Unlikely Words

Holy crap, is this bad. I remember that I, and my whole group of friends, really liked this book in high school.

This book is the most bald-faced, pathetic, half-assed ripoff of the Fellowship of the Ring I can imagine. Practically every character is just a lamer version of a character from Tolkien. Shea Ohmsform is basically Frodo, only an idiot. Flick is basically Sam, only an idiot. Balinor is basically Aragorn, only an idiot. Allannon is basically Gandalf, only an idiot — and kind of an asshole. And on and on.

But, look, I can excuse a derivative book. Most modern fantasy is derivative of Tolkien. But the writing and the (to put it charitably) characterization are so wooden and clumsy that I can’t look past any of the other flaws. I listened to this as an audiobook, and it’s not a good sign when I’m driving down the highway shouting, “Show! Don’t tell!” and “Are you kidding me?” every mile.

How’s this for another one: 18 hours into a 24 hour audiobook, the first female character appears. Yeah.

(Wikipedia seems to indicate that the later books in the series are less egregiously bad — maybe Brooks got better. I’m probably not going to find out.)

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