dflevitt's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.75
emmafromoz's review
5.0
At times, reading this, I wasn't sure whether it was very, very good or very, very bad. Luckily by the end I'd decided in favour of it. Utterly unique & very funny (and at times very bizarre), I had a blast reading it. Googling afterwards to find out what else Mal Peet might have written I was saddened to see that he died just a few months ago. The literary world will be all the poorer.
rhays40's review against another edition
4.0
fun. very British w lots of English references, which means I'm not sure my teens would think it was funny-
sharnibee's review against another edition
2.0
Well, that was painful. There were parts of this that were rather delightful but rather more parts that I found extremely tedious. Bah!
bookworm_630's review against another edition
3.0
3 stars for the first 2/3. I'm guessing this is a lot like movies that skewer Hollywood...the people in that business get all the obscure humor, in-jokes, and caricatures but the rest of us blink and wonder what's so funny. It was a quick read and I did enjoy the first 2/3, before it sunk into terrible bleakness.
mhall's review against another edition
2.0
This was a Nancy Pearl suggestion. Dry British humor about an author of sensitive YA books about outcasts. He won some literary prizes but now his books aren't selling and his agent convinces him to try writing epic fantasy because that's what people want to read. Then he summons a creature from another dimension, a scribe who does all the work of writing an astonishing tale for him. He strikes a bargain involving recovering an amulet that has been hidden in our dimension. Throughout all the place and character names are ridiculous puns. The main character, Murdstone, was sort of nasty and ridiculous, hard to root for, and some of the humor felt outdated. It kind of fell apart for me about halfway through. Back of the book comparisons to Terry Pratchett? Maybe a little, but Terry Pratchett's humor never punched down.
mfeibel's review against another edition
5.0
This book was EXCELLENT. A parody but also a homage to the stereotypical "Fantasy (or Phantasy) Novel". Laugh-out-loud funny in so many places (there's a stoner in the town who claims to be growing tomatoes....it's weed with red Christmas ornaments attached). I had to stop reading at work because I was most likely scaring people with how much I was laughing.
A truly unique and interesting plot that really draws you in.
A truly unique and interesting plot that really draws you in.