Book Review :- Chronicles of a Spell Caster: Book One – Orientation by J.J. Singleton

I was provided with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

About the Book:

The book focuses on the main character, Jet, who is entering his freshman year of college. In this world, every human has abilities that are better known as powers. Jet is different; he is the last pure Caster, someone who can use magic. Schools and colleges use the most advanced technology of this world, the AITS, to train the students, have sparring matches, and assign missions. Missions are a massive part of the curriculum, and the completion of these missions gives each student points that go toward their term grade.

Colleges and universities use this technology and have the students enter the AITS virtual reality during their second semester. With time working differently in the virtual reality, the students do a full year during the second semester. With the AITS the students refer to the time in the virtual reality as the game, and when they enter the virtual reality, they are in there to fend for themselves.

On the campus of Welwerth University, sports teams and clubs are highly regarded and some clubs shine brighter within the virtual reality. For the students that are not part of a club or sports team, it is hard to get missions done within the virtual reality in order to secure a good grade at the end of the year. To level the playing field, Jet and friends decide to establish a new club, one that would welcome all and give the rest of the student body a place to come together. This new club is called the Sanctuary. But even as everything seems to fall into place, it will all unravel with secrets, underhand deals, backstabbing, and a threat that no one saw coming. To survive, everyone will have to rally together to defeat the adversity.

My Thoughts:

In this first book of Chronicles of a Spell Caster, the author chronicles the journey of the main character Jet as he navigates his way through Welwerth University, a place where humans with powers come to learn. Jet is unique in that he is the last pure Caster, someone who can use magic directly. This sets him apart from the rest and of course defines his friends and foes.

The concept of the university is interesting in that the students are divided into sports teams and or clubs. Virtual reality is used to help train them and this concept was something that I enjoyed reading about. The author gives us a lot of interesting detail and some history as the story progresses. Even though the story is told in first person, with Jet as the narrator, we come to know many things about the AITS and the University.

As the students go through the daily classes and experiences, we are introduced to various characters each with their own agenda, strengths and weaknesses. Some become reader favourites and some, well they exist in the story for a reason. It took me some time to get into the book as the writing was not easy to get into. I was not able to relate to Jet easily as he seemed to know everything and he seemed to always win. This was until a point where we are shown fractures in the perfect facades of the characters and then their struggles become more relatable.

Overall, I found the idea of the plot to be interesting and the use of virtual reality as a training tool was unique and well incorporated. The story is worth a read for those who are fans of magic and adventure.