Leven Thumps: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo; Leven Thumps and the… (edition 2009)

If I had to grade it, I'd give it a C+. The characters are shallow, the plot unbelievable, and the story unexplainable. But it was enjoyable. It had a wit that I enjoyed, a couple of characters that, in a better novel, would have been highly sympathizable (is that a word?).

The main problem was that the author never explains the rules of Foo well enough to let us suspend our disbelief, and the fact that "fate" has so much to do with the movements of the characters, it makes it even harder to believe the story. It is clear that the author has a long way to go to become an experienced master of his trade. I will say that, once that has happened, his books will be well worth reading. I would instead recommend Diane Duane's Wizard series or MacHale's Pendragon series. ( )