A book about a guy whose magic works in a very roundabout way [closed]

Question

I'm trying to find out what the title of a book about a guy who lives in a world where a lot of people can use magic and he can use magic but in a very roundabout way.

Answer 1

It is possible that you are remembering A Spell for Chameleon and/or The Source of Magic.

They were the first and second Xanth books by Piers Anthony, and the protagonist of both volumes was a young man named Bink. (There were many later books, but Bink tended to fade into the background in those, as other characters stepped up to have their own adventures.)

Bink's major problem in the first book was that all human citizens of the peninsular kingdom of Xanth had to demonstrate possession of some sort of magical talent by a certain age, or else they faced mandatory exile to the outside world (basically our world). Some of the talents were very impressive (such as the ability to conjure up a storm), and some were very minor (such as making a colored spot seem to appear on a nearby wall), but you had to have some sort of magical talent; the people of Xanth wanted to keep it a realm full of magic. Bink had now reached the required age, and didn't seem to have any special abilities. He desperately needed to find one.

Throughout the plot of the first book, there were hints that he had a magical talent which he couldn't consciously control and which couldn't be readily identified (since it didn't cause flashes of light or shapechanging or anything else that would be obvious to the casual observer). The mystery of what, if anything, it might be, was only solved at the very end of A Spell for Chameleon.

Then, in the second volume, he was again the main viewpoint character, but this time he knew exactly what his own talent was, and could sometimes figure out how it had affected recent events during his travels with some friends on an important Quest. To avoid ruining it for anyone unfamiliar with the early Xanth books, I'll hide the description of his talent as a Spoiler:

Bink's talent subconsciously affected the world around him in various ways in order to ensure that he was always protected against suffering any real harm from magical phenomena. He had no control over this, and several times in the first two books it seemed as if he, or people around him, had experienced a bit of random "good luck" or "bad luck" -- but always in such ways that he did not suffer physical injury from something magical. His talent was no defense against non-magical brute force, however -- he wasn't "invulnerable" to sharp cutting edges, etc.