Myth #1: Another Fine Myth (Asprin, Robert)

Rating: 4
Year: 1978
Genre: Fantasy/Comedy
Read again? Yes.

Yeah, it's another series. I usually take a break from them once I've finished something like the 6-month slog through George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire." But Asprin's "Myth" books are at the opposite end of the spectrum from Martin's: the books average about 200 pages each!

Skeeve ia the apprentice to Garkin, who despairs of his student ever being a magician. Skeeve wants to be a thief and doesn't study as hard as he should.

Then Garkin is killed by an assassin sent by the mad magician Isstvan and Skeeve ends up apprenticed to Aahz, a scaly green pointy-eared pointy-toothed demon!

Can the two of them find Isstvan and stop him before he destroys the world?

Very light reading--both as far as the size of the book and in Asprin's writing. The plot is uncomplicated, with the characters sketched out enough to leave to the reader's imagination. I wish the gags were as funny now as they were 20 years ago, but it's still fun. Besides, I deserve a 2-day book! Rather than still meeting the main characters or just getting to the Big Crisis That Will Change Everything for the main character, we're looking at the inside back cover and ready to grab the next book.

Asprin's intent was to spoof the cerebrally serious Heroic Fantasy genre of the late 1970s. What he ended up doing was creating a genre of comic Fantasy, making way for Craig Shaw Gardner's "Ballad of Wuntvor" series and others.