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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. 1   TheDivineOomba | Jul 5, 2008 |  I really enjoyed this book, even if it did take a while for me to get into. The side jokes and the way the author puts the world together is really worth the read. It did bother me how Apropos got rid of his childhood friend. I understand what the author was going for, but the brutality of how it happened seemed too much and honestly made me dislike Apropos quite a lot as a character. (  ) solanges | Dec 28, 2007 | A parody of medieval-style fantasy novels, funny and adventurous (  ) justine | Oct 7, 2006 | THE best fantasy satire that I've ever read! Not only a fun adventure with great cynical humor, this book also tackles numerous philosophical, metaphysical, and religious ideas. (  ) Anituel | Sep 27, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0743412338, Hardcover)They were dark and stormy knights...and when they had their way with a helpless tavern wench one terrible evening, they had no idea that the result of that twilight brutality was going to come after them years later looking to settle the score... The "result's" unlikely name is Apropos: A rogue, a rascal, a scoundrel, a cheat...and those are his good points. Lame of leg but fast of wit, the only reason Apropos doesn't consider chivalry dead is because he's not yet through with it. Herewith, Sir Apropos of Nothing -- his story in the words of the knave himself. Apropos, all too aware of his violent and unseemly beginnings, travels to the court of the good King Runcible, with three goals in mind: to find his father, seek retribution, and line his own pockets. However, Apropos carries the most troublesome burden a would-be harbinger of chaos can bear: He may well be a hero foretold, a young man of destiny. It is not a notion that Apropos finds palatable, having very low regard for such notions as honor, selflessness, or risking one's neck. Yet when Apropos finds himself assigned as squire to the most senile knight in the court -- Sir Umbrage of the Flaming Nether Regions, whose squires tend to have a rather short life span -- Apropos is forced to rise to the occasion lest he be dragged under -- permanently. His difficulties are compounded when a routine mission to escort the King's daughter home after a long absence goes horribly awry. Suddenly Apropos finds himself saddled with trying to survive while dealing with a berserk phoenix, murderous unicorns, mutated harpies, homicidal warrior kings, and -- most problematic of all -- a princess who may or may not be a psychotic arsonist. Featuring a hero cut from cloth similar to that of such entertaining blackguards as Blackadder and Flashman, Sir Apropos of Nothing is a skewed version of classic, mythic adventure that is by turns hilarious and frightening, slapstick and serious, and filled with drop-dead laughs and drop-dead people. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
The book was hard to read. At times, the story was slow. The characters are hard to like. Apropros spends a lot of time whining about how sad his life is or Entripy, the Princess, who is cold and high maintenance and seems to have no redeeming factors, even after spending the winter as a tavern maid and learning honest work. There are parts of this book that made me cringe but is necessary to the story and is in character with the nature of the book.
What makes this book different from all the other fantasy books out there is that instead of a cute fantasy book where the pigman's son marries the princess after defeating the dragon by a sword, you get characters that seem to follow the traditional fantasy roles but the characters are much more deeper and their motives are more true to life. This book is like the real story behind the much edited and changed cute story that is told hundreds of years later. (