![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Heroically Challenged by P. T. McCordic
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
While the set up of this book wasn't original, the author really ran with it and made it his own.
Set in a fantasy world being overrun by monsters, a farm boy wants to become an adventurer. Problem is, he's seen nothing of the world other than the few farms around his own. How do you become an adventurer? How do you learn to fight? Where do you even get weapons? So many questions.
His quest starts out with just trying to find answers to those questions, but he pretty much fails at every turn. Eventually he meets up with other kids who also want to become adventurers. Problem is, none of them know any more than he does.
I really appreciated how the story didn't rush to make all the kids into adventurers. Heck, the main character didn't even get a real weapon until the end of the book. Before that he fought with a tree branch and one (and then two) shields.
The book was also very funny in a way that worked for me. (So many "funny" books just completely aren't amusing to me.) The humor was very meta. Like a chapter closed with a character asking "What's going on?" and the title of the next chapter was What's Going On.
The book ended on a literal (and so also figurative) cliffhanger. Usually that would annoy me, but it fit with the author's humor through the book.
At any other time, I'm not sure this story/author would have worked for me. The book was very light, even when the kids got hurt it never felt dark or serious, but it was exactly what I needed right now. By the end of the book, the humor was getting a bit much for me.
Will I read book 2 when it comes out? I can't say, though I lean towards probably not. Or maybe I'll just have to time the reading of it carefully (after some really dark/heavy story... or another real world plague).
On The Use Of Shape-Shifters In Warfare by Marko Kloos
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
Even though I finished this one, it's just a short story, so I can't count it as a book twards the year's total. The Love, Death, and Robots's "Shape-Shifters" episode was based on this story. The author hadn't previously published it, but enough people asked for it after the episode, that he put it on Amazon.
I only paid a dollar for it, but having seen the episode first, I sadly can't say it was worth the price. The episode followed it nearly word for word, so it felt like nothing new at all. If I had read the story first, I probably would have LOVED LOVED LOVED it.
There was a tiny (two paragraph) scene that wasn't in the show, and the ending was different. The written story's ending was better (more realistic, but "boring" to put on TV), so I can understand why they made the show's ending different.
I'm fine with giving the author a dollar in thanks for writing the story so they could make the episode I loved off it.
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
While the set up of this book wasn't original, the author really ran with it and made it his own.
Set in a fantasy world being overrun by monsters, a farm boy wants to become an adventurer. Problem is, he's seen nothing of the world other than the few farms around his own. How do you become an adventurer? How do you learn to fight? Where do you even get weapons? So many questions.
His quest starts out with just trying to find answers to those questions, but he pretty much fails at every turn. Eventually he meets up with other kids who also want to become adventurers. Problem is, none of them know any more than he does.
I really appreciated how the story didn't rush to make all the kids into adventurers. Heck, the main character didn't even get a real weapon until the end of the book. Before that he fought with a tree branch and one (and then two) shields.
The book was also very funny in a way that worked for me. (So many "funny" books just completely aren't amusing to me.) The humor was very meta. Like a chapter closed with a character asking "What's going on?" and the title of the next chapter was What's Going On.
The book ended on a literal (and so also figurative) cliffhanger. Usually that would annoy me, but it fit with the author's humor through the book.
At any other time, I'm not sure this story/author would have worked for me. The book was very light, even when the kids got hurt it never felt dark or serious, but it was exactly what I needed right now. By the end of the book, the humor was getting a bit much for me.
Will I read book 2 when it comes out? I can't say, though I lean towards probably not. Or maybe I'll just have to time the reading of it carefully (after some really dark/heavy story... or another real world plague).
On The Use Of Shape-Shifters In Warfare by Marko Kloos
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
Even though I finished this one, it's just a short story, so I can't count it as a book twards the year's total. The Love, Death, and Robots's "Shape-Shifters" episode was based on this story. The author hadn't previously published it, but enough people asked for it after the episode, that he put it on Amazon.
I only paid a dollar for it, but having seen the episode first, I sadly can't say it was worth the price. The episode followed it nearly word for word, so it felt like nothing new at all. If I had read the story first, I probably would have LOVED LOVED LOVED it.
There was a tiny (two paragraph) scene that wasn't in the show, and the ending was different. The written story's ending was better (more realistic, but "boring" to put on TV), so I can understand why they made the show's ending different.
I'm fine with giving the author a dollar in thanks for writing the story so they could make the episode I loved off it.
