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Jun. 11th, 2013 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsLast time I was home, as I may have mentioned, I collected a bunch of the nineties fantasy novels I read in my misspent youth for a nostalgia reread. This was in the full expectation that the Suck Fairy would have visited most or all of them.
However, to my surprise, Cheesy Nineties Fantasy Novel A Bad Spell in Yurt turned out to be exactly the book I needed right now. Like, EXACTLY.
Our Protagonist Daimbert is a generally sweet fellow who has just graduated from Generic Eurofantasy Wizard School with a fancy degree, and gotten hired at his first job, which is in a castle full of very nice people, and he's very enthusiastic and eager to do well, but also pretty alarmed to realize that suddenly he is going to be expected to do all this technical wizard stuff that was probably in all the classes he skipped, or maybe it's in his notes but that was like a year ago, and wow it's a good thing he brought along his textbooks because HIS NICE BOSSES WANT HIM TO BUILD A TELEPHONE HOW DO YOU EVEN BUILD A MAGIC TELEPHONE oh crap how do you explain that you need like ten technical wizards for that without getting fired from this very nice first job --
-- and if you are wondering, yes, this does sound really, really familiar to someone who has just graduated from school with a middling-technical degree, and may well be having to purchase and construct a video transfer station without supervision sometime in the near future OH GOD.
Midway through the book, there is a scene where one of Daimbert's old wizard professors turns up, and is all, "well, Daimbert, it seems like you're settling in very well! Don't think you can write in to us for every little problem, ha ha!"
These words HAUNT Daimbert as he works through his problem of figuring out why someone in his very nice castle full of very nice people appears to have summoned a demon. At the very end, some harrowing and life-threatening saving of the day, he belatedly realizes that, hey, serious demonic possession is probably NOT one of the little problems his professors don't want them bothering him about and IT'S OKAY TO ASK YOUR MENTORS FOR EXPERIENCED HELP ON YOUR FIRST YEAR OUT OF SCHOOL. This is a very good moral and I think all of us graduates should take it earnestly to heart.
Aside from this, though, I also just really appreciate how sweetly good-natured the book as a whole is. Daimbert is a bit like a magical girl: he has no particularly exceptional skills and he does a lot of bumbling, but he is all about the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, and the friendships he makes are really the center of the book.
The first of these is with the very serious and saintly young castle chaplain; wizards and priests are apparently usually antagonistic in Eurofantasyland, but Daimbert bounces in all HI BUDDY WANT TO GO HAVE A BEER IN MY ROOM BET WE'RE GONNA BE BESTIES :D :D :D :D and Joachim the Saintly Chaplain is sort of swept blinking along in his wake. Daimbert loves bad jokes and Joachim has no sense of humor, and one point they both unwillingly suspect each other of being evil, but despite these obstacles they manage to remain buddies and it's pretty adorable.
The second is with the Lady Maria, the cheerful middle-aged aunt of the beautiful young queen that Daimbert has an unrequited crush on, who is currently going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. She's basically the female lead of the book; Daimbert is really fond of her and thoroughly enjoys playing the flirtation game with her, and eventually offers to sacrifice his life for her, because, you know, she's a sweetheart! And FRIENDSHIP. All of which I actually find really refreshing?
So: A Bad Spell in Yurt! It's basically a book about nice people solving problems by being generally earnest and helpful, and if you are looking for comfortingly inoffensive nineties fantasy -- or if you are a recent graduate with imposter syndrome issues, um -- you could do a lot worse.
However, to my surprise, Cheesy Nineties Fantasy Novel A Bad Spell in Yurt turned out to be exactly the book I needed right now. Like, EXACTLY.
Our Protagonist Daimbert is a generally sweet fellow who has just graduated from Generic Eurofantasy Wizard School with a fancy degree, and gotten hired at his first job, which is in a castle full of very nice people, and he's very enthusiastic and eager to do well, but also pretty alarmed to realize that suddenly he is going to be expected to do all this technical wizard stuff that was probably in all the classes he skipped, or maybe it's in his notes but that was like a year ago, and wow it's a good thing he brought along his textbooks because HIS NICE BOSSES WANT HIM TO BUILD A TELEPHONE HOW DO YOU EVEN BUILD A MAGIC TELEPHONE oh crap how do you explain that you need like ten technical wizards for that without getting fired from this very nice first job --
-- and if you are wondering, yes, this does sound really, really familiar to someone who has just graduated from school with a middling-technical degree, and may well be having to purchase and construct a video transfer station without supervision sometime in the near future OH GOD.
Midway through the book, there is a scene where one of Daimbert's old wizard professors turns up, and is all, "well, Daimbert, it seems like you're settling in very well! Don't think you can write in to us for every little problem, ha ha!"
These words HAUNT Daimbert as he works through his problem of figuring out why someone in his very nice castle full of very nice people appears to have summoned a demon. At the very end, some harrowing and life-threatening saving of the day, he belatedly realizes that, hey, serious demonic possession is probably NOT one of the little problems his professors don't want them bothering him about and IT'S OKAY TO ASK YOUR MENTORS FOR EXPERIENCED HELP ON YOUR FIRST YEAR OUT OF SCHOOL. This is a very good moral and I think all of us graduates should take it earnestly to heart.
Aside from this, though, I also just really appreciate how sweetly good-natured the book as a whole is. Daimbert is a bit like a magical girl: he has no particularly exceptional skills and he does a lot of bumbling, but he is all about the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, and the friendships he makes are really the center of the book.
The first of these is with the very serious and saintly young castle chaplain; wizards and priests are apparently usually antagonistic in Eurofantasyland, but Daimbert bounces in all HI BUDDY WANT TO GO HAVE A BEER IN MY ROOM BET WE'RE GONNA BE BESTIES :D :D :D :D and Joachim the Saintly Chaplain is sort of swept blinking along in his wake. Daimbert loves bad jokes and Joachim has no sense of humor, and one point they both unwillingly suspect each other of being evil, but despite these obstacles they manage to remain buddies and it's pretty adorable.
The second is with the Lady Maria, the cheerful middle-aged aunt of the beautiful young queen that Daimbert has an unrequited crush on, who is currently going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. She's basically the female lead of the book; Daimbert is really fond of her and thoroughly enjoys playing the flirtation game with her, and eventually offers to sacrifice his life for her, because, you know, she's a sweetheart! And FRIENDSHIP. All of which I actually find really refreshing?
So: A Bad Spell in Yurt! It's basically a book about nice people solving problems by being generally earnest and helpful, and if you are looking for comfortingly inoffensive nineties fantasy -- or if you are a recent graduate with imposter syndrome issues, um -- you could do a lot worse.
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Date: 2013-06-27 08:24 pm (UTC)...so I went out and bought the second e-book. If it's anything like as charming as the first book, I anticipate going through all the sequels...
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Date: 2013-06-27 08:35 pm (UTC)I've been working through my copies of the rest; so far none of them are quite as good as the first, especially because not enough Lady Maria, and the third one has some Orientalism issues, but they remain charming and endearing enough that I'm keeping on regardless. :D And I still love Daimbert and Joachim's friendship.
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Date: 2013-07-09 08:02 pm (UTC)Daimbert and Joachim are SO SUPER CUTE. I think my absolute favorite bit is in Book 4, where Daimbert is all "So, Joachim, how about we ditch everything and go travel in a wagon together?" and Joachim is like, "You do realize it's kind of inappropriate to proposition a Dean, right?" (A joke! SO PROUD of Joachim!)
--and THEN when he meets the love of his life, Daimbert thinks, "Hey, we could go travel in a wagon together! Oh, wait, we have to bring Joachim too because I promised him." FAVORITE PART EVER.
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Date: 2013-07-11 03:16 am (UTC)I LOVE THAT BIT. I mean, I would also totally read "Daimbert and Theodora and Joachim have platonic wagon threesome adventures in which Theodora and Joachim just LOL at Daimbert all the time." WHAT A GREAT BOOK THAT WOULD BE.
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Date: 2013-07-14 04:56 am (UTC)(oh, dude, I would so totally read that. that WOULD SO be a great book.)
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