3 out of 5

Three books in and our magician’s apprentice Skeeve still doesn’t “get” it?  The slang phrases that pass over our lead character’s head might be a splinter of the genre-norm punning,  but casting Skeeve, at this point, as still so uncertain of himself has gotten a little old, and makes the first book in this collection, ‘Myth Directions,’ both drag and make you feel somewhat silly for reading it, since you start to question your narrator’s intelligence.  Thankfully, Asprin is quick to reverse this with the second book, ‘Hit or Myth,’ which sends Aahz on his way and forces Skeeve to tend to matters on his own.  Not only does this remove the main source of the slang slingin’, but it also firmly establishes the status quo, going forward, of the duo being on equal ground, each with strengths and weaknesses.  Training books can be fun, but it’s nice to feel like, from book to book, progress is being made, and things were sort of stalling until ‘Hit.’

‘Directions’ fails because it subverts the formula I’d appreciated in the previous books: combining a growing set of magic tricks with Skeve and Aahz’s intelligence and cunning, relatively, to stave off the various problems that are inadvertently tossed their way.  Just trying to stay clear of these problems is what causes the plot to advance.  Although the setup for ‘Directions’ has promise – Tananda pulls Skeve away from his mentor to do some dimension hopping, secretly shopping for a birthday gift for our Pervect – the machinations end up feeling rather forced.  Tananda decides the best gift is one that can only be stolen, and several unintelligent decisions lead us to the final showdown, a three-way football-ish game with Skeve and crew squaring off against the two other teams.  Some of the dimensions and characters featured are as imaginative as always – even though the new gadget-based magician Massha gives Asprin an easy target for boring fat jokes – the text just feels like it’s constantly wandering to add foibles into the mix to make a page count.  It also lacks any new tricks, and even – to my eyes – contained a couple consistency flubs in describing the limitations of levitation and disguise spells.

But, as mentioned, ‘Hit or Myth’ puts us back on track.  Aahz’s nephew, Rupert, pops in makes up a reason to take Aahz back home with him, threatening Skeve on the side that Aahz shan’t be coming back and there’s nothing Skeve can do about it.  After thinking about, Skeve decides he doesn’t want to do the court magician bit on his own, and so plans on leaving… until King Rodrick asks him for a favor, to impersonate him for a day so that the king may have a day off.  Sure, why not, eventually thinks Skeve.  When King Rodrick’s potentially homicidal fiancee is announced to be showing up the following day, Skeve realizes the King might not be coming back.  The way he plays his cards to get clear of this mess brings back that charm and the intelligence that was missing from ‘Directions,’ while also re-introducing Massha in a more favorable light, as she volunteers to become Skeve’s apprentice.  The biggest downer about ‘Hit’ is that it’s just not long enough.  Aahz does return in time to help Skeve straighten out some final pieces, and there’s just a feeling of a whole section of the book being missing – more on Aahz’s reasons for returning, more on the duo’s interaction with the mob (the final resolution of which is oddly spoiled by a joke on the back cover…).  Getting the sense that these books are going to be these short one and done adventures, I doubt Asprin picks up on these threads later on.

So it’s a mish-mash.  A 300 page book that should’ve taken a week to read at the most took a month because ‘Directions’ was such a sludge to get through, and besides introducing Massha, doesn’t involve any details that would be good background for future books.  If you can get a good price on just ‘Hit or Myth,’ though, it’s a lot more fun, even though it leaves you wishing it was fleshed out in some sections.