A Fate Worse Than Dragons

Another great fairy tale parody by John Moore.

Sir Terry kills a dragon in order to win the hand of a princess, but unfortunately he hasn't paid attention to recent history. National boundaries have shifted, and he was a few miles in the wrong country. Only by pretending his squire did the killing does he escape being wed to the crazy princess who talks to animals and rocks and whatever. Meanwhile, the princess that he actually wants is betrothed (much to her disgust) to the scion of a rich baker family. She cooks up a scheme where she is fake-kidnapped so Sir Terry can rescue her and thereby win her hand. But she drops into the middle of a real kidnapping plot and is mistaken for another woman who was supposed to be captured to be used show more as dragon meat, and... and... and... well, you get the picture.

It's a fairy tale where all the people are hatching schemes right and left, sort of like the "big lie" plots where a lie grows and grows, and gets funnier as it goes. And on the side, there are riffs on lots of other things too. I didn't think it was possible, but he does parody on a parody (there's a hilarious scene in here parodying a famous scene in Princess Bride, you'll recognize it when you see it).

As usual with John Moore's stories, I find I like the characters, and one is always rooting for them, despite their foibles. show less

When Princess Gloria sets her mind to something, she usually gets what she wants - even if there's considerable plotting involved. In this case, her quest to wed the love of her life, the somewhat mediocre knight, Sir Terry, has hit a slight snag. She's just been affianced to the heir of the family that invented sliced bread (it isn't going over well - neither the bread, nor the marriage idea).

So Gloria arranges her own kidnapping. After all, once she's rescued, tradition demands her rescuer get her hand in marriage, and what could possibly go wrong?

A laugh-out-loud funny send-up of the typical knights, dragons and damsels in distress genre. Great fun, quickly read, with plenty of homage paid to well-loved fantasy favorites. Don't pass show more it up if you like your fantasy well-laced with tongue-in-cheek humor. show less

While not John Moore's funniest book, this one was hilarious as usual. The storyline would have been interesting anyway, but I especially loved the antics with the griffon. This was one of those books that was hard to put down- and I definitely appreciate that since I don't get as many of them any more.

This book is entertaining for the first part, but than quickly gets old as the book rehashes jokes and gags already stated in the first part. Other than that - this is a fairly typical fantasy story with humour.

A wonderfully entertaining book! A parody of fantasy that will really make you chuckle.

A fantastic fairy tale parody!

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