skygiants | (no subject)

Last 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.

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I think I need to read this book and I know I've heard of it.

Ha, I didn't think anybody else actually had! But yeah, I think you'd like it. :)

I don't think I've read it but the title just feels familiar to me and I have no idea from where. Its also 5 dollars on iBooks but I probably can find it at a used bookstore as well. Its added to my want to read pile.

It's also a free ebook at the author's website!

Oh my god that sounds halfway perfect. I am going to see if my library has it.

Ha, I don't want to oversell, because the worldbuilding (such as it is) is super vaguely-medieval white people Eurofantasy, but it's just such a good-natured book that it's hard to be annoyed at it!

Yeah, where's the queer ladies, novel gender systems, or linguistics porn??? :P Don't worry, that's why halfway. My library doesn't have it though. OH WELL

There is a fleeting mention of the existence of queer ladies! They don't actually show up anywhere in the book, but . . . it's something . . . um.

...sooooo I'm making grabby hands here. I'm not quite graduated yet, but the terror is already setting in... plus I need wizards and priests being bros.

I don't know why I was so delighted by the wizard and the priest becoming bros, but for some reason it's just really sweet! Daimbert tries his earnest best to get up in the morning for church! Joachim tries his earnest best to understand when Daimbert is making a joke! FRIENDSHIP.

I have never heard of this but it's available as an ebook so I just snagged a sample!

Ha, I was so annoyed to find out it was an available as an ebook only after I had toted it all the way to Colombia and back along with my Kindle! (But it ended up working out, since one girl was staying another week and was desperate for paperback reading material, so she is now in possession of one trashy nineties fantasy novel about wizard graduation. MAY SHE ENJOY IT.)

...that sounds awesome. I clearly need to read this! (Despite having been out of school for, ouch, nine years.) And only $5 for the ebook from amazon!

I think the ebook may also be free on the author's website! FYI. :D

I have now read it. IT IS SUPER CUTE. I mean, I was glad to be warned that it was a 90's super-Eurofantasy! But books where everyone is incredibly nice and earnest and good-natured and trying to be helpful and that is how the problems are solved! are basically complete comfort reads for me.

...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...

Edited (clarification) 2013-06-27 20:25 (UTC)

RIGHT? I mean, it's not doing anything at all exceptional in terms of the genre, but everyone's just so likable that it is super pleasant and comfortable to read!

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.

...I may be on Book 5 now :P :) (Thanks for warning me about the Orientalism issues; it's the kind of thing where if I know it's coming, I usually don't care, but when I get blindsided I get much more upset. Though since I knew these were 90's books, I probably would have cut them slack anyway.)

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.

Hahaha, I just finished the fifth one today! And am now kind of sad that there aren't any more, although her author website has vague hints about a potential sequel focused on Antonia (which I would totally read.)

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.

Wait, you mean you finished the sixth book, right? This one? (I'm still on book 5, family reunion has really cut into my reading time :) )

(oh, dude, I would so totally read that. that WOULD SO be a great book.)

Whoa wait what? No! I completely forgot there was a sixth one I had never read! It wasn't out yet when I first read through the series. WHAT. MUST ACQUIRE IMMEDIATELY. (I was just thinking how weird it was that the Elerius thread was never really resolvd!)

OKAY I WAS WONDERING! Because it sounds like (from the amazon descriptions) all the plot threads are pretty well wrapped up in that book :) It apparently only came out a couple of years ago... so I am glad you did the reread now!

What, this sounds adorable.

It is pretty charming! I also really like the bit where the protagonist receives a newspaper from the Big City where his school was, and then is like "what a boring newspaper, there is NO NEWS about all the nice people from the tiny place where I currently work! WHAT'S THE POINT OF THIS."

Thank you for the review - I have been convinced to cough up £2.81 for a paperback copy (cheaper than the kindle version!) and look forward to its arrival.

You are welcome - I hope you like it! :)

I finally finished it (I kept getting interrupted literally every few paragraphs and then had to give it up for a bit). And it was fun! Thank you :-)

Gosh, that was heartwarming. (And professional-affirming.) Did you ever read the sequels? Any good?

I appear to own all the sequels, so I must have liked them enough to buy them all at some point! But now I cannot remember anything about them, so I am carrying them all home with me from Philly to see if they hold up. I will report back!