The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper FfordeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Full disclosure: This is just not my kind of book. The humour is the blunt, obvious kind and I prefer more subtle. Absurd English Humour is one of my least fave genres, and Today Me would never have bought this but 2018 Me thought this was a bargain at Salvos for $3 so it's been sitting around on my shelf waiting to be read.
Anyway.
This is a middle grade read for fans of authors like Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and Douglas Adams. It's an absurd tale of failing magic and the death of the last dragon. Expect the unexpected and, if you're familiar with absurd British humour, expect all the same kind of jokes you've heard before.
I just don't find it laugh-out-loud funny like some people. This book has amusing moments and I loved some of the characters (particularly the Quarkbeast) but in general it just didn't do much for me. It wasn't bad, it's just not my kind of laughs.
The story runs at a nice fast pace and doesn't get bogged down with details. The magic is creatively bland with a few moments of delight thrown in, seemingly just to keep people happy. The characters are, for the most part, fantastic. The names are typically silly, but I didn't mind that so much.
*sigh*
Look, it's a bit hard to rate because I can see that a lot of people will have great fun with this one. Particularly kids. But it just wasn't really my cup of tea. That's more my taste preferences than any fault of the book.
So I'd recommend this for young ones easily, and for older fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and books with a similar immature streak in which the imagination knows no bounds.
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