The Warlock in Spite of Himself (Rod Gallowglass, volume 2) by Christopher Stasheff

[james_davis_nicoll]

In which a determined aristocrat from an interstellar democracy infiltrates a backward world only to find himself face to face with witches, warlocks, and outside agitators.

The Warlock in Spite of Himself (Rod Gallowglass, volume 2) by Christopher Stasheff

Comments

[nancylebov]

Is that actually volume 2?

Not good enough for me to want to reread it, even back when, I think, but somehow the premise of the robot horse was memorable.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Yes, because the author wrote a prequel. So it's the second book in the series but also the debut volume.

[patrick_morris_miller]

I had a friend who loved these books, and I finally tried this one at their repeated urging.

You know that fight scene in They Live? It is a masterpiece of filmmaking and anyone who says otherwise is wrong in wrong sauce, but what they say in wrongness about it is absolutely true about the interminable sparring session between The Hero and some other character just a few pages into this book, which is where I mercifully bounced off book and author forever.

[jreynolds197]

I liked this book and many of its sequels when I was in early teen-hood. Got rid of them long ago, without a farewell re-read.

Probably for the best, since it seems that the Suck Fairy paid it such a strong visit.

while far superior authors were lost to the midlist death spiral

The race doesn't always go to the swift. What I wouldn't give for a bunch of sequels to aborted series that were (in my estimation) excellent.

[patrick_morris_miller]

The race doesn't always go to the swift. What I wouldn't give for a bunch of sequels to aborted series that were (in my estimation) excellent.

Maybe someday someone will stabilize a wormhole to a universe where Brian Daley kept writing Hobart Floyt/Alacrity FitzHugh books.

(And another where Marc Miller thought of a metaplot that didn't involve gigadeaths... though I'd be just as happy in a universe where he didn't do a metaplot at all.)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm unsure whether to be guided when James declares that a book which I recall I've enjoyed - as this one, is not only not to his taste, but objectively bad. I also recall that the romance element is, well, of its time. Such that the reviewer doesn't like that, perhaps.

Robert Carnegie

[(Anonymous)]

I remember enthusiastically reading about four of these novels when I was a preteen. I have no interest in revisiting them. Even as a ten-year-old I found the acronyms tedious rather than hilarious.

--
Nathan H.

[julesjones]

Another "I loved it as a teen" here. Sounds like it can join the next cull pile when I get around to doing such. Thank you for your excellent service in sacrificing yourself to the suck fairy so we don't have to.

[(Anonymous)]

I loved it as a teen as well. Although I seemed to have purged the terrible acronyms from my mind in self-defense.

I read "Dream Park" some years ago, and I think the Stasheff has a more plausible premise.



-Awesome Aud

[adrian_turtle]

I remember these being so very popular at the time and place I entered fandom. These and the Aspirins' "Myth" books. *eyeroll*

[chrysostom]

Oh, I remember those as being fairly harmless.

[adrian_turtle]

I wouldn't disagree with you! They're not Piers Anthony books or anything like that. They're just based on a kind of elbow-to-the-ribs humor that isn't nearly as funny as it thinks it is. (What's the opposite of dry humor? You had to have been there, it was really funny when we were drunk?)