(no subject)

[skygiants]

It recently struck me that our current situation is, finally, the perfect answer to the questions that people occasionally ask of a.) 'why do you keep so many books on your shelves, many of which you will possibly never read' and b.) 'why do you buy so much nonsense at used bookstores, many of which you will possibly never read.' Apparently I have actually spent all my life accidentally preparing for the possibility that I will have to rely on my own resources for reading material indefinitely!

(...this would be a more convincing argument if I was not also constantly, frantically buying more books by post. In my defense, I am supporting my local businesses.)

Anyway, relatedly, I bought Mythology 101 at a used bookstore a while back because I could not resist the seductive bright orange of its back cover, and it seemed like the time had come to finally read it:



The plot of this book, such as it is, involves a secret society of elves/leprechauns/short semi-magical people that live in the basement of the university library and occasionally offer advanced coursework to a select few lucky students. This year they are teaching Sociology 101!

All of the handpicked lucky students accept the secret magical society in the library basement without question, except for Our Hero Keith Doyle, who has more or less harassed his new friend Marcy into bringing him into the fold and decides that he will be the first - the very first! - to have casual hangs with the elves.

(Sidenote: from the back cover, I assumed -- and was grimly resigned to the fact -- that Marcy and Keith were going to end up as a couple. This is not correct! Keith soon deduces that Marcy has UST with one of the leprechauns, and, after he calls her out for her anti-short-people-hangups, is more than happy to step back and act as their matchmaker. Marcy's date with Enoch the elf is at a Labyrinth/Dark Crystal double feature and they're very happy together.)

Anyway, the elves do fine crafts, but they have no money, and as a result will have nowhere to go if the old library gets torn down! Fortunately, Keith realizes he can solve this problem by acting as a human middleman to market elf-made goods to fancy tchotchke shops around town:

Marketing was one of his skills. Hadn't he just been demonstrating it to his present disadvantage in the Student Senate? Had he not done a thorough selling job on Marcy to get him in to meet the elves in the first place? Was he not, after all, a Business Major?

... and the rest of the book is mostly about Keith dealing with all the challenges of starting a small business? Like quarterly taxes, and pressures from Big Union, and the business ethics of enchanting objects to look appealing when compared against standard commercial advertising!

(There is an antagonist, technically. He is Marci's evil ex and he is threatening to expose the elves to the outside world for ... inadequately explained reasons! Everyone blames Keith for this, but literally all Keith had to do was ask him about it and he was like 'oh lol yeah it was me,' so this was an easy problem to solve. There is also a replacement love interest once Marci hooks up with the leprechaun; she shows up 2/3 of the way through the book and Keith promptly fakes up a scholarship to help keep her in school out of elf business money, which explains why he has so much trouble paying his quarterly taxes.)

I strongly suspect that this book came about from one of those 4 AM conversations you have in college with your pals the business major and the sociology major about, ok, if you started with the working premise that elves lived in the university library, then -

And, honestly, more power to Jodi Lynn Nye. She wrote her truth! This book might not have an actual plot, or characters beyond paper-thin cutouts, but by damn it does have opinions about the logistics of starting a small business with mythological basement-dwelling partners and I respect that. (...I mean, not necessarily all of the opinions themselves. But I respect that it has them!)

Comments

[sophia_sol]

I do appreciate your dedication to reading nonsense and sharing with the rest of us! I am charmed by the existence of this specimen and what it chooses to do, even if I wouldn't have any interest in reading it myself. I'm delighted that Marcy ends up with an elf, and that the book is mostly about the Business Major Logistics of having elves in the library basement. Amazing.

[skygiants]

Despite the fact that it does almost exactly what it says on the tin, I found myself consistently surprised by the process by which it did exactly what was said on the tin! Honestly an experience I enjoyed significantly more than expected. :D

[seekingferret]

I am finding it hard to wrap my head around this book having that title and back cover and not being by Robert Asprin.

[greenygal]

It's not the same series, but Jody Lynn Nye co-wrote several Myth books with Asprin and has continued that series solo after his death, so they have some similar narrative instincts.

[skygiants]

I think this was her first book before she dove into all the Asprin collabs! So presumably Robert Asprin also looked at that title and back cover and was like, "I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I didn't write this, I should remedy that in future."

[seekingferret]

Ha, so if you want to help GRRM finish ASOIAF you should publish a book titled, like, Throne Game to catch his eye?

[kore]

OMG it has a Piers Anthony blurb, I missed that one.

[schneefink]

This book might not have an actual plot, or characters beyond paper-thin cutouts, but by damn it does have opinions about the logistics of starting a small business with mythological basement-dwelling partners and I respect that. (...I mean, not necessarily all of the opinions themselves. But I respect that it has them!)

That does sound interesting! Especially because the mythological magical business partners have to be kept a secret, which makes it hard to explain your business plan to outsiders. And good luck dealing with inspections ^^

[skygiants]

I am genuinely really disappointed that they went with 'we're intimidating Big Union out of a legal battle' instead of 'now all the elves join the union.' Come on, Jodi!

[osprey_archer]

I have been looking forward to this review ever since you posted about this book on Twitter! It actually sounds less bonkers than I expected from the back cover description?? Also it's great that Keith and Marcy don't end up together, although it feels like maybe the book should have introduced the actual love interest a bit earlier. But then again, that might have made less time for the logistics of starting a business with library basement elves, and that's clearly where the author's heart lay.

[skygiants]

It was less bonkers than I depicted either, to be honest! I was expecting CONSTANT MADCAP HIJINKS and instead I got an astoundingly chill exploration of small business logistics with an absolute minimum of plot? Sure, okay, I'm not arguing, I guess.

[oracne]

That sounds like a blast, actually.

[skygiants]

I spent the first couple chapters squinting dubiously at Keith and his AGGRESSIVE ENTHUSIASM but by mid-book I was genuinely charmed!

[marginaliana]

Was he not, after all, a Business Major?

Thus empires are born. Empires of elf-made tchotchkes, anyway.

[skygiants]

This is a kid who's going places! ... on the backs of non-unionized elfin labor!

[kore]

Through the Magic of Free Enterprise! (pub date 1990....ah, so it was maybe written in 1989 before the recession started, and when libraries were supposedly at their peak https://blog.oup.com/2011/06/librarian-census/)

[kore]

It recently struck me that our current situation is, finally, the perfect answer to the questions that people occasionally ask of a.) 'why do you keep so many books on your shelves, many of which you will possibly never read' and b.) 'why do you buy so much nonsense at used bookstores, many of which you will possibly never read.' Apparently I have actually spent all my life accidentally preparing for the possibility that I will have to rely on my own resources for reading material indefinitely!

I KNOW, I HAVE NEVER FELT SO VINDICATED IN ALL MY LIFE

this would be a more convincing argument if I was not also constantly, frantically buying more books by post

....well yes but the Daphne du Maurier handbook I just got wasn't available as an ebook ANYWHERE not even as a PDF on ahem sites! And it was only eight bucks shipping included! ("How much is it in square inches," T says darkly.)

[skygiants]

That's PERFECTLY reasonable imo. There's always room for one more book. That's what under-the-bed storage is for!

[kore]

....well sadly our bedframe is flat on the floor. But there's NOTHING on top of the kitchen cabinets!

[skygiants]

EVEN BETTER, that's basically shelving already!

[kore]

And there's NOTHING up there!

T: "But what if we need the space for something -- "

M: "We DO need the space for something! Books!"

....sadly, since the cabinets themselves are now all full of nonperishable food, I can't do like some NYC friends did and take the doors off and use those as shelving space.

[rachelmanija]

I remember that book! I think I didn't read it because the cover looked unbearably cutesy.

[skygiants]

I mean, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong.

[libitina]

That sounds delightfully low key and pretty amazing

[skygiants]

A surprisingly chill read, all things considered!

[sovay]

Marcy's date with Enoch the elf is at a Labyrinth/Dark Crystal double feature and they're very happy together.

That is excellent.

[skygiants]

Keith's own special elf friend is generally passed off to his friends and roommates as "my nephew; he's a Trekkie." (They've taught him a couple Vulcan catchphrases for the purpose.)

[greenygal]

Oh, Mythology 101! I am very fond; it's fluff, but it's entertaining fluff with a good premise. There are three sequels; I quite liked Mythology Abroad, in which Keith and Holl take a trip to Ireland to find their respective Irish relatives and some magically significant flowers. I don't remember much about the other two; I don't think I found them as interesting, and I know there was some romantic drama in the fourth book that I found really irritating. But I still find Keith and his struggle to help the elves very endearing.

[graycardinal]

Four sequels, actually, if Goodreads is to be believed (I think I got as far as the second book, back in the day). I am certain I read this when it first came out -- and I also distinctly remember reading a review of it somewhere which I cannot now backtrack. If memory serves, said review more or less agreed with the assessment here.

[greenygal]

The fifth book listed on Goodreads, Applied Mythology, is just an omnibus collection of the first three.

[skygiants]

There are SEQUELS!?

...does it ever explain why some of the elves talk in Yiddish? This was my biggest unanswered question of the book!

[greenygal]

Keith's curiosity cannot be contained in one book!

...hmm. I skimmed the sequel ebooks and didn't see anything specifically, but there are a couple of references to some of the elves picking up accents from the old German lady who befriended them--it's never specifically said that the Master learned English from her, but it would explain a lot--so maybe the idea is that she's Jewish and they got it from her?

[landofnowhere]

This sounds like quite A Thing!

(...but what happens to the library? does it get replaced with a shinier one? are the books OK?)

My previous exposure to Jodi Lynn Nye was her short story Muchness, which I read in a collection of, Alice in Wonderland fanfic. It's a pleasant though generic example of the type of SF in which reading childrens' books is the best preparation for teleportation.

[skygiants]

They save the library by getting it declared a historic landmark! And the only reason that Keith wanted it torn down to begin with is because of a dick-measuring contest between himself and Marcy's evil ex, so everybody wins. :D

[evelyn_b]

I feel you! I'd actually been trying to reduce the number of books I keep around, but I've been very pleased lately by my lack of success.

Mythology 101 sounds like a treat.

[skygiants]

In theory we have been trying to do book organization and pare down the collection while we do it; in practice I am definitely ordering new ones at a faster rate than we're removing them from the pile....

[dolorosa_12]

This book sounds utterly bonkers, and I love that you took the time to a) read it and b) summarise it for us here. This has seriously brightened my day!

[skygiants]

I'm very glad to hear it! I get a lot of joy out of these experiences and I love sharing, for better or for worse. :D

[accipiterf1]

This is one of those books you couldn't set in the modern day because the Elves would just get themselves an Etsy shop, and then where would the story be?

[skygiants]

Too true! The elves were more or less made for the gig economy.

[lokifan]

Happy about the Marci/leprechaun pairing, sad the elves don't unionise, so pleased to hear about this book!

[skygiants]

Marcy followed her dreams and her heart and we respect her for it!

[littlerhymes]

Urban fantasy but make it RUNNING A SMALL BUSINESS??? ...this sounds completely amazing tbh. The twitter excerpts you posted were *chefs kiss* superb.

[skygiants]

Who needs ROCK BANDS and GOTH CLUBS when you can have GIFT SHOPS and TAX FORMS?

[seekingferret]

If you want more small business SFF, I recently pulled Xenotech Rising out of my own ridiculous book stockpile. Jack is the owner and sole employee of a company providing tech support to companies using alien wormhole technology until he meets Poly, a beautiful xenolinguistics grad student. On their second date they spend several pages negotiating a business partnership agreement.