The Stuttering Bard of York by Rundy Purdy
This
was a refreshing story for me, an action parody that seems to be mimicking the
intentionally hilarious live action family hero series from nineteen nineties
television. Right down to the characters with comically exaggerated
characteristics and a corny portrayal of the world, whilst taking it all
completely seriously. If you want to take the story as parody, you can, but you
can also take it as a serious adventure. It's corny without being stupid, and
serious without being dark.
Each
of the characters have exaggerated characteristics which is actually for me a
good thing. I actually love exaggerated personalities, since that generally
means the story is going to revolve around fleshing out those personalities
more than usual. This story does not disappoint on that end and actually the
story is very much character driven. For a while, I thought this story might be
another 11!
I
wanted to give this story a high score, and just about did while reading the
first half. However as the story went on, something seemed wrong with its
formula. Our main protagonist have exaggerated characteristics not only for
personality, but for fighting abilities, which is generally all the explanation
we get for how they get out of huge scrapes and... Well often that really isn't
a sufficient explanation. One character being abnormally strong due to
strenuous work on the farm rather than harsh training, can make sense, but it
doesn't explain how said person can battle and overcome opponents with actual
combat training, especially when the author insists on having groups of ten to
maybe even fifty men attack him at once. Maybe his excess strength can explain
success over one or even multiple opponents, but eventually the author
completely loses believability. This not only effects believability, but as I
stated, the story takes its world seriously, thus when our heroes go into
battle, there is supposed to be a chance they can die. However in this story
the main characters plow through opponents like three twelve year old's
fighting a group of kindergarteners. In the end, in most battles in the story,
it just doesn't feel like there is any threat.
I
loved the characters, but the lack of a feeling that there was any danger and a
lack of believability or explanations for just how our characters are so tough,
really did wear the final score. 8.25 with one bonus point, bringing the
story’s final score to a 9.25 out of a possible 12. Generally I advise an
author seriously think revision if they can’t make over 9 points and well, I
think this story could sell on the strength of its characters, but yes, the
fact that the conflict lacks a feeling of real danger is something the author
should think about fixing. Also upon reflection, there is a major tonal shift
in the story. I would recommend some work.
As
to the objectionable rating, there actually was a large amount of gore towards
the later parts of the story, so -2 there. For violence there is plenty of
“righteous killing” bad guys constantly dropping like flies, so -2 there as
well. Really that’s only a -4 out of a possible -25. Upon thought the story
doesn’t strike me as much more damaging for a child to read than watching the
old Beast Wars cartoon. Just keep in mind, after a while, things do start to
heat up.
__________________________________________________________
The
Stuttering Bard of York is a wonderfully cheesy adventure done in the style of
mid to late nineties action stories. You can laugh to your heart’s content at
the silliness of it all, or you can take the adventure seriously, it’s up to
you. It’s a good fun adventure and can appeal to many tastes. Give it a shot, it’s
sure to brighten your day.
__________________________________________________________
And
with the author plug out of the way, here are the details of how the score was
decided:
Warning:
Spoilers may be ahead.
Spelling/Grammar
Score: ¾
Actually
this story was pretty well proof read, especially in the first few chapters.
And this wasn’t really due to “authonomy syndrome”, it was consistently pretty
good. However every few chapters I did see a mistake and eventually I realized
I would have to leave some kind of mark. A few more proof reads and I’m certain
the author will catch most of his mistakes, he seems better at this than most
authors I’ve read on the site.
Interesting Plot
Score: 1
The
story of the Stuttering Bard, like I said in the promo, is one that really allows
the reader to decide how seriously he takes it. Far from a Monty Python sketch
but more corny than your traditional Hollywood thriller, and its confident with
both. Set in a fantasy world, where exactly our characters are is never really
spelled out. Instead we learn about the world as the characters journey through
it. This could be earth or it could be another world. It’s a fantasy story and
one of the elements this story pulls off well that many other fantasy stories
tend to lose sight of, is well, fantasy. After all, who says a fantasy story
has to abide by the rules we’re use to? Our characters are normal people who
are able to turn the tide just by sheer determination and surprise everyone
with just how effective they are. In short, it’s a fantasy like what we dream
up at work when we’re bored. It’s dreamed up to be fun, and of course, it can
be fun whatever your definition of fun is.
Good Direction
Score: ½
While
this story does flow nicely from a to b to c, and the tone is both light
hearted and take itself seriously there are still a few problems with
direction.
The
first apparent problem is one the reader will probably miss and keep going, but
still, I would be remiss not to mention it. After Ben leaves his home town
there is a huge shift in tone. Really in York, the story was beginning to feel
like 8-bit Theater or Abbott and Costello. The characters were pretty dumb and
this was likely meant to be an exaggeration of small community style dwellings.
It did well enough for this, but the reader has no clue that the rest of their
world is not like this until Ben leaves for his journey, and we see a world of
people who really are a lot smarter and more put together than the people from
York. It’s not insulting as they’re also a few shades less friendly and it
seems they’re actually worse off for it. The problem is, it‘s a pretty dynamic
change. Even Ben eventually starts seeming too smart for the people of York as
he speaks as though their barter system made sense, when in reality it was made
up on the spot without anyone having a clue what was worth what or why. In York
dozens of different societal models were parodied, like communism, socialism,
capitalism and intelligentsia. However for the rest of the book, most of the
jokes are character centered and the world around them seems to know where it’s
going for better or worse. I feel that the rest of the world should have silly
things about it as well, but maybe if the author feels he can’t keep that kind
of tone up for the whole book without turning it into too much of a parody, he
should reduce the number of jokes in the beginning.
Another
big issue is Ben and his eggs. Ben constantly guards a small sack of eggs he
traded his horse for, so his horse could be kept while he was on his rough journey.
Normally Ben protects the eggs like they’re more important than life itself,
just because of how much he misses his horse Ned. However whenever even the
slightest expense comes along, even when someone else is paying the bill and
Ben has been told repeatedly that the eggs aren’t worth anything, Ben continues
to offer them as payment. It feels like the author can’t make up his mind if he
wants to make fun of Ben’s attachment to the eggs, or make jokes about the
differences between a barter and currency based system. What’s worse, spoiler
warning, we never actually find out if Ben gets Ned back. Actually the story
ends with the issue being ignored like it never really mattered.
Finally,
the biggest issue and the one I discussed in the opening. This story has dozens
of battles between our heroes and goblins, bad guys, wild animals, monsters and
wizards. The problem is that two thirds of their battles are with upwards of
ten creatures at a time, all likely more skilled than then our heroes, and the
bad guys not only fail to beat them, but essentially get bulldozed. Their
enemies, for reasons never really explored, don’t stand a chance. This makes
huge battle scenes feel like just filler as our heroes are never in any real
danger. The main cast rarely gets injured unless they’re fighting super
monsters and again, baring fights with said monsters, injuries are generally
pretty superficial. Our heroes end up killing three or four bad guys a minute
and not a single one is able to go more than one round against them. The ironic
thing is, this is actually slightly realistic. Most lethal confrontations last
seconds, not minutes, and the only way to survive against multiple opponents is
to plow through them as fast as possible. However also in reality, if you can
do that against multiple opponents, you are probably way out of their league.
To establish danger with stylized violence, battles have to last, and not just
between our heroes and hordes, but between our heroes and single enemies. This
give us a sense that they’re having trouble, and when the big super monsters
show up, instead of feeling like they’re the only credible threat in the whole
story, we’re actually intimidated, wondering if after all their previous
troubles, our heroes will even make it out of this. Also, perhaps the number of
bad guys should be reduced in each fight. Twenty or so goblins and men attack
our heroes and are slaughtered our heroes only receiving minor cuts as a
result. Our heroes then face three grave hounds and are almost killed but just
one. Really that says more about the previous opponents than the hounds.
Author Interest
Score: 1
The
author of this story is fairly active on authonomy. Again I haven’t seen any
advertisements as I approached him, but I can still see a willingness to put effort
into making people notice his work. The corrections I’ve seen from him are
methodical on my work, and his responses to my own remarks were thoughtful and
quick.
Believable Main Characters
Score: ½
This
is another area where the poorly constructed fight scenes really hurt the
narrative. This time it’s to a point that can’t be ignored and I feel some
enjoyment for the story is sacrificed. Like I said, this is a story that can be
taken seriously as it’s played straight faced. This is true accept when the
characters fight. The characters act and talk like the fights are scary to them
and even quite a work out, but they’re still plowing through the bad guys with
record speed. What’s worse is that there is fundamentally no explanation for
how they’re able to do this. Ben is strong, Ernie is useless and Jess has
moderate training. But this doesn’t explain their success, in fact if that’s
all they have, it just makes the story less believable, even by its own
standards. The characters are interesting and funny, but in the end, they feel
like some strange kind of creatures, not humans.
Likable Main Characters
Score: 2
The
mark of a good character is that I can still like him or her immensely, despite
any and all flaws in storytelling. This is like good character design in
drawing, no matter who bad the drawing, you can generally still tell who bugs
bunny is. Ben is silly and adjusted to a simple life and people, where Jess is
used to a life of plenty. There is never an attempt to shame either party for
thinking their problems are a big deal and in reality they are big problems or
goofy ones, just like everyone has in the real world. All three leads are funny
at the same time as having strong convictions about the world, and whether
those convictions work or not is up to you, as everything is made fun of
equally. The bonus point goes to just how goofy and even dumb the characters
are, without making me think less of them for it. Ernie is an annoying back up
character, but I was actually able to enjoy the jokes surrounding him, and root
for his character when he actually did stand up for himself despite his overzealous
self-proclaimed pacifism.
Likable Side Characters
Score: ½
This
is another place where frequent battles with hordes of nameless foes pulls the
story down. We see twenty or thirty people get killed, barely hear a word from
them and no one even mentions burying them. It’s like they were all just cannon
fodder. This was not true in Ben’s hometown, where each character was fleshed out
and was a caricature of a different societal or philosophical view point, but
after we leave the town, characters seem to move in and out of the story,
generally without having stories of their own. Even Rimmah, the main bad guy,
has no real back story. Why is he evil, what does he really want, how did he
get into a position of prestige, how did he get his powers etc, etc, none of
these questions are really answered by the time the story is finished. The only
bad character that gets a little development is Dougyal who is really just an oversized
henchmen for the main boss. The author
really needs to work on developing characters quickly, even when they don’t
have much “camera time”. True, not every goblin to get flayed by our heroes
needs to be an ex-philosopher from far off lands with a tragic back story, but
at least a few to them should have personalities that shine through during the
short time we read about them.
Good Scene Descriptions
Score: 1
The
descriptions in this story are pretty good and keep with the goofy tone. Each
new environment seems to have a personality of its own, which true to form, is
generally exaggerated to a near comedic extent. Not too little not too much and
it keeps things fun.
Targeting
Score: 1
This
seems to be geared towards the light hearted fantasy lover, especially with all
the tropes that can be seen reflecting other books or even TV shows in the same
category. Perhaps the author’s weakness with fight scenes reflects how those
productions often are with side characters. I think members of this audience
will generally be pleasantly surprised by what they read.
Broad Appeal
Score: 1
Unlike
many fantasy stories, this one doesn’t require an advanced understanding of an
intricate world in order to be enjoyed. There’s a basic premise that just
accepts that magic exists and runs with it. It may be too corny for some, but
for most this will be an enjoyable romp, for the goofy and the adventurous.