My two favorite books came into my life in really weird ways. One is Joy Smith Aitken’s Solo’s Journey -- and that is a tale for another time. This is the other. I came across Another Fine Myth in a shop primarily selling the time-honored confection Kendal Mint Cake and serving teas in a remote part of the English Lake District. In hindsight, the single shelf of books adorning one wall of the teashop possibly weren’t for sale but the owner clearly decided to take advantage of a desperate-for-new-reading-material-on-the-holiday-from-hell teenage girl and rang up the sale quickly.

I remember distinctly reading the first chapter and not being too impressed. That’s not too surprising because the charm of the books is the relationship between Skeeve, (the narrator and main protagonist), and Aahz, (the Pervect demon who loses his powers and becomes Skeeve’s magic teacher), and really Aahz only really enters the picture in Chapter Two. The first chapter, though, does set up the main plotline: the assassination of Skeeve’s former mentor, Garkin by an agent of the megalomaniacal demon warlock Isstvan. However, at age twelve I berated myself for foolish desperate-book-buying acts of misspent pocket money and set the book aside. Some hours later, unable to sleep, I picked it back up… and couldn’t put it down.

As mentioned, the hook is really the burgeoning buddy-buddy relationship between Skeeve and Aahz. It’s a common trope: wise old mentor with young foolish sidekick. Asprin’s take, however, is original and quite brilliantly executed. Aahz, once a wizard of renown, has no power thanks to a practical joke gone awry, but lots of experience; Skeeve has power but no experience at all. Both characters are wonderfully drawn; as they get to know each other, so too does the reader. They also come across as very real -- even Aahz who resembles a green lizard on steroids. What’s also great is the bonding between mentor and apprentice; the reader sees through Aahz’s tough exterior at the end when Skeeve questions why he stuck around, and there is a real warm and fuzzy feeling.

The plot itself is engaging enough; Aahz stripped of his own powers sets out with Skeeve to get revenge on the mad mage Isstvan for killing Garkin. On the way they wrangle with Quigley (a very bad demon-hunter who I’m certain early Wesley Wyndham-Price of Buffy/Angel fame was modeled on), Frumple (a Deveel), Imps, Gleep the dragon, and Tanda, a green-skinned assassin. All the characters are equally well-drawn by Asprin, and the scenarios as Aahz talks and Skeeve magiks their way out of trouble are very funny and farcical indeed.

It is very difficult to write good farce. On stage or screen, the audience has the visual to keep up with the various mis-directions and misunderstandings crucial for farce to work well. But Asprin has a great ability to paint the scenes sparingly but boldly so that the reader can picture them in their minds. The end scene with everyone gathered in the inn and the showdown with Isstvan is just hilarious. I still cry with laughter--although I have learned not to read it at 3am when loud guffaws may wake those sleeping in the next room.

Asprin’s word play is also a thing of beauty and also makes for some good humor. Aahz is from the dimension Perv, whose inhabitants prefer to be called Pervect when every other race calls them Perverts; Skeeve is from Klah and therefore a Klahd (clod -- one must hear the names in an American accent to really get all the puns). It’s very well done. One of my favorite scenes in the book is where Skeeve gets into a fight in Deva and utters the sentence: “That’s right!” I barked. “Skeeve’s the name, magik’s the game. What kind of clod did you think you were dealing with?”

If Asprin’s word-play is good, so too is his world-building. The story does allow him to feed the reader information in manageable chunks. As Skeeve learns how magic works, so do we. As Aahz teaches Skeeve about the nature of Imps, so too does he teach the reader. It’s ingenious because the reader never feels as though there is a sign saying “exposition” all over various sections even though that’s exactly what it is. But Asprin cunningly marries these scenes with action, so the information is quickly utilized: we learn about Imps and are immediately in a scene with Imps. I love this because too often with fantasy books you end up with pages of description explaining the world which is about as interesting as watching paint dry.

What is also fabulous is that Another Fine Myth is the first in a series. Skeeve’s adventures with Aahz continue in another eighteen books -- eleven more by Asprin himself and seven further books with co-author Jody Lynn Nye before Asprin’s death in 2008. They are well worth checking out although I personally find the series does become a little cliché and less charming once Skeeve outgrows Aahz’s mentorship and their magikal corporate entity MYTH Inc. is formed.

Still, for a desperate book purchase in the middle of a wet and windy day in the English countryside, Another Fine Myth was a wonderful buy and my pocket-money was very well spent. My copy is now very well worn and if I ever I need to put a smile on my face, it’s the book I search out time and again.

  -- Rachel Day