I just finished ‘A Farce to Be Reckoned With’ by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley. I’ve read a fair bit of Zelazny–the Amber novels and Lord Of Light and some others. This book looked more light hearted, but I figured I’d give it a try. <\/p>\n
I was sorely disappointed. There’s no plot. Or, rather, there is a plot, but it makes no sense. Plot turns are introduced (like the Greek gods getting free) and then dropped, willy nilly. There’s a character called Peter Westfall who gets Pandora’s Box at the beginning, but we never hear from him again. And at the end, we have a fight scene that is a total deus ex machina–the end of the book comes with no explanations.<\/p>\n
Normally, you expect characters to have reasons for things they do. They can do weird things, but they should justify it to themselves, and have the actions be a natural outgrowth of their past. This is called characterization. Characters in this book have one sentence justifications for absurd actions. We have a nun who decides to deal with the devil, and an angel who is ordered to spy. There’s a set of religious pilgrims headed toward Venice during the Middle Ages. A demon joins them, proves himself to be a demon, and they don’t even run from him.<\/p>\n
The dialog is wretched. Everyone converses in a stilted manner. The description is campy; the authors apparently decided to focus on the clothing of women–there are attractive wimples and red low cut blouses galore. <\/p>\n
It feels like this book has been subjected to random editing. Or perhaps worse than random, as I feel that there may have been malicious intent at confusing the reader. Characters pop up, disappear for a while, then pop up again with no explanation (an example is the young lady named Priscilla [or Puss]).<\/p>\n
But you know what? All of the above flaws could have been forgiven if there had been any scene, any scene at all, that was funny. I wanted to forgive the flaws–I wanted to laugh–I read the entire book, didn’t I? But I didn’t even crack a smile the entire book. There were times I put it down and thought to myself, ‘Why are you wasting your time?’ I will admit, I finished the book (I think for the same reasons that folks slow down to look at a wreck on the highway).<\/p>\n
Don’t buy this book. If you want some funny fantasy, read ‘A Night in the Lonesome October’ (which is great!) or anything by Blaylock. Don’t buy this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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