WebMage (WebMage Series #1)

by Kelly McCullough

Overview

Magic gets an upgrade in the first WebMage novel featuring a computer savvy sorcerer...

Ravirn is not your average computer geek. A child of the Fates—literally—he’s a hacker extraordinaire who can zero in on the fatal flaw in any program. Now that twenty-first-century magic has gone digital that makes him a very talented sorcerer. But a world of problems is about to be downloaded on Ravirn—who’s just trying to pass his college midterms.

Great Aunt Atropos, one of the three Fates, decides that humans having free will is really overrated and plans to rid herself of the annoyance—by coding a spell into the Fate Core, the server that rules destiny. As a hacker, Ravirn is a big believer in free will, and when he not only refuses to debug her spell but actively opposes her, all hell breaks loose.

Even with the help of his familiar Melchior, a sexy sorceress (who’s also a mean programmer), and the webgoblin underground, it’s going to be a close call...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780441014255
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/25/2006
Series:	WebMage Series , #1
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	294,566
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.76(h) x 0.86(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kelly McCullough is the author of the WebMage series and the Fallen Blade series.

Read an Excerpt

No time for second thoughts now

 Scorched Earth is not a spell that can be aborted halfway. Ultimately, all spells draw power from the same source, the primal chaos that churns between the worlds. But my family mostly uses the predigested forces my grandmother and her sisters channel into the net via their mainframe webservers. Scorched Earth isn’t like that. It taps directly into the interworld chaos. That means it’s both very dangerous and very powerful. It also means I don’t have to have web access to run it. Melchior’s voice interrupted my train of thought.
 “There’s no carrier wave and no Mweb line,” he said. “I think we just took the entire net down, Boss.”
 “Sweet necessity,” I murmured. “What have I done now?”

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The most enjoyable science fantasy book I’ve read in the last four years.”—Christopher Stasheff

Editorial Reviews

The most enjoyable science fantasy book I’ve read in the last four years.”—Christopher Stasheff

From the Publisher

The Barnes & Noble Review
The protagonist of Kelly McCullough's debut novel, WebMage -- a blend of Greek mythology, contemporary fantasy, and cyberpunk -- is equal parts sorcerer and hacker extraordinaire (Harry Potter meets Neo from The Matrix). Prince Ravirn is the grandson of Lachesis, one of the Fates: the three immortal crones who spin, measure, and eventually cut every person's life thread. While disguised as a goth computer geek named Ravi Latcher and majoring in classics and computer science at the University of Minnesota, Ravirn is learning all he can about network security to aid the Fates, who have upgraded their magical craft to the digital world. But after supposedly checking his great-aunt Atropos's security for flaws, Ravirn uncovers a nefarious plot to eliminate chance and free choice forever. With the help of a sarcastic webgoblin named Melchior and his distant -- and beautiful -- cousin Cerice, Ravirn must find a way to save the world from a terrible fate…

McCullough's WebMage is a solid first novel; and with a shocker of a conclusion that turns Ravirn's entire existence upside down and sets the stage for a plethora of story lines, it will have new fans of Kelly McCullough clamoring to see many more sequels. Paul Goat Allen

bn.com

Remember the Fates, those ancient Greek spinners, weavers and snippers of life's threads? They're back in McCullough's original and outstanding debut, and still ruling destiny-but with their own digital web, based on a server called the Fate Core. Power-hungry as ever, they've coded a spell to eliminate human free will. Unluckily for them, one of their demigod descendants is a cheerfully rebellious hacker-sorcerer named Ravirn who, when not studying for college midterms, likes to mess around on their web with the help of his familiar, Melchior, who can change from a goblin to a laptop. Ravirn and Melchior, let loose in McCullough's delightfully skewed and fully formed world-much like our own, but with magic, paranormally advanced technology and Greek gods-set out to thwart Ravirn's "great-to-the-nth-degree aunt[s]," careening from one discovery to another, enlisting unlikely allies and narrowly evading destruction at the hands of both Fates and Furies. McCullough handles his plot with unfailing invention, orchestrating a mixture of humor, philosophy and programming insights that give new meaning to terms as commonplace as "spell checker" and esoteric as "programming in hex." Though a preponderance of techie-talk may put off some readers, this is the kind of title that could inspire an army of rabid fans; it's a good thing a sequel is planned for 2007. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly