- Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Ace Books; First THUS edition (Mar 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0441011527
- ISBN-13: 978-0441011520
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 10.7 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 89,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I can't belive how long it took me to finish reading this utterly trivial book. Even when I wasn't finding an excuse to go and do something more interesting, I'd find that I had lost my place on the page as my mind wandered off to happier places.
No Phule Like An Old Phule continues Asprin's decline into panto. This time nasty old General Blitzkrieg tries to cause more problems for plucky Captain Jester by setting the environmental lobby onto him while a secondary plot involves some shenanigans in the casino on Lorelei. As I've, sadly, come to expect, the plot lines are pinched straight from old cartoons and and the worst examples of knock-about comedy shows. The absolute nadir being a description of that most visual of low-brow comedy staples, the food fight.
Phule is no longer recognisable as the astute business man and instinctive manager of people established in the early books. He is instead replaced by a Wooster-like character unable to recognise what's going on in front of him without the knowing aid of his butler. All aliens are, of course, funny looking with funny ways of talking and are utterly unbelievable. Even the human characters are poorly fleshed stock caricatures, given humorous (to Asprin) names to emphasise that they are not to be taken too seriously.
This is of course supposed to be a funny book and does not set out to be hard, gritty SF. Unfortunately the authors' idea of humour appears to be bad puns and Scooby-Do standard plots without the star quality. My advice is: do not buy this book or you will be disappointed.
No Phule Like An Old Phule continues Asprin's decline into panto. This time nasty old General Blitzkrieg tries to cause more problems for plucky Captain Jester by setting the environmental lobby onto him while a secondary plot involves some shenanigans in the casino on Lorelei. As I've, sadly, come to expect, the plot lines are pinched straight from old cartoons and and the worst examples of knock-about comedy shows. The absolute nadir being a description of that most visual of low-brow comedy staples, the food fight.
Phule is no longer recognisable as the astute business man and instinctive manager of people established in the early books. He is instead replaced by a Wooster-like character unable to recognise what's going on in front of him without the knowing aid of his butler. All aliens are, of course, funny looking with funny ways of talking and are utterly unbelievable. Even the human characters are poorly fleshed stock caricatures, given humorous (to Asprin) names to emphasise that they are not to be taken too seriously.
This is of course supposed to be a funny book and does not set out to be hard, gritty SF. Unfortunately the authors' idea of humour appears to be bad puns and Scooby-Do standard plots without the star quality. My advice is: do not buy this book or you will be disappointed.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
i know its not his best - but its not that dire! it did get a bit convoluted with all the sub-plots, they could have been trimmed down and more emphasis put on fleshing out the main story, but it was still a light-hearted fun read. i would recommend reading the books in sequence & starting with Phule's company, P. paradise, etc. the next book in the sequence 'Phule's Errand' is much more like the first few.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Only because the rating won't let you choose no stars!
8 Dec 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If you enjoyed the 1st 2 books you will *not* enjoy this one. I can't believe that Asprin (assuming it was not actually written by Asprin) would allow his name to be put on this piece of rot. The writer does not seem to have read the original books, destroyed the flavour, mangled the characters and cannot even keep the facts correct. I could not even read a third of it, especially after Willard's (not Wilfred) father's character was completely destroyed. From a man who trusted his son's business sense enough to shell out capital for something completely on spec to an egotistic moron of a businessman who could not grasp the rational of odds and casinos trying to beat the slot machines instead of trying a game that at least required some skill/knowledge from the player. This is the last Phule book I will read unless another writer or Asprin takes over the writing.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
waste of money
2 May 2005
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Three word reveiw: Waste of Money
Longer review:
This book is so poorly written, poorly edited, and poorly thought out, I am suprised Asprin is not suing to get his name removed from the cover.
There are six concurrent plotlines: The environmental agency is coming after Omega Company, a group of big game hunters need to be dealt with, there is a new recruit from a new non-human race, the Rev wants to convert the zenobians to the Church of the King but runs into an existing mythos about L'Viz, Phule sr is trying to discredit the business model of his son's casino, and the mob is trying to kidnap Phule again.
Exactly zero of these six plotlines are well developed.
The book gave up on plot and story for puns and rapid shifts between shallow story threads. The hunters have names like Euston O'Better, his wife Dallas and Austen Tay'Shun. The new recruit is a humanoid rabbit named Thumper. The environmental agency is the AEIOU, and their senior being is a genetically engineered dog named Barky.
Also, none of the characters you knew in the other books are here. The names are the same, but their personalities are almost unrecognizable. Phule is a bumbling fool who is more concerned about a hoped for promotion to major than anything else. Beeker is arrogant, pedantic and sarcastic. He looks down on Phule as an uneducated lout who would never accomplish much if Beeker wasn't there to take care of him. Phule's father is an arrogant, egocentric fool who can't understand the simple arithmatic that explains why casino's are profitable. He beleives the casino is giving away money despite all evidence that it is amazingly profitable (even after looking at all the sets of books). He insists he can prove it and will 'beat the system', and will beat it on slot machines. (The authors feel it vital to point out that slot machines are the game with the lowest payout rates and least player control. While this is true in real life, they feel the need to point it out every single time anyone mentions slot machines.) The list goes on and on.
There are also simple spelling and grammar errors throughout the book, as well as skipped words. For example, at one point Phule's first name is spelled Wilfred (his name is Willard, and is spelled correctly through the rest of the book). The editor over at Ace needs to be soundly chewed out, if not outright fired. This is simple lazyness and incompetance.
IF you have every other Asprin book, AND you can't abide the idea of a gap in your collection, try to find it in a library book sale or garage sale. Paying more than 50 cents for this travesty is a waste of money. I own a copy, but I wish I had read the reveiws before buying it.
Longer review:
This book is so poorly written, poorly edited, and poorly thought out, I am suprised Asprin is not suing to get his name removed from the cover.
There are six concurrent plotlines: The environmental agency is coming after Omega Company, a group of big game hunters need to be dealt with, there is a new recruit from a new non-human race, the Rev wants to convert the zenobians to the Church of the King but runs into an existing mythos about L'Viz, Phule sr is trying to discredit the business model of his son's casino, and the mob is trying to kidnap Phule again.
Exactly zero of these six plotlines are well developed.
The book gave up on plot and story for puns and rapid shifts between shallow story threads. The hunters have names like Euston O'Better, his wife Dallas and Austen Tay'Shun. The new recruit is a humanoid rabbit named Thumper. The environmental agency is the AEIOU, and their senior being is a genetically engineered dog named Barky.
Also, none of the characters you knew in the other books are here. The names are the same, but their personalities are almost unrecognizable. Phule is a bumbling fool who is more concerned about a hoped for promotion to major than anything else. Beeker is arrogant, pedantic and sarcastic. He looks down on Phule as an uneducated lout who would never accomplish much if Beeker wasn't there to take care of him. Phule's father is an arrogant, egocentric fool who can't understand the simple arithmatic that explains why casino's are profitable. He beleives the casino is giving away money despite all evidence that it is amazingly profitable (even after looking at all the sets of books). He insists he can prove it and will 'beat the system', and will beat it on slot machines. (The authors feel it vital to point out that slot machines are the game with the lowest payout rates and least player control. While this is true in real life, they feel the need to point it out every single time anyone mentions slot machines.) The list goes on and on.
There are also simple spelling and grammar errors throughout the book, as well as skipped words. For example, at one point Phule's first name is spelled Wilfred (his name is Willard, and is spelled correctly through the rest of the book). The editor over at Ace needs to be soundly chewed out, if not outright fired. This is simple lazyness and incompetance.
IF you have every other Asprin book, AND you can't abide the idea of a gap in your collection, try to find it in a library book sale or garage sale. Paying more than 50 cents for this travesty is a waste of money. I own a copy, but I wish I had read the reveiws before buying it.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Previous Phule books good. This one... not so good.
10 Jun 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This book was disappointing to me. The most glaring issue to me was that the characters (introduced in previous books in the series) acted differently than I remember them in the other books and seemed to not have much depth on the whole.
The primary character, Captain Jester or Phule, comes across as a doubting somewhat incompetent person. In the previous books he is anything but this. In fact, his poise and his balanced relationship with his butler help to make the books. I don?t see that in the current book.
The premise of the book overall just does not fly. That the father of Phule can be a leader of a huge corporation and not understand statistical odds in casinos smacks you in the face as unsound throughout the whole book. Then to add to the mix a storyline that stutters and goes off on tangents for no reasons, and you have a very confused disgruntled reader.
In summary, avoid this book and go buy the previous books if you haven?t already. I don't like criticizing authors I like and enjoy (I own almost all of Asprin?s books), but this book just didn't measure up to previous books.
I wish I had taken the reviews more to heart before I bought the book.
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