To his astonishment, he was hailed as a wizard and found himself fighting beside a beautiful woman with strange powers against a mysterious warlord as he struggled to solve the riddle of this baffling world.Ĭlick to tweet: Friday Fiction: The Practice Effect by David Brin is a totally cool, totally fun, and totally non-serious science fiction book with fantasy-like effects. However, Id read the first three books of the Uplift series in publication order (Sundiver, Startide Rising, Uplift War), then read The Practice Effect.

But the world Dennis discovered seemed almost like our own-with one perplexing difference. Physicist Dennis Nuel was the first human to probe the strange realms called anomaly worlds-alternate universes where the laws of science were unpredictably changed. Dennis’s adventures, which can only be called rollicking, are legion.”-Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine It is unique, a one-off, standing alone.įrom one of the most critically acclaimed and well-loved authors of contemporary science fiction, a highly imaginative and exciting story as only David Brin can write. It isn’t even like any other book I’ve read by the same author. The only drawback to reading The Practice Effect is that it isn’t the start of a series. And a fun little alien who goes along for the ride as he tries to figure out what on Earth is going on with the magic system and how to save himself, the girl, and the entire nation of good guys well, then, there isn’t much hope for you, is there? If you didn’t get that, it’s about a guy who goes through a gate to another world, finds a girl who hates him, and has a robot who misunderstands his orders and saves the day.

Now, if after all that you need me to summarize the plot, this book may not be for you. How about traveling through gates between worlds? How about a robot that misunderstands its orders and ends up saving the day? How about a really cool alien creature that is onboard for the ride? Yup, I love all those too. Do you like “She hated me before she loved me” romances? I sometimes do, and there’s that too. Do you like magic system ‘whodunits’? I do, and I loved this book. Do you like hard sci-fi? I do, and I love it. It has one of the coolest ‘magic’ systems I have ever read. The Practice Effectis a totally cool, totally fun, and totally non-serious science fiction book with fantasy-like effects.

The practice effect by david brin