pedanther's reviews
383 reviews

He Do the Time Police in Different Voices by David Langford

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lighthearted medium-paced

3.25

A collection of parodies and pastiches from a career spanning more than three decades - and it has to be said that some of them have not aged well. The early ones, grouped together, show a marked tendency toward people getting hilariously drunk and male leads checking out the female lead's prominent features, which is only sometimes justifiable as an exaggeration of elements present in the works being parodied. There's one story in particular, originally published in 1984, that leans on stereotypes we now recognise as homophobic and transphobic to such an extent that I'm kind of surprised to find it being reprinted in 2015, even allowing for a desire for completeness of collection.

There are some good works in here; on the whole, my experience was that the more successful were the short parodies that didn't outstay their welcome, and the longer pastiches that were trying for some degree of being a worthwhile story in their own right. Several of the more successful pastiches are detective stories, including the Father Brown story "The Spear of the Sun" and the Sherlock Holmes story "The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech"; perhaps the form imparts some extra degree of discipline. The Lovecraftian pastiche, "Out of Space, Out of Time", is also not bad, though the title makes it sound more parodic than it actually is and it suffers a bit from being more interested in its Big Idea than in the plot and characters. The collection ends strong with the Nero Wolfe parody "If Looks Could Kill", which is both a reasonably satisfying mystery and genuinely funny, allowing me to part on good terms with a collection that, by that point, I was pretty glad to be moving on from.

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The Regina Monologues by Rebecca Russell, Jenny Wafer

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challenging emotional funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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The Last Song of Penelope by Claire North

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adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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Fortunately, the Milk... by Neil Gaiman

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

4.5


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House of Odysseus by Claire North

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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Tesladyne Industries Field Guide by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.25

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Down With Skool! by Geoffrey Willans, Ronald Searle

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.25

I got a few laughs out of it, but having been born a generation or two later in a far distant country, a lot of the specific things being lampooned don't resonate with me the way they would with someone who'd lived through this kind of schooling and didn't only know it from reading other old books. I'm also a lot more aware of the casual racism, gender policing, bullying, and the violence against children by adult authority figures.

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Ithaca by Claire North

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

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challenging emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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