Another Fine Myth, by Robert Asprin

There's crud, and then there's crud. This fell under the latter category.

Formulaic can be done well. This was not. Fantastical can be done well. This was not. Humor can be done well. This was not. In fact, the only thing that was done well was the length of the book, which rang in at exactly 200 pages. Any longer and I probably would have slit my wrists.

Another Fine Myth is the story of a young would-be magician named Skeeve (I know, huh?), whose master is killed off by an evil wizard right as he is summoning a demon from another dimension for the edification of his apprentice. The 'demon' is loosed on the world without the benefit of his magical powers, which leaves the untrained Skeeve in the unenviable position of taking on said evil wizard with the magical equivalent of a butter knife. Along the way Skeeve manages to acquire some companions (again, formula coming in here), including a baby dragon, a demon hunter, and a sexy assasin, not to mention the powerless demon, who agrees to take him on as his apprentice. They go on their 'quest' and all is made right with the world(s) at the end.

The characters were shallow, shallow, shallow. The demon, Aahz, annoyed me with his continued repetition of the word 'kid.' The 'kid' in question, Skeeve, annoyed me with his stupidity. Ditto with the demon slayer. Demon/dragon slayers are always made out to be morons, the jocks of the fantasy genre. The assassin annoyed me with her sheer useless presence.

And the plot was terrible. Predictable, linear, and dull, it just dragged on and on. I will not be picking anything up by this author again.

One star out of five.