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Myth Alliances | Rating | |
| D | |||
| Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| MythAdventures | Another Fine Myth, Myth Conceptions, Myth Directions, Hit or Myth, Myth-ing Persons, Little Myth Marker, M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link, Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections, M.Y.T.H. Inc. In Action, Sweet Myth-tery of Life, Myth-Ion Improbable, Something M.Y.T.H. Inc., Myth-Told Tales, Myth Alliances, Myth-Taken Identity, Class Dis-Mythed, Myth-Gotten Gains | ||
Skeeve has taken a hiatus. No more big money, no more fame, no company to run. He's alone, except for Bunny, so that he can brush up on his magic. But his big heart won't let him say no when someone tracks him down across the dimension and pleads for his help. It seems an entire dimension has been conquered by ten Pervects. Perfectly plausible, really. Now it is up to Skeeve to figure out how to oust them. But it might be his employers who are the real challenge.
The authors try hard to continue the wacky wordplay begun way back in Another Fine Myth. Wuhses, "Wisenheimerfest," and other inventive spellings are their main tools. No change, there. But the pace of the book doesn't match. The early novels were able to get away with these base gags because they moved fast. It was just one more thing in a great stream of jokes and patter. The pace of Myth Alliances is more akin to a regular novel. The authors carefuly introduce the characters, then the problem, provide a few encounters as tension builds, and so forth. Which makes the wordplay and puns stand out like a sore thumb. When it doesn't look stupid it's just lame.
Speaking of lame... the Wuhses. Oy. All right, they're supposed to be that way. Too, well, wussy to ever be persuasive, much less critical. But after a time — a very short time — they become irritating, then unbearable. Wimping out and going way out of their way to avoid any hint of confrontation is all they do, ever. And the other new races the authors introduce are just as one-dimensional. They all are like Saturday Night Live skits, forcing the joke ling after it ceases being funny — if it ever was. None are more annoying than the Wuhses, though, around whom the plot revolves.
Just as irritating, to me at least, was the fact that most of the book could have been short-circuited if Skeeve had just taken a few minutes to check out the competition. Get the full story, see what's going on, why don't you? It's not like he hasn't been told to do that before; Skeeve and Aahz made a little side trip in Myth Directions specifically to check out what they were up against. If he'd done tht here, there wouldn't be a story, which is exactly why the authors don't let him. But logically, he should have, and I despise plots that revolve around people overlooking the obvious.
This would have been far better as a short story, one more included in Myth-Told Tales. The authors have to pad it out terribly in order to force it to book-length. And it shows. Besides, it is never a pleasant experience when you want to wring the necks of a whole set of major characters. Their rank stupidity was frustrating, to a degree it's difficult to describe. Almost from the first page, this book was a chore to read, and it never, ever stopped. Unless you're absolutely a completist, intent on owning every book in the series, I heartily recommend you skip this one. And I suggests the completists reconsider, for that matter.
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