Customer Reviews

The Wanderings of Wuntvor- A Difficulty with Dwarves; An Excess of Enchantments; A Disagreement with Death

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Here's another omnibus edition of a mid-1980s fantasy/comedy trilogy. It's a direct continuation of the previous collection (Exploits of Ebenezum.) The action picks up right where we left off, with all the wizards in Vushta allergic to magic after failing to cure Ebenezum's affliction. For some reason Alea's engagement to Tomm the tinker at the end of the previous book is forgotten so she is free to compete with the witch Norei for Wuntvor's affection. Wuntvor is still the narrator, still as bumbling and nebbishy as ever. All the characters from the first series are back, and the Netherhells pose an all-new threat to the surface world: Conquest by Committee! With all the Western Kingdom's wizards incapacitated, Wuntvor must travel to the Eastern Kingdoms to enlist the aid of the mysterious and powerful Mother Duck. Along the way he meets Death, who believes that Wuntvor is the mythical "Eternal Apprentice" forever destined to escape Death's clutches.

The story this time is even more absurd, dealing in a comical way with death & the afterlife, and fatiguing the reader with laborious spoofs of fairy tales which take up the middle third of the volume. There are too many characters. Each one has identifying traits but they still all speak with the same voice (even more so than before) and the mood this time is much more contentious; the characters are constantly fighting and bickering, which was supposed to be funny but actually started to bum me out after a while. The writing stumbles over itself occasionally with some astonishngly awkward phrasing ... and the proofreader must have fallen asleep because typographical errors appeared more & more frequently the closer I got to the end.

Despite all that, the book has its charms. I remember reading it and liking it back in the 80s .. and although it doesn't measure up to my current standards of excellence, it is imaginative and original; good for its time, and has managed to hold up well without "dating" much. Some of the humor has gone stale but there are still a few genuine laughs and the story has a timeless dumb-funny quality that will always strike a chord with certain types of readers. I can think of a lot worse ways to spend a rainy day, so three stars it is.