Irving Wishbutton and the Questing Academy by Brian Clopper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Irving Wishbutton and the Questing Academy is the first book in Brian Clopper’s meta fantasy series about the eponymous boy-hero and the anonymous writer drafting his book. The story alternates between the everyday life of the writer and his family, and Irving’s time at the Questing Academy.
I liked the concept of this book a lot and thought how Clopper depicted the often-mundane life of writers was spot on. I also loved the mystery about Dean Harmstrike and the other characters Irving encountered, especially cyborg Val and fairy Sarya. I equally loathed Gared, the arrogant pompous knight, and windbag villain Raggleswamp.
However, my major criticism of the book was how Irving was never in any danger as all his problems were fixed by the actions of his author. For example, Irving’s writer drafts a chapter where he gains a wish, that he then uses later in the Questing Academy plotline.
This happened repeatedly to the point I could predict how Irving would get out of tights spots and thus never feared for him. Not only did this rob the story of all narrative tension, but it made for boring reading, and I’d go as far as saying it bordered on Deus ex machina territory, in the sense the almighty hand of the author was always there to pull Irving out of danger.
I also didn’t like how the book ended on a massive cliff hanger, but that should have been expected given how often the “writer” in the story ended his chapters on cliffhangers.
I will say there were a lot of redundancies and clunky sentences throughout the book, and it could have stood a few more rounds of editing.
Overall, the book lacked polish and could have been executed better. I give Irving Wishbutton and the Questing Academy 3.0 out of 5.0 stars. I bought the next in the series, but I’m in no rush to read it.
I recommend you either rent this from your library or snag it when it’s on sale.
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