Title: I Bought Our World’s Magic to This Other World! Vol. 1
Author: C.A. McDivitt
Publisher: Amazon KDP
Language: English
Format: Paperback, Digital
Pages: 173
Genre: Isekai, Fantasy
Publication Date: September 29, 2021
The Story
I Brought Our World’s Magic to This Other World sees Alex MacCatan who was just crossing the street and checking his phone when our old friend Truck-kun sends him to another world. Appearing there with a broken arm, he meets Jessie, daughter of Margret, and a warrant officer of Duke Roland. After some questioning, she brings him before the Duke who is a Will-Walker… someone who can peer into another’s mind and even disrupt their thoughts.
After determining that Alex is not a threat or a spy, the Duke allows him to join their convoy as they are headed to the Haunted City. There, we meet Becka, a wolf-girl who is a bit sassy and takes a liking to Alex. As they travel, Alex inquiries about things, feigning from a far-away land to pass off his ignorance about this world. He gets some information but not before long, a looming threat arises.
With what begins with a simple scout from the imperial army, they learn that the army itself is hot on their tails. The conclusion of volume one sees them make a stand at the Haunted City with Alex’s knowledge of science being their only chance to survive!
Characters
Alex is a bit of a shut-in. He tends to love reading books that were downloaded to his phone which plays out throughout the story. For as much as he knows about science, he still needs some help every now and then and the extensive library he has on his phone proves to be helpful, albeit, a bit too convenient. Alex also serves as both the narrator and main character of the series which is a bit odd. This causes him to break the fourth wall several times which tends to be a bit jarring but entertaining at the same time.
Jessie is a bit of a hard-nosed girl at first but as she warms up to Alex, she begins to level out. She’s always willing to pick up a weapon and fight but she cannot help it when she succumbs to human chemistry and begins to develop a crush on Alex. While she’s not afraid to throw a command around or assert her authority, she seems like a normal girl in other situations. This keeps her grounded and breaks the trope that we often see in stories like this where the hardened military girl usually stays just that and ends up as a pseudo tsundere.
Becka, on the other hand, is a bit feisty which fits her being a wolf-girl perfectly. She’s openly flirtatious with Alex and even gets jealous when she sees Jessie trying to get closer to him. Ah, what would a story be without your typical love triangle? It makes you wonder who Alex will end up with; however, most of the time, the main character won’t end up with anyone. Typically, that scenario is a massive letdown because all if does is serve as a cheap distraction or plot filler. With this being the first volume of the series, I’m hoping it doesn’t go that way. If you’re going to have a romance in a story, there should be a definitive ending to it! (At least, that’s my opinion since romance is my favorite genre, after all! I REQUIRE PAYOFF, OKAY!?)
Final Thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed the first volume of the series as the story told was pretty good; however, the biggest complaint that I have is that it doesn’t really do anything new or revolutionary in an oversaturated genre. We have a main character get isekai’d by a truck and then ends up as a real-worlder trying to make sense of a brand-new fantasy world with magic. The hook here is that he uses science to solve some issues but it’s not overblown… which is a good thing, by the way.
Typically when an isekai series follows the creation of it by the numbers and then introduces the one hook to set it apart, they throw it in your face as if to say “BUT REMEMBER, WE’RE USING <INSERT HOOK HERE>.” This book avoids that and only uses science when it makes things a bit easier or provides a better solution than the one they already have… such as creating a makeshift jack to fix a broken carriage wheel or distilling piss…. Yes… distilling piss (read to find out why!)
The science here doesn’t try to change the established world. Besides, when you are introduced to the imperial army, it’s pretty clear that the level of science being used here is already known in this world. Alex seems to be teaching and/or showing people things that they, themselves, have not discovered yet. I have my theories as to why this is and the ending to the first volume certainly lends to those theories.
Simply put, even though the series uses a hook to attempt to do something different than other fantasy isekai series, it doesn’t really accomplish that; HOWEVER, (put down your pitch forks) does that make this a bad book? Not in the least bit!
It was a well-told story that made me lose track of time with a nice cast of characters that each had their own personalities and weren’t blown out of proportion. Everything seemed to fit in a grounded sense and plot points were kept simple, easy to understand, and offered up explanations to those who couldn’t understand twenty-five cent words, making the book accessible to those who didn’t whittle away their lives in a chemistry lab.
This was still a good read and still worth your time to check out!
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This item was provided for review by C.A. McDivitt
