M@ reviewed Kill the farm boy by Delilah S. Dawson
Review of 'Kill the farm boy' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
The marketing text on this book compares it to [a:Terry Pratchett|1654|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1235562205p2/1654.jpg], and I have to say, I see the similarities. This book is made up of words arranged in sentences, just like Pratchett's novels. Many of the words are in English, common punctuation is used throughout the text...the list goes on and on and on.
The authors are not responsible for the marketing text. That was some poor low-level drone, or more likely these days some half-trained TensorFlow neural net, saying "this book has swords and jokes. What other books have swords and jokes?" So this one-star DNF review is not a Pratchett fan holding someone up to an impossible standard and finding them wanting.
No, the one-star DNF review is that this book attempts to be funny and fails so spectacularly in that attempt that it makes my head and heart hurt. The second chapter could be a …
The marketing text on this book compares it to [a:Terry Pratchett|1654|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1235562205p2/1654.jpg], and I have to say, I see the similarities. This book is made up of words arranged in sentences, just like Pratchett's novels. Many of the words are in English, common punctuation is used throughout the text...the list goes on and on and on.
The authors are not responsible for the marketing text. That was some poor low-level drone, or more likely these days some half-trained TensorFlow neural net, saying "this book has swords and jokes. What other books have swords and jokes?" So this one-star DNF review is not a Pratchett fan holding someone up to an impossible standard and finding them wanting.
No, the one-star DNF review is that this book attempts to be funny and fails so spectacularly in that attempt that it makes my head and heart hurt. The second chapter could be a brilliant comic appetizer for the heart of the plot. Instead, it's a collection of ingredients which have been shown to be funny in other contexts -- a not very pixie-like pixie, a talking goat, parents who are afraid of talking goats -- and blends them together into a gooey, tasteless paste that sits on the corner of the comic plate, like mushy oatmeal.
