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Phule Me Twice | Rating | |
| C | |||
| Robert Asprin with Peter J. Heck | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| Phule's Company | Phule's Company, Phule's Paradise, A Phule and His Money, Phule Me Twice | ||
Once again, Phule has overcome all obstacles to save not just the day but the planet. And once again General Blitzkrieg hates him for it. So he sends him to Zenobia, in order to stop a planetary invasion. The problem is, nobody's ever seen the invaders. Worse, the general has sent off a crony to take over the company and remake it in his own, by-the-book image. How is Phule going to accomplish anything when he isn't allowed to do anything? And how will he come out on top even if he does manage to do anything, with the major ready to take all the credit?
The story, though, is really just one giant mistaken identity plot, because along with everything else, the robot that was supposed to take his place on Lorelei has managed to show up in camp. And, unfortunately, I hate mistaken identity plots! The writers always must - must! - arrange events in just such a way to make sure it happens. And he has to make sure it just keeps on happening. Even if he did keep the robot's existence a secret from the entire company (hard to believe in itself, since there's no reason to), even if the catlike aliens didn't smell the difference (a possiblity which is simply ignored), then simply asking it the right questions should have tipped everyone off, except nobody asks any. And, of course, Phule himself must go incommunicado at just the right time and in just the right way in order to keep him from spoiling the plot simply by walking back into camp.
And that's not the only problem I had with things. The Zenobians like swamps, and humans don't, and thus the book attempts to justify their claiming planets within the human Federation for years without our notice. I found that hard to believe, especially when it was revealed just where their home planet was. I mean, they are both technical civilizations, and even if they use different frequencies to communicate there are still plenty of other things to notice. And the new people in charge of the unit are Major Botchup and Lieutenant Snipe; since the Space Legion allows its members to chose their own nicknames, I found that hard to take. Who would, in essence, name themselves Major Failure and Lietenant Asshole?
There's a difference between suspending my disbelief for the sake of a fun story, and hanging it by the neck until dead. Guess which category this book asked of me?
The book is... readable. But it is suffering from a serious shortage of the madcap, oddball antics that made the first two books so fun. It's never painful to read, it's just never all that entertaining either.
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