Review: Weak Comedy, Clumsy Politics
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 6, 2011
Jokes that have to be explained aren't all that funny.  The jokes and punning are uneven, sometimes there are lots, sometimes he goes whole chapters without any.  Then, when he starts up again, it is jarring: not in a funny way, but in a way that breaks the momentum of the story.  I don't want to have to stop every 15 minutes to say, oh yeah, he's trying to slip in references to 70s TV commercials into his fantasy novel.  Do or don't do.The author uses too many parentheticals and "editor's notes" to supply not only the joke backgrounds, but also plot points. The story should be crafted so that these explanations are incorporated into the story.The end devolves into a political screed using paper-thin characters and stale soundbites of various government structures and ecomonic theories.  I won't give spoilers, but it's pretty dumb.There just doesn't ever seem to be any significant character development; the characters move through time and space but don't really grow and change.  Orson at the end is the same as Orson at the beginning, except that he's had more to eat and will presumably have a roof over his head. No internal change, just improvements in externalities.