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Myth-Taken Identity | Rating | |
| C | |||
| 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 may be rich and famous, but he's never exactly been what anyone might call savvy. Which is why he's the absolute perfect target for a group of thieves on another world, who've taken the credit card he acquired on Perv and are using it to steal merchandise — and magical power! Aahz, Massha, and Chumley are going to have to stop this ring of thieves before Skeeve is driven broke, or worse, the life sucked right out of his unwitting body. But even finding the perpetrators is going to be tough in a Mall whose size, variety, and ferocity of merchants and shoppers alike rival even the great Bazaar at Deva!
As I read this, I began to wonder just how long a comedy of errors could go on. Skeeve's friends actually identify who's behind it all fairly quickly, and even have some idea of the underlings. They only need to lay their hands one them, grab even one so they can wring the information they need of of his skull. But they have a hard, hard, hard time managing this, even when the culprits start the chase literally right in front of them. The trio, and their allies, trip or are impeded by Mall patrons; Massha's gadgets misfire or miss their mark; and the targets are quick and evasive, just plain slipping through their fingers. It very quickly becomes an episode of Keystone Mall Kops. That works for an encounter, maybe two, but when it lasted for most of the book I got disgusted. Aahz and the rest are just not that clumsy or incompetent, and if the thieves' dexterity was the sole issue that'd be smart enough to find a way to counter it. One that works and won't misfire.
It really is frustrating to see characters that are not supposed to be stupid acting as if they were. Over and over again. Slapstick doesn't work with intelligent characters, and it doesn't work as well in a book as it does in a movie. Yet there wasn't really any other humor to pick up the slack.
Like all Myth Adventure books, the story is easy to read and goes by fast, although the authors have yet to regain the zip of those first few books. And with all the identity thefts going on, it's definitely a modern and fairly unique plot. Also, once the first half — maybe tow-thirds, at most — is past, Aahz and the rest start using their heads. Which means I felt less tempted to smack my own against a wall a few times. At that point, the story became bearable, if hardly great. But the book's start is so hard to take for the simple reason that readers have had over a dozen books to get to know the characters. And how they were acting is just not right, for them.
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