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The Myth-ion To journey into the Kowtow realm, and retrieve a
golden cow that lives in a golden palace and gives gold-laced milk. But
Kowtow is a land of vegetarian cowboys, hell-bent on protecting their
livestock - and deeply afraid of something that comes out after dark... |
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I thought this would be the second of my two new Skeeve books, but instead it was written as a refresher course in writing Myth books for the author. It takes place between Myth Direction and Hit or Myth, going back to the basic apprentice/mentor relationship between Skeeve and Aahz. The story involves a treasure hunt, during his time dimension hopping with Tananda (aka Tanda) Skeeve bought a magical map which he thought Aahz would be interested it. Given his love of all things currency based, Aahz is keen to head off in search of the mythical golden cow the map leads to. Tanda, the beautiful former assassin and dimension traveller, is recruited for extra magical back up. Ok, I've waited a long time for a new Myth book and was a little disappointed in the result. In a way I'm glad Robert Asprin wrote this before wrapping up the series because this feels so rushed and not entirely cared for. There are fundamental editing errors, missing words, grammatical errors, that should have been caught by proof readers before getting to print. The actual story has some fun, imaginative ideas but the way its told is repetitive and not entirely enjoyable. It was a really nice refresher course to the series, and reminded me why I'd loved the books so much but at the same time I wasn't impressed with the actual writing. It does make me wonder if I ignored style in favour of substance in his earlier books. I might have to go back and reread a couple to see. All in all it wasn't a bad story, just too hurried and given that Robert Asprin's juices dried up after he signed his six book deal I'm sure it was. Nothing will ever turn me off these books as they were such a big part of my youth, and introduced me to the concept of fantasy writing being funny and accessible. Without Robert Asprin I'd never have found my way to the altar of Pratchett, where I will worship till my dying day. I would have liked to have seen the whole concept of a cowboy planet explored more fully, and the whole cow thing a little less complicated. It was a really neat idea, the cows being the ones running the planet and the people being the food, but the way the adventure was resolved was too...contrived. Especially in regard to Glenda, the seductress who hooks up with the trio and tries to double cross them. This rates as one of my least favourite Myth books, but it's still jam packed with smiles and (for me at least) nostalgia. I love having a new Myth book, and I'm now about to begin the latest and (judging from the preamble) final book in the series. Much sadness!
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