mdpenguin's review
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Some of these are pretty good and some are pretty weak but mostly they're just decent. There's nothing really exciting about them and I kind of feel like they're slightly changing some of the characters a little, but nothing too extreme. The silly humor is more fun to me when it's cleverly fitted into a longer narrative rather than a somewhat more contrived feeling short story.
verkisto's review against another edition
3.0
Take a look at that cover over there. It's horrible, isn't it? It takes several seconds to figure out what's going on there, since it's muddy and washed out. You might think that the resolution is due to it being a poor image, but no, the cover actually looks like that. For a series that has been graced with colorful, vivid, humorous illustrations, this introduction to the new books, with a cover like this, is questionable.
The foreword to this book explains how Asprin and Nye, facing the prospect of writing additional books in his series, opted to start out slowly, writing a few short stories to test their styles together. The book contains three short stories, one narrated by Skeeve and featuring him helping Bunny in a beauty pageant, one narrated by Chumley and featuring him, Tananda, and Guido running a beauty parlor, and one narrated by Aahz, featuring him and Massha helping locate the source of some strange goings-on surrounding a dragon-princess hunt.
The writing is reminiscent of "M.Y.T.H. Inc. Instructions", the bonus story included at the end of Something M.Y.T.H. Inc. that was written by Nye. They manage to maintain a similar style, though they're definitely different. Having read all of Asprin's solo books back-to-back like I did, it's easy to see the difference in style, though it still feels familiar. I'm not sure it would have been as noticeable had I not read the others so closely to the time that I read this one, but it's definitely different. How could it not be, though? It's including a whole new writer!
I hadn't planned on reading any of the Myth Adventure books beyond Asprin's original twelve books, but after talking about the series with a friend, and him telling me that these co-written books "aren't as bad as you think", I decided to give them a read, too. This is an auspicious start, but then again, I disliked the short-story nature of M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link, too, and this book is also comprised of stories. Maybe they'll pick up with the actual novels that follow.
The foreword to this book explains how Asprin and Nye, facing the prospect of writing additional books in his series, opted to start out slowly, writing a few short stories to test their styles together. The book contains three short stories, one narrated by Skeeve and featuring him helping Bunny in a beauty pageant, one narrated by Chumley and featuring him, Tananda, and Guido running a beauty parlor, and one narrated by Aahz, featuring him and Massha helping locate the source of some strange goings-on surrounding a dragon-princess hunt.
The writing is reminiscent of "M.Y.T.H. Inc. Instructions", the bonus story included at the end of Something M.Y.T.H. Inc. that was written by Nye. They manage to maintain a similar style, though they're definitely different. Having read all of Asprin's solo books back-to-back like I did, it's easy to see the difference in style, though it still feels familiar. I'm not sure it would have been as noticeable had I not read the others so closely to the time that I read this one, but it's definitely different. How could it not be, though? It's including a whole new writer!
I hadn't planned on reading any of the Myth Adventure books beyond Asprin's original twelve books, but after talking about the series with a friend, and him telling me that these co-written books "aren't as bad as you think", I decided to give them a read, too. This is an auspicious start, but then again, I disliked the short-story nature of M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link, too, and this book is also comprised of stories. Maybe they'll pick up with the actual novels that follow.
countdeworde's review
3.0
I give 3 stars but only because I read the Czech version which is shorter . There are 5 stories missing. Otherwise I liked it and I promise to myself that I will buy this book in English to read the rest of the stories.
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