Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've loved Zero Punctuation for a long time now, so of course I expected Mogworld to be hilarious. What I didn't expect was that the book would be more than just funny--it would also be a compelling, well-written story with memorable characters, an incredibly fresh and original plot... and also one of the funniest things I've ever read.
The premise is simple: Jim is an undead mage living in an MMORPG called Mogworld (Multiplayer Online Game World) that is similar to World of Warcraft or any other mumorpuger out there. Death no longer exists in this world; adventurers or NPCs who die are simply resurrected, as is common in MMOs. Jim's goal is simple: die permanently. His story is not the story of a hero. It's about as far away from that as you can get! As Jim himself puts it, "I'd rather be a protagonist." The story is engaging and unique. Familiar fantasy set pieces appear, but are all twisted to poke fun at the standard conventions of both videogames and fantasy novels.
The characters are equally interesting. Each of the main characters has their own particular manner of speaking, to the point that if the entire book was written without dialogue tags, it would still be possible to follow the dialogue. All of the characters are well thought out and complex, with their own motivations and personalities. For a bunch of NPCs with all the trappings of traditional fantasy/game characters, they're surprisingly deep.
This all pales in comparison to the most important part: Mogworld is genuinely funny. Jokes are witty and rapid-fire, but are not overused. Some of the funniest jokes (the octopus eyeballs, Mr. Wonderful's little whatevers) are recurring, but are carefully spaced so they don't become tedious. Sure, there's jokes that could be considered crude in polite company. But while lesser writers may simply put in crude references for the reader to laugh at, Yahtzee makes actual jokes to laugh at, rather than just the crude reference itself. Even better, they are rare and never relied upon to carry the humor. The best jokes are the little ones that subtly poke fun at the conventions of videogames, the behavior of players, and a few sly references to Zero Punctuation that can only be caught by a dedicated ZP watcher. (and reader of Extra Punctuation, for a couple of jokes!)
Although the book may be somewhat inaccessible to those unfamiliar with Internet culture or the nature of MMOs like World of Warcraft, that's OK; writing for a niche isn't necessarily a bad thing, and considering how fast the numbers of Internet users who know about WoW are growing, Mogworld is probably accessible to most people anyway, because it is just so funny. Due to some swearing and other language, I wouldn't really recommend this book to children... but if that child already watches Zero Punctuation, trust me, they're not going to come across anything worse in Mogworld. In short, it is an excellent book immediately recommendable to any Zero Punctuation fan, videogame player, Internet user, or anyone else who appreciates a quick wit and solid writing.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Mogworld
In a world full to bursting with would-be heroes, Jim couldn't be less interested in saving the day. His fireballs fizzle. He's awfully grumpy. Plus, he's been dead for about sixty years. When a renegade necromancer wrenches him from eternal slumber and into a world gone terribly, bizarrely wrong, all Jim wants is to find a way to die properly, once and for all.On his side, he's got a few shambling corpses, an inept thief, and a powerful death wish. But he's up against tough odds: angry mobs of adventurers, a body falling apart at the seams and a team of programmers racing a deadline to hammer out the last few bugs in their AI.Mogworld is the debut novel from video-game icon Yahtzee Croshaw (Zero Punctuation). Mogworld is a comic fantasy novel in the tradition of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, with a video-game twist: the main character is a minor character in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
0 comments:
Post a Comment