Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Book 29

"Phule's Company" by Robert Asprin

This was a slight, easy-reading, fast-moving science fiction yarn. The Phule of the title is a Captain in the Space Legion, a sort of "buy a commission, serve out some trouble back home" amalgam of the Foreign Legion and the household cavalry. He's also massively wealthy, and very unpopular with the brass, so they put him in charge of Omega Company, a sort of garbage dump for all the Legion's worst troops. Of course, he rallies them into an effective, cohesive unit and instils in them a sense of esprit de corps. The story is told as a series of recollections by Phule's batman, covering the first few months of his command of Omega Company.

The writing is, as I said, smooth and funny. Asprin has an almost Pratchett-like gift for understatement, if not Pratchett's ability with language. I can't exactly rave about this book but that doesn't mean it was crap either. It was, a bit like the second M*A*S*H book, a well-written, smoothly executed book, but it wasn't exactly a jump up and down, churn the butter discovery of a new author. I would be interested in grabbing the rest of the books in the series, but I'm sure that there will be other books I'll be after more.

Three mega-rich commanding officers out of five.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with this review and think you can probably apply it to the Myth series by the same author. The books are fairly hit and miss, jumping from pretty good to utter crap. Robert Asprin's main problems seem to be characters who literally spend the book overanalysing things and badly improbable endings. Not improbable as in "he pulls a dragon from his pocket, blasts the bad guys and then jumps out the plane window to live a long and happy life" sort. But more this kind of angle:

GOOD GUY: Do you promise to leave now and leave everyone alone?

BAD GUY: Uhh, sure.

GOOD GUY: Hah! I made you promise! You must leave now!

BAD GUY: Curses! I will leave now damn you!

Bad guy leaves forever, bells ring out, Skeeve wins again.

The end.

That and I can think of at least one book which simply didn't get an ending. It's like he ran out of paper or stopped taking his happy pills and couldn't face it anymore.

Luckily these are exceptions, not the rule. It's a fun and relaxing time for the most part, like strolling through the country.
Just be careful to avoid the odd literary cowpat.

1:09 PM  

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