Cluck

[threemonkeys]

I was looking for something light to keep me amused today, so I read The Last House in the Galaxy by Andy Secombe. It appears to be one of that great British production line of humour writers who want to cash in on the success of Pratchett, Holt etc. There seems to be a new entrant in this market every few months and most disappear without trace. In general, most start well with an amusing first chapter or two, but they cannot sustain the humour and more importantly they cannot sustain the story. One thing that the successful guys do is that they have a decent story at the core of their work so that they can hang the funny bits off of it. Secome actually does keep this story together pretty well and it is an entertaining little caper romp too. The added humour didn't work all that well for my tastes, containing too many simple broad jokes. Too many of the attempted laughs were based on silly names or pie-in-the-face style accidents. Then there is the chap whose mother turned into a chicken - the less said about that the better. But tastes in humour vary a lot, so if you think that calling a computer tech "Coyle O'Flexx" is a big laugh then this may be for you.

Comments

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

It's one of the problems with humour writing in general, I find. People read Terry Pratchett, think, "Silly names are funny! Footnotes are funny! Blatant parodies are funny!" without realising that there's a bit more to Pratchett than that.

I mean, Holt was funnier before he read Pratchett. :)

But it's something I have to keep saying to people: your funny story isn't funny. It's just got some gags.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Same with Douglas Adams - he used funny names (Slartibartfast anybody) but there was so much more to his work.

I agree about Holt's humerous books but I forgive him because he has also written those wonderful historical pieces.

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

Gah! Adams spawned worse parodists than Pratchett ever did!

I wonder if there were cheap Jerome K. Jerome or Mark Twain knockoffs, back in the day. :)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

The only Jerome parody I have read is Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog which is neither cheap nor "back in the day".

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

Less a parody than a pastiche, I think - and a truly wonderful book. :)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

yep and yep

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

I read Tom Sawyer Abroad and felt like it was a cheap knock-off. And it was, only a cheap knock-off by Twain himself - thin jokes and cheesy plot.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

In the same vein - Jerome's Three Men on the Bummel felt like a cheap knock-off of Three Men in a Boat.