The Rogue Retrieval (Gateways to Alissia #1) ★★★✬☆

~ Bookstooge

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Rogue Retrieval
Series: Gateways to Alissia #1
Author: Dan Koboldt
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 263
Words: 90K

From the authors site & Bookstooge.blog

Stage magician Quinn Bradley dedicated his life to a single purpose: headlining for a major casino on the Las Vegas strip. But just before his dreams come true, two modern mercenaries show up to make him a puzzling offer. Half a million dollars for six months on a private assignment. Their corporate employer has discovered – and kept secret – a gateway to a pristine medieval world called Alissia.

For fifteen years, they’ve studied it beneath a shroud of secrecy. Now, the head of their research team has gone AWOL, with a backpack full of disruptive technology. They’re sending in a retrieval team, and they want Quinn Bradley to come along. His talents for illusion, backed with the company’s considerable resources, should make for some convincing magic.

It will need to be convincing. Because Alissia has the real thing.

The AWOL guy is now the King of the most powerful country on Alissia and Quinn finds out the hard way that impersonating a magician is a very serious matter. Quinn ends up in Magician Land and the rest of the crew try to make it back to the portal as they dodge assassins from a rival corporation.

Everyone who is still alive makes it back to Earth and the book ends with Quinn getting contacted for another mission, which he is eager to take.

Mogsy reviewed Koboldt’s latest book, Silver Queendom, back in October and that put him on my radar. Glad she did.

Portal fantasy. Pretty decent. Plan on reading the rest of the trilogy. Not much else to say. Not because anything was bad but because I’m tired of writing. Maybe I’ll have more to say about the next book. Probably depends on how many other reviews I write the same day.

Oh wait, there was an awesome He-Man easter egg in this book. I chortled quite jollily when I read it. Yep, now I’m done.

★★★✬☆

53 thoughts on “The Rogue Retrieval (Gateways to Alissia #1) ★★★✬☆”

    1. I read a couple of his Star Wars related books. And while I thought they were pretty good, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read anything else by him. He got very philosophical in the Star Wars stuff, and it while he wasn’t categorically on the opposite side as me, we definitley weren’t on the same side.

      With that being said, would you still recommend Heroes Die?

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      1. Yeah, totally. That said, the trilogy follows a familiar genre pattern – ie, more and more chin-stroking with each successive book, less and less action. The first in the series is the best in my opinion.

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  9. Sounds intriguing! And the theme of the portal into a fantasy/medieval world reminds me of a series I started a loooong time ago and never continued: it’s The Acts of Caine by Matthew Woodring Stower. I still have the first book, Heroes Die, saved somewhere and now I feel like re-reading it… 🙂

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    1. I know, right? I was kind of hesitant after my last couple of tries, hahahahaa. I’m definitely going to finish up this trilogy (unless i dnf for a reason).

      By the by, did you purposefully unfollow me and then re-follow or do I need to be worried about the dreaded problem of wp randomly unfollowing people who have chosen to follow me?

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