Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

Bored of the Rings by The Harvard Lampoon

1 review

fifteenthjessica's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

Bored of the Rings is a Lord of the Rings parody that condenses J. R. R. Tolkien’s famous epic fantasy into roughly 160 pages. Sometimes it’s a brilliant farce that demonstrates a familiarity with Tolkien’s work down to the sentence level, and other times it’s an unfunny wreck that confuses references to brand names and weird sex acts (often involving animals) with actual punchlines.

Probably the best moments were times when descriptions featured a mix of sweeping epic fantasy descriptions and crude or silly happenings, like comparing Boggie dwellings to “a series of disappointing bowel movements” made by a dragon or any of Goodgulf’s outfits. The worst were the references, many of which, in the time since the book’s publication, are no longer relevant, so I’m quite confident that my lack of in depth knowledge of the laxative Serutan caused a few jokes to fly over my head. Fortunately, there are footnotes to explain many of these, and most are actually quite witty like the recall of Anacin Skywalker or implying that Grand Theft Auto is an adaptation of Valley of Trolls.

I like stories with vibrant and varied characters, and many times the principle characters blended into a blob of the most stupid and cowardly assholes I’ve ever read about. In fact, the prologue about Boggies achieves a D&D orc tier of creating a society composed entirely of horrible people. 
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