Myth-Taken Identity (Myth Adventures)

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful return to form
Review: An excellent return to form for the series, with the best story yet. It's back to fresh parody for the Myth series, of a famous story, the title of which would be giving away too much. It's also the first full form story told completely from Aahz's viewpoint. And at 294 pages, it's also the longest single book in the 20+ year history of the series.

Unlike the recent Skeeve books, there's no self-pitying introspection, no "golly, I must be growing up" stuff, just Aahz in a full-tilt battle against a truly evil and powerful Wizard, the likes of which we haven't seen since Isstvan. (And just so it's said, no it's not Isstvan again. :) )

And most worthy of note, the legend returns... all illustrations (including the cover) are once again handled by the Master Phil Foglio!

If you are a fan of the series, or even if you are new to it, I recommend this book as a fun read!

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed lately...
Review: I think that after so much time, Robert Asprin has forgotten his own series. There's plenty of obvious glaring mistakes in this and his last book:

1) The dimension Skeeve is from is Klah, not Klahd. People from it are Klahds.
2) The dimension that Cassandra (note two s') was from is Limbo, not Blut. Blut was the main town where the dispatcher lived.
3) The Weasel (in the glossary from Myth Alliances) was not the mob knife-man. That was Snake. Weasel was the owner of the Suspended Sentence on Arcadia (where Tananda went to collect from Mr. Hoos)
4) The kingdom Skeeve was Court Magician for was Possiltum, not Possletum.

Of course, it IS his book, so it's not up to me to correct him, I suppose. But having read these books for years over and over again, I find myself dissapointed at the blatant writing style differences. In seeing these, I can only assume one thing: that it is the new co-author.

What didn't I like about this book?

1) Okay, so Massha's a Jahk. Move to the head of the class. We don't need to hear that she's a Jahk over and over again. It hasn't been mentioned once in any previous books, why now?
2) Massha's now a simpering little harem girl? What happened to the vamp? I doubt Hugh would have quenched that fire!
3) The dialog was horrible! Yes, it was replaced by some great action (which is why it got 2 stars from me instead of 1). But these books used to have both action AND dialog AND real comedy (not stupid puns) all built into one. Take Aahz and Skeeve's triumphant theft of the trophy from Veygus in Myth Directions, for example. Yes, the end of Myth-taken Identity had a great action scene. But it just didn't jive with the rest of the books in the series. No brilliant planning or twists...just go get 'em, got 'em, great, done. Boring.
4) Since when do we care what every single person in the entire story line is wearing? It was fine when it was just Bunny and Skeeve talking clothes a little in Little Myth Marker. But come on, it's like we're reading a book on interdimensional fashion! I don't care about the Pervect Ten's fingernail polish or if it clashes with their scales.
5) What's up with all the new situations? Since Myth Told Tales, we've seen: a beauty contest, a hair salon, an enterprising troupe of Pervect women neat-freaks, a self help specialist, the mall, a garter store...I'm sorry, but it's so clear that the co-author is trying to push forth her "sex in the city" style female-funny situations that it's embarassing.
6) What's up with all the german and yiddish references? Is someone really proud of their german references? After years of nothing but English and maybe some latin from Aahz, we now have women that say "darlink," talk of tchotchkas, bubi, and many other examples. Again, is this a co-author influence? I notice it's mostly the female characters talking this way.
7) The puns are downright ANNOYING. The comedy of this series has always been subtle, with small puns in proper places, and usually the crowd grimaced at them. But now they're on every page, as goofy as they come. The comedy has completely changed; no longer real comedy, but cheap attempts at wordplay.
8) The creativity is gone; the twists that Skeeve and Aahz used to come up with in the story have been replaced with blatantly obvious actions and stupid setups; like making a garter shop to stop mallrats, or making a hair salon to catch pervects.
9) STOP USING LORD OF THE RINGS SO MUCH. The books were out the whole time this series has been in existence! There's no reason to be making references to it everywhere! Such was the case here and DEFINITELY in Something Myth Inc.
10) Cut the third person...these books have always been in the first person and should stay that way; it's what makes them work so well.

Mr. Asprin, I truly truly admire your skill and your writing. All of your books up until (and pretty much including) Something Mythinc were works of pure genious; but since you've taken on a co-author, your previously amazing books are now silly woman oriented obvious jokes and situations that don't keep interest.