[Book Club] July: Another Fine Myth

[ShannonA]

To honor the passing of writer and editor Robert Asprin, we selected Hit or Myth as our Book Club book for July. It's the first book in his well-respected MythAdventures series which to date includes 18 volumes, the last 6 of which were co-authored by Jody Lynn Nye.

A 19th book, and the final that will include Asprin's name, is scheduled for release later this year.

Here's the place for your comments and thoughts on the book.

[ShannonA]

Well, no one's said anything, so let me kick it off.

I read the first few MythAdventures books when I was in school, in the 1980s. I quite enjoyed them at the time, and I'm pretty sure that I read through everything that was published, which was the first 4 books or so. Though I liked them, I also read books like Piers Anthony's Xanth at the time, so you'll have to excuse my taste as being pretty questionable.

What surprised me about rereading Another Fine Myth is that I still liked it quite a bit. It's light and it's funny. It's got endearing characters. Finally, it's setting of multiple dimensions is original and fun, even if touched upon pretty lightly in the books.

I liked Another Fine Myth enough that I read the next couple of books over the course of June: Myth Conceptions and Myth Directions. Sadly, I'm finding that the shine drops off the books pretty quickly.

The second book, in which Skeeve stands off an army has a long, boring start before it finally ends with a terrific take-off of The Magnificent Seven.

The third book, in which Skeeve shops for a present and gets involved in an athletic competition, struck me as being largely pointless. There was no big-picture plot of import as was the case in the previous books, and thus it was saved only by Asprin's humorous writing.

I've got the 10th book waiting at the library for me right now, since it goes between #3 and #4, but I have a suspicion I'm not going to get much further into MythAdventures than I did when I read it in school, particularly if it either continues or maintains its decine.

Still, the first book was a marvel of comedic fantasy, especially due to its early entry to the genre.

[Azrael]

I didn't join in the discussion earlier, because I didn't have time to reread this.

Shannon described pretty much my experience with the books, too. I read them in school alongside Piers Anthony (who I thought wrote *wonderful* prose)

I enjoyed the turnarounds. It feels like a small, generic setting. One kingdom, one wizard, standard fantasy... then explodes into "of course it's small, that's just one dimension!"

The turnaround of the demons not being evil, just being the natives of another dimension was nice. The idea of "it's a demon, but not evil" has been done, as a "surprise, got you!" thing in a lot of books, but I quite liked how natural it felt if they are just the normal inhabitants of somewhere else. I was amused at the idea of demons summoning humans to scare their students.

The beginning, with Skeeve being a thief... I can see how that led into the con-artistry that he later does, but it feels like it was forgotten about. If Skeeve was a fast-talking street hustler, or something similar, I think it would have felt more natural.
The death of his master (who's name I can't recall) also seemed a bit jarring, in hindsight. There was mention made of wards and protections that he usually sets up, which were forgotten this one time an assassin happened to come calling. Huh? Sounds like a plot element. Is the whole murder a setup? A fake, to get the wizard out of debts? I was expecting something like that through the whole book... but nope... looks like he just happened to be careless on the day an assassin happened to come calling. I may well have missed something on my reading, or be misremembering, though. (It was fifteen years ago, and I was literally reading this while running... I was training cross country running, but I didn't want to stop reading...)

Over the series as a whole... I enjoyed the stories, but I was never *immersed* in them. It felt like a tale, not like a world. "Here's an army. They have so many soldiers you can't *possibly* beat them all. So... delay them a while, then do X and Y and Z" - sounds like a great game to run as a tabletop RPG. But it doesn't sound like a convincing scenario for a realistic setting. How does an army this large form without some response? How are they supplied? What are... - I don't mind those questions not being answered, because the books feel like a cartoon. They're fun! But I can't view the characters as "real people" and maybe that's why the shine wears off after a while.

I was also probably missing a lot of the comic references (such as the magnificent seven reference Shannon mentions)

What I enjoyed most about the books was when "standard" fantasy elements would be used in amusing or creative ways. The idea of a "sheet of invisibility" rather than a cloak, so they need to keep it pointed at the enemy, and their fingers can be seen where they're holding the sheet... or a shop that sells genies in bottles... all make perfect *sense* but are unusual.