Review by DoctorMckenzie18 -- Fish Wielder

[DoctorMckenzie18]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Fish Wielder" by J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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The Fish Wielder details the adventures of a barbarian of unknown origin called Thoral Mighty Fist, a talking koi fish, and their strange band of adventurers. Through the course of the story, they travel to strange lands, meet many magical creatures, and do battle with several evil foes on their quest to stop a cult known only as “The Bad Religion.” This story serves as a parody of many adventure stories and as such uses many of the tropes that are common to the genre in both story and game form.

I give The Fish Wielder a score of 1 out of 4. It was interesting and I enjoyed parts of it; however, I could not even give it a 2 as I could not think of anything I liked specifically about it, while I could think of many aspects of the novel I did not like. It also did not seem to be professionally edited, although it was difficult to tell what was truly an error and what was done intentionally in keeping with the satirical style of the novel.

While there was nothing I specifically enjoyed about this story, I did find it interesting and enjoyable enough in general to keep reading to the end. The plot, while predictable, was generally interesting and characters and events were described well enough that one could imagine what was happening no matter how absurd.

The thing I liked the least about this novel was the execution of the satirical style. It is clear throughout the novel that this is a parody of the adventure genre in general, but instead of being amusing as parodies should be most of this story is too obvious and overbearing. It is predictable and every trope is used repeatedly. The author feels the need many times throughout the story to point out things that are already obvious in what is clearly failed attempts at being funny. There are also many points in the story where the line is crossed between overbearing parody and laziness or absurdity. This is the case during many of the battles, where Thoral wins based on sheer luck or other contrived and not very believable abilities. It can also be detected in the names of people and things; for example, the main force for evil in the story is a fairly generic evil cult given no other name besides “The Bad Religion.” I also disliked the style of many of the descriptions, which used many strange terms to describe otherwise ordinary ideas. I assume this was done in order to appear clever; however, like the satirical and comedic aspects of the story, it came across as overbearing and interrupted the flow of reading.

Overall, this book was interesting enough to read but I would not recommend it to most readers. I would only recommend The Fish Wielder to those who already enjoy parodies of adventure stories. Those who enjoy adventure games and other stories may also enjoy it more than I personally did. I would not recommend it to most other readers, most specifically those readers with little patience for overbearing parody and attempts at humor as well as those who dislike the adventure genre in general.

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Fish Wielder
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