Ever since an old classmate of mine posted one of Scott Meyer’s Basic Instructions comics about Reno (we grew up in Sparks), I have loved the web comic. I think it’s one of the best web comics out there. It is dense. Usually four panels and each panel has it’s own joke. I was happy to see Meyer resurrecting the comic strip, updating some of the graphics (which must have taken him at least an hour), but continuing the same format with a perspective slightly more exposed to middle age.
I did not recall that he had written books as well. I came across a copy of Off to Be The Wizard at Powell’s and finally got around to reading it. I’m going to talk about one of the techniques he uses in the book, so consider this a major spoiling warning.
Are you going to go read the book first?
Really?
I’ll have to trust you on that.
Before that, if the title did not impress this upon you, this is about Meyer’s use of Checkov’s Gun. Nominally, this is a “rule” of writing coined by Anton Checkov that states if there is a gun on the mantel in the first act, it must be fired by the third.
At best, this is advice that warns writers of deus ex machina, or endings that come out of the blue and don’t give a satisfactory ending.
At worst, this advice leads many a workshopper to complain that some piece of set decoration to build the world was never used in the story.
Okay, so the premise of the story is that Martin Banks discovers a file on a server that seems to be a plain text file that describes reality. He plays with living a better life with a rather permanent escape plan based off of a video summary of a book that he never read. He has to invoke that escape clause and comes to the realization that as a 21st century guy with a a permanently charged cell phone he can pretend to be a wizard in medieval England. There he discovers that he is not the only person to have discovered this file or made the same assessment about escaping to a relatively safe place.
There is a lot of fun to this book, and I think it really is worth picking up.
After Martin becomes an apprentice to a guy from a few decades earlier who found the file, he encounters the latrine, which is a hole to shit in some 30 feet deep but the bottom is completely dry. He learns anything that falls into the latrine disappears. Phillip, the guy training him and owner of the latrine, says nothing.
Later we learn Phillip really hates Jimmy, another “wizard” who has set himself up with a self-aggrandizing Merlin. Merlin has renamed London “Camelot” and has built a statue of the King, who he calls Arthur, but that statue pales in comparison to the gold statue he had built of himself. It’s rather impressive, other than the muck that seems to appear out of nowhere from great velocity to douse the statue.
The locals are confused about it, and Merlin can’t seem to do shit about it. Sorry. Merlin is also unaware of what’s really happening. The revelation that Phillip’s latrine magically empties itself over the head of a statue celebrating someone Phillip hates is simply some of the best deadpan writing I’ve read in a long long time.
Checkov’s gun in action. Something set up early for a later payoff. Only we’re not done.
Because Jimmy/Merlin is not a nice guy he decides to block Phillip, Martin, and any other wizard from entering Camelot and stop him from doing the crap he shouldn’t be doing, our heroes teleport to Phillips home and then rappel down the latrine to get past the barrier.
So the magic latrine, which is at first a joke, becomes a major tool in solving the final battle.
It was a fun trick to read, and I’d love to try it myself one day.
It looks like Meyer actually has several books, so I think I’ll be running a gamut for a while to read more of his stuff. I already know he’s funny. Basic Instructions is one of the best, as I said.