anymore of it) was that there was no conflict. Scraps was “blessed” with magical powers, and he doesn’t even have to learn how to use them! He can simply wish for something, and it comes true.
Concerned I was jumping the gun prematurely, I looked at reviews on Amazon to see if I simply needed to be more patient. Unfortunately, many of the reviews observed the same things I did – lack of conflict/plot being the main one. A review left by “Jo” on Amazon described the book perfectly: Wizard’s Alley “reads like a history book”. Imagine reading someone’s autobiography, and you pretty much have a feel for what reading Wizard’s Alley is like.
Reading4Fun 