Mogworld

Yahtzee Croshaw does dark humor to a "T". Superb. ( )

I really loved this, and will keep an eye out for more by Croshaw in the future. I don't want to say too much here, but even though I sort of knew what was going on, this still managed to surprise me quite a bit. ( )

One of the funniest zombie books I've read in quite some time. ( )

This book has a pretty good beginning, and a great ending. It's the middle bit I take issue with. Too bad that's like 80% of the book. It's just such obvious padding, and Jim, the protagonist, breaks one of the fundamental rules of writing, in that he is almost exclusively a reactionary protagonist, and not a proactive one. All he wants to do is die, and he takes quite lazy steps towards that end. This makes him a VERY boring character to read, EVEN THOUGH I FIND HIM FUNNY. That's why you don't write protagonists like this, because it just doesn't work, even if they're interesting in some other way. They have to be proactive. They can't just react to external factors for the entire length of a book. That's a bad Yahtzee! Bad!

Add to that the fact that the lord of the rings style 'journey' he goes on is also filled with things that are boring in and of themselves, regardless of the quality of the protagonist, and the book grinds to an absolute halt. Slow books can be interesting, if done right. Unfortunately Yahtzee doesn't have the writing chops to make ANY slow bits interesting, much less the majority of a novel. He's no Patrick Rothfuss in that regard, to be sure. Which is not to say that Yahtzee's writing is bad. It's surprisingly publishable and professional. Not the best by any stretch, but better than a lot of the thriller/romance/horror writers on the NYT's bestseller list.

And don't get me wrong; this book is genuinely funny and clever. Unfortunately it isn't funny enough often enough to be worth reading, in my opinion.

All that being said, I would love to see Yahtzee write more fiction, perhaps sticking to a shorter format this time such as a short story or novella, because he's definitely shown a lack of skill and experience carrying a novel-length plot with this book, but he has equally shown a knack for funny, well-written dialogue and decent prose. ( )

Wow! A very original and creative story with good, fun characters. ( )