Customer Reviews

Slaves of the Volcano God (Cineverse cycle)

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Join Roger and his mighty Captain Crusader Decoder Ring as it takes his for a journey to the Cineverse in search of his kidnapped love, Delores. The Cineverse is the home of all the B-Movies where the laws of 'Movie Magic' apply. See Roger at his heroically sidekick best as he runs from Cowboys, Pirates, Jungle Natives and the really evil Dr Dread. The first in a series, this book is great fun to read, it's not side-splittingly funny, but is really amusing. Now i'm going to have to track down the next in the series. Well recommended.

This isn't a terrible book with hideous plot holes & rampant spelling errors. And, perhaps, to give Gardner his due, if one has seen many B-Movies of the 30s, 40s & 50s, the humor would be more apparent.

That said, a reasonably competent 14-year-old boy could have written this book. The jokes are obvious, the humor & situations forced. I picked this up hoping for a pale shadow of the humor by other masters such as Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams - and Gardner falls seriously short of this mark. He may be compared to the latter (and worst) efforts of Robert Aspirin - you know the ones I mean. There is no sparkling wit, startling plot developments or well-drawn characters with defined & consistent motivations. It's a parody of an oft-lampooned genre.

His style is unremarkable, his storytelling facile & pedestrian. The idea itself is a good one - I just wish a more gifted writer worked this materiel than Mr. Gardner.

It's not a terrible book, just so completely unremarkable & badly paced that you really should skip it unless you are already a devoted Gardner fan.

I remember reading this book way back when! The Cineverse Cycle was LOTS of fun to read.