In Rick Cook's Wizardry series, the extreme danger presented by magic and the difficulty of analyzing the magic have stymied magic and left humanity at the mercy of the dangerous elves until a wizard summons a computer programmer from a parallel world — ours — to apply the skills he learned in our world to magic.
In Rick Cook's Wizardry series, the perilous nature of magic and its complexity have hindered its use, leaving humanity vulnerable to the dangerous elves until a wizard summons a computer programmer from another world — our own — to apply his skills in our world to magic.