Heroics For Beginners

Rating:
Summary: An Amusing Farce
Review: An amusing book that makes fun of the conventions of Sword and Sorcery Fantasy novels. It has an Evil Overlord, Princes vying for the hand of a Princess, Evil Assistants Minions and chain-mail bras. The protagonist is Prince Kevin, son of Eric the Cool, who wants to win the hand of Princess Rebecca (The Ice Princess). His campaign to get the council of lords to award him her hand is derailed when Ancient Artifact #7 disappears. His cheif rival, a mighty warrior is awarded Rebecca's hand return for his leading an army to return the artifact. Kevin refuses to accept this, so he heads out to the castle of the Evil Voltmeter to recover the artifact first. Hilarity ensues.
This is a light read (I read it in about 1/2 a day), but an amusing one. I would recomend it. It manages to poke fun at the genre while remaining an interesting story.

Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: I really enjoyed "Heroics for Beginners." It's a fantasy novel that pokes fun at the genre by pointing out certain flaws and traits while making the reader feel like Moore loves the genre and enjoys contributing to it.

It seems to pull from a variety of inspirations... it makes fun of Harry Potter with it's villian, Lord Voltmere (He Who Must Be Named), and draws (perhaps?) from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by naming the book after a book in the book. Yet while each of those has their momentary laugh, the book refrains from being a specific parody all the way through. Unlike some books which get the laugh, then continue to mention it and mention it until the reader is sick and tired of the author's concieted cleverness.

There are probably even references that I don't pick up on since I haven't read all the fantasy books out there, but that's ok. It's the general references to standard fantasy ploys that get the biggest responces. Everything from how people enter castles unnoticed to how villains act.

Books like this tend to fall flat because they lack something... the author is so busy parodying and trying to convince us that he is cleverer than anyone else that he neglects to develop characters or lay out a plot. Moore, however, had characters that I cared for and enjoyed reading about. The plot was relatively standard, but propelled well and thoughtfully. I definately recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: A fun read. Silly but a fun read
Review: The other reviewers have given enough details on the plot, etc. I'll just say I enjoyed reading it and chuckled quite a bit. I'll read his other book and if another one comes out I'll read that book as well. If you're not looking for something serious and like Robert Asprin and Terry Pratchett you should enjoy this.

This book doesn't have the puns like Robert Asprin's books do so if that's what you like you'll be disappointed.


Rating:
Summary: mythically reminiscent of Robert Asprin
Review: The Prince of Rassendas, Kevin Timberline is in the kingdom of Deserae to spy for his countrymen and to find a way to persuade Princess Becky's father to allow him to marry his daughter. They are both in love but the survival of the Kingdom takes precedence over true love and it is Prince Logan who is picked to head the armies to fight and defeat Lord Voltmeter whose Fortress of Doom lies in the town of Angst. The king of Deserae is warned because Voltmeter stole Artifact Model Seven which when combined with the Diabolic Device becomes a weapon of mass destruction.

Prince Kevin is determined to marry his true love and sneaks out of the palace and goes to the Fortress of Doom posing as a ventilation shaft cleaner. Princess Becky follows him to act as his comic sidekick, but she ends up in the dungeon needing him to free her while he also must find the artifact before his rival arrives to claim it and Becky but first they must find away of neutralizing Voltmeter.

This is an excellent tongue in cheek parody fantasy that pokes fun at all the elements of a sword and sorcery novel. The humorous HEROES FOR BEGINNERS takes sly shots at archetypical heroes of the genre and fans will appreciate how the laughs do not detract from the seriousness of the storyline and will find they want to read more books by John Moore, an author mythically reminiscent of Robert Asprin.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Seinfeldian Fantasy
Review: This book is like nothing else I've ever read. It reminded me of an episode of Seinfeld. Much of the book was about nothing, but an entertaining laugh-out-loud kind of nothing. Poking fun at the fantasy genre and the James Bond/superspy genre with pages of absurd dialogue in which characters discuss things like the best way to disarm a Doomsday device and the future career prospects for beautiful evil assistants made this book a highly enjoyable companion for the few hours it took me read.

If you like Seinfeld, and you like fantasy, then this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Funny but not great
Review: While Heroics for Beginners has more than it's share of chuckles, it seems at times to try a little too hard. The fairy tale land it takes place in is cute, but not as fleshy as it could be. The characters have the same problem.
I wouldn't go so far as to say "avoid this," just maybe wait for the bargain bin.
It is a cute, light read. It's just that it could be a lot better.