Fantastical jobs.

Fresh from discovering some of the oddest and more dangerous jobs in the real world, I've turned to the worlds of fantasy to see what job opportunities might be lurking there.

Now as you may or may not know my mind is constantly dwelling in some fantasy land or other (it's certainly preferable than thinking about Bacup on a daily basis) and populating that land with characters of my own creation. To any famous fantasy authors who may somehow come across this blog, no I'm not writing fanfiction in your world, so please don't hunt me down and kill me in some horribly brutal manner!!

Ahem!

Anyhow, back on to the silly, unbelievable topic at hand.

Now obviously in Middle Earth, Midkemia, Westeros and other such places they don't have job adverts in the classified sections of newspapers. In fact they don't even have newspapers! I've always found that to be a bit regressive to be honest...

So how do they find work then? Well I don't bloody know the answer to that! I do know that they all work though, they're not lazy, dole-dossing scum like the natives here!

Since most fantasy worlds are based upon the Medieval world then it stands to reason that they're not going to have very technical jobs, or technology based workplaces. So no theme parks, Lego sculptures or train pushing will be found here.

So you must be asking yourself, what do they do for employment? Well you're probably not asking that at all, but it does my ego good to think you might be!

So I've used my vast knowledge and come up with three careers that might be available to the common, generic fantasy character and two positions of importance that should be seized if opportunity presents.

Now remember people, this is just for fun, no getting bent out of shape over it!

So here we go:

Dragon slayer

Now as everyone knows, dragon's are a bit of plague to most fantasy lands, constantly stealing gold, kidnapping virgins and killing lots of people without much warning. They're a bit of a nuisance really. So what's needed is someone who can take care of these pests on peaceful life, preferably someone who likes to wear lots of metal and is relatively skilled in the art of sword hacking. What can I say? This is a job with an excellent benefits package; fame, fortune, people everywhere wanting to have sex with you. Interested? There's not much of a retirement package to go with the job, but really is that important?

Pros: You have job security for life.

Cons: You're more than likely going to die on the job.

Adventurer

If wandering strange lands, exploring old ruins, fighting all manner of nasty beasties and finding lots of useful treasures interests you, you may want to consider a profitable career as an adventurer. Now this is a self employed position so a knowledge of taxes and accountancy could come in handy. If you're a bit fussy about wearing the latest fashions and always looking like you've just come out of the salon, then don't apply. This is a job that requires you to travel far from civilisation, be almost constantly dirty and have almost no access to local gossip at all. If that last hasn't put you off, then sign up now and have an interesting life.

Pros: Lots of job satisfaction and no deadlines to meet.

Cons: You have no fixed abode and beds in inns are usually full of bed bugs.

Bard

If you wish for a career with less danger and opportunities for dying and more luxurious surroundings, then maybe the position of bard would suit you. Whether it be a travelling bard witnessing great events and singing for your supper at the finest inns in the world or a court bard, entertaining kings and queens and having your wicked way with all the court servants, a job as a bard is fun filled and rewarding. Obviously and ear for music and a talent with instruments is quite important, so if you consider One Direction as the pinnacle of music then please don't apply.

Pros: Easy life, free room and board.

Cons: You'll never really be taken seriously.

Dark Lord

Now this is one of the most important jobs in fantasyland. Every hero needs an adversary to struggle against, how's he going to make his name otherwise? Quite understandably the position of dark lord is one that doesn't become available very often, in fact job openings are once every few hundred years or so. So if interested you have to get your application in extremely quickly once the previous occupant of the role has been horribly killed. The job role is to take over the world and crush all hope underfoot whilst cancelling public holidays. References are definitely needed for this role as the minions under your control will expect someone with experience. Despite reports to the contrary, an evil laugh is not a job requirement.

Pros: Vast armies at your control, everyone is afraid you'll come for them.

Cons: There's always some bright spark plotting your ultimate demise.

The Chosen One

Like the above role of dark lord, the role of chosen one is a rare one to come available, when it does it usually suits those from working class backgrounds who have uncertain parentage. The job requires no experience whatsoever as free on the job training will be provided by a grumpy yet mysterious teacher. It's an extremely fulfilling role and carries with it the gratitude of all non-evil people in the world. Sold on it yet? There's also the promise of fame, fortune, marriage offers and the possibility of becoming a king, or even a god. Of course like every job, getting started is a bit difficult, what with evil and insidious people and nasty beasties trying to kill you, but with the right work mates those teething problems of the job shouldn't be too much of a problem. And hey, what's a little struggle if you get to save the world and have everyone bow down to you?

Pros: Everyone's going to know your name, forever!

Cons: The Dark Lord wants to kill you in a horrible manner and use your ruined corpse as a reminder to the common people he wants to conquer.

There we go. Here's hoping that you found the above list informative (don't laugh), or at least it kept you amused for the few minutes it took to read through it.

Goodbye for now.....

"You killed my father, prepare to die!"

Six fingered men, chatty duellists, scheming Sicilians, rodents of unusual size and oodles and oodles of revenge!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, humans and aliens, allow me to introduce to you a true cinematic epic, a timeless classic of the silver screen, a modern masterpiece...

Hmm, maybe the above was a bit over-exaggerated? Alright, we'll scrub the cinematic epic and silver screen classic bit, I'm sticking by masterpiece though, because it bloody well is!

What is? I hear you ask breathlessly ..... Oi! Stop laughing over there!

It's The Princess Bride of course. The single greatest over the top fantasy/revenge/comedy/romance movie ever to delight my formerly innocent eyes. They're jaded and cynical eyes now by the way! The movie that made revenge look cool and edgy, that made Sicilians look slimy, that made marriage look scary and pirates look dashing. The Princess Bride!

*Looks at all the blank, confused faces*

Sheesh! Bloody hell!!

You know it's shocked me on more than one occasion the amount of people I know who've never seen, or even heard of this film. Another shock is those who dismiss it as crap without having seen it, purely because it's a fantasy tale.

Can I call people morons in a kind way?
Ah fuck it, if you dismiss a film 'cause you ain't seen it then you're a moron! Ha it's my blog I'll say what I wish, deal with it MoFo's! ... I'm smiling and saying that friendly like!

Anyhoo back on topic. The Princess Bride! I'm not going to do a review here, those rare souls who've read previous entry's will know I don't do reviews, well I don't think they're reviews, I prefer to call it an overview.

Anyhow our story starts off, kind of, with young Stablehand Westley (our hero). Stablehand Westley like any young man his age dreams of chopping people up in to bacon sized chunks and wooing beautiful, rich  women (the chopping people up dream may not be strictly true).

As luck would have it (and a convenient plot), young Westley becomes the infatuation of the beautiful and rich Buttercup. Awwwww! See, you can always achieve your dreams if you live in a fairytale land.

If memory serves aright (to my shame I've been a few years without seeing the film), Buttercup is a bit of a dominatrix at first, constantly ordering poor Westley about. Bloody privileged people huh? However, eventually, true love develops between them ... it is fantasy after all. 

Buttercup and Westley enjoy an unspecified amount of time getting to know each other and doing all the things that loved up couples do. Fortunately we're spared from watching those antics! For reasons I can't quite remember, Westley then decides that he must make his fortune and promptly heads off for sea. Doesn't that strike you as odd? He's getting all hot and heavy with a stunning bank account and then decides to run off to be a sailor? Kinda screams commitmentphobe to me, hmm! No wonder us men are so stereotyped when that's happening on the big screen! Westley I had high hopes for you, now you've left me sad...

The abandoned Buttercup lives on in hope that her wayward beau will return to her, we all cling to something I suppose, then she receives dire news. Westley has been cruelly murdered by the Dread Pirate Roberts!

Dread Pirate Roberts? Doesn't quite have the same menacing ring to it as Blackbeard, does it?

Poor abandoned Buttercup isn't destined to spend her life alone though. Riding in to her life comes the brave (cowardly) and dashing (idiotic) Prince Humperdinck.

The Pratty Prince is on the hunt for a woman who can see past his title and hate him for who he really is. That's not hard trust me, watch the film and you'll agree. What Humperdinck lacks in personality and wit he more than makes up for with complete buffoonery.

So Prince Buffoon meets Abandoned Buttercup and they fall in apathy and agree to marry.

Prince Humperdinck is a bit of an evil twit as well and he wants to start a war, as any true politician always does! So he employs his evil henchman, Count Rugen to come up with a nefarious scheme.

Count Rugen, a man blessed (or cursed) with an extra digit upon his hands (six fingered men now has an explanation), comes up with a brilliant (ha), evil and dastardly scheme to have the soon to be Princess Buttercup kidnapped and a neighbouring nation blamed for it. Scandalous! Never trust anyone with a title, they're all evil, underhanded bastards!

Little note here; I'm not precisely sure that The Six Fingered Man hatched the Buttercup kidnapping plot, but for the purposes of this blog he did, so nit picking from the informed please.

Count Rugen hires a crack (snorts) team of mercenaries to abduct and flee with the poor, young lady. I bet she was thrilled actually. I mean if your future involved spending the rest of your life with someone who has less personality than a store mannequin wouldn't you want a change of scenery pretty quickly? Thought so! So late one night the future Princess Buttercup is stolen away from her comfortable and boring existence.

The professional kidnapping mercenaries flee across the sea with their prize, guided by their leader, the brilliant, scheming Sicilian, Vizzini. For them to be led by anyone else would be inconceivable.....

Ah Vizzini, a man who's intellect is so vast he can call Aristotle, Plato and Socrates morons and utterly believe his own words. Would anyone ever willingly challenge him? After all it's well known that you never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

The man is actually an idiot!

Without his giant, musclebound henchman Fezzik to watch his back, Vizzini would be nothing more than an annoying mouth.

Loyal, brave, strong and utterly dumb Fezzik. I guess every mercenary gang in history needed a big brute to do all the donkey work for them, you know; throwing boulders, crushing heads and moving small countries, that kind of grunt work. Step up Fezzik, you may not be much in the brains department, but you don't need to be, you have a sneaky, bald Sicilian to do your thinking for you. You poor bastard you!

Despite their brains and brawn, neither Fezzik nor Vizzini would be able to pull off a daring kidnapping without the blade of a master swordsman to protect them. In a medieval fairytale land the sword is boss and everyone pays attention to it. To be sure of success in a daring raid you need to have a better swordsman than your adversaries do, you need a man so driven by vengeance that he wills himself to be the best! Here he is.

Meet Inigo Montoya, swordsman extraorinaire, driven by extreme vengeance to kill people with more than the required number of fingers on their hands. Well when you're seeking vengeance for something, having such a distinguishable feature does tend to narrow down the number of people you have to skewer!

Mr Montoya is searching for a man with six fingers, believed to be culpable in the murder of his father. Have you seen any six fingered men yet? He intends to recite him something (I'm guessing it ain't poetry), before entering a sharp bit of metal in to his body. Nice!

So there we have it, a princess to be has been kidnapped, the kidnappers have been revealed and for some reason they're being pursued across the sea by the totally non-scarily named Dread Pirate Roberts. Why has he even got involved? Maybe he just wants a wench he can put across his knee and spank every so often, hmm...

What follows on is the main meat of the film, which I shall not reveal to you, save to say there will be death, duels, swamps full of fire, dangerous rodents of a quite unusual size, witty one liners, sneakiness, more death, some part death and the oh so joyous revenge! As well as pure badassery like in the only clip I shall show you:

Be amazed at the awesomeness there!

So there you have a brief, totally non-review like look at The Princess Bride. I implore you to watch it, to enjoy it and to quote the hell out of it like lots of us knowledgeable folk do online!

Have fun storming the castle!

To the pain!

Goodbye!

Choose your own adventure ~ Be the hero of someone else's story.

How many of you have read a book and imagined yourself in the role as the main protagonist? I’m guessing everyone, well everyone with an imagination at least. Imagine my delight back in my early years of reading when I first discovered the joys of the “choose your own adventure” books, it was probably similar to how a hormonal teenager feels when first discovering free porn online. They were a revelation, a chance for you to really be a hero, without ever leaving the comfort of your own room.

There were quite a few series’ of choose your own adventure, but me being the fantasy geek naturally gravitated towards the fighting fantasy stories written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (the founders of Games Workshop). I had a lot of fun with those books back in the day, and they are one of the reasons I took an interest in writing. So if I ever get published you’ll know who to vent your anger at.

The basic premise of choose your own adventure was simple. You start the book as you normally would and read a couple of pages. Then it would get interesting. A scene would end and you’d be presented with a list of choices. Usually it would go something like this:

The evil goblins have decapitated your best friend. Do you...

• Hunt the goblins down? ~ Turn to page 56.
• Try to stitch his head back on? ~ Turn to page 100.
• Shrug and go for a pint? ~ Turn to page 20.

Each choice you made had varying consequences, you could end the story rather quickly and boringly, come to a grisly end by being eaten by something nasty or save the day and become a true hero (in your mind of course). I have to admit, every time I met a grisly end I would skip back a few choices and try again, guess I didn’t like dying, even if it was on paper.

It’s a shame you don’t see these books around anymore, there is still definitely a niche in the market for them. I could quite easily imagine a Twilight choose your own adventure, where you had the opportunity to behead Edward Cullen (fake apologies to all Twilight fans here…).

Anyways there’s my little piece of nostalgia about a once big thing in my life. Look out for these books, then maybe you too can choose your own adventure and have some unforeseen fun.

Knightmare: the quest to learn about left and right!

“Enter, stranger”

And so it began, with those two simple words. They were an invite to great adventure, to undertake quests of world shaking import and to finally learn the difference between left and right.

The speaker of those words of invitation was Treguard of Dunshelm, a man with the beard of a super-villain and a shit taste in clothes. He was the dungeon master, the quest giver and he preferred the company of kids. Hmm not sure about you lot but that seems a bit dodgy to me.

So what was Knightmare? Well besides being about a creepy bearded guy who liked luring youngsters to his lonely castle, it was about sending those youngsters on quests in his maze and forcing them to solve stupidly fucking difficult puzzles. I’m pretty sure that Treguards’ maze was a major breach of health and safety regulations; it had crumbling walls, collapsing floors, falling ceilings and the place was infested with vermin, and he bloody well sent kids down there. The man was a bloody sadist!

“Oooh nasty”, said with a chuckle, was his way of greeting some poor kids death.

What would happen is 4 youngsters would be lured to Knightmare castle by the promise of riches, fame and the possibility of sex with an elf (or was it only me who felt that last?). Treguard the beard would “welcome” them and tell them what he wanted them to do. Only one hopeful adventurer could enter the maze, the other three were made to sit in a room and watch his progress with a weirdo stood behind them. You may ask why they were even there at all if all they were going to do is sit around and eat sweets, but they were very useful/useless indeed as you will find out. The youngster chosen to be the teams hero (from now on called the dungeoneer), would have a great big fucking helmet, with horns and no eye slots on it, called the Helmet of Justice.

Did it really bring justice though? I mean I’ve never heard of it being worn in a court of law, though given the state of our justice system these days, I’m sure it couldn’t harm anything to wear the damn thing in court.

So the helmet rendered the dungeoneer blind, poor little shit. But at least it gave the 3 remaining kids something to do, they became seeing-eye dogs (in most cases they had less intelligence than a dog). They would guide the dungeoneer through the deadly quest, using such complex instructions as, “sidestep left/right”, “walk forward”, “halt” and “oh fuck, run you’re going to die”. As these were children, and their knowledge of things such as left and right was a bit lacking, this could lead to some catastrophic fuck ups.

“Dungeoneer sidestep right”, meaning left. Dungeoneer falls into a lava pit and frys quicker than an egg.

Anyhow, with the helmet on and the trusty companions to give advice, the dungeoneer enters the maze known as the dungeons of deceit. I never knew of a dungeon that was deceitful before, I thought they were all quite open and honest about their overall purpose.

Let’s get one thing straight, this dungeon was fucking dangerous. Not only did it contravene health and safety regulations as I mentioned above, but it was full of nasty shit that wanted to kill people, quite of while gloating evilly. There were dragons, goblins, horribly monsters trapped in walls and there was even a giant spider. And what did the dungeoneer have to help him in his quest? Not a hell of a lot, some wimpy elves and dwarves and a group of friends generally possessing all the intelligence of a brick wall. I told you Treguard was a sadist!

The dungeon was all about the puzzles though, and they were hard, Stephen Hawking would probably have struggled with them. Usually if a puzzle was failed the dungeoneer would die, just another thing for the poor little bastard to worry about. Many a time watching I felt sorry for a dungeoneer, not only did they have morons guiding them, but also every goblin and his dragon was out to get them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there were only a few teams to ever beat the game. And what became of these mighty heroes? What glorious prize did they walk away with? Where are they now? The answer to all three questions is ….. I have no bloody idea. Which goes to prove that fame and fortune were just lies offered by a pervy old man who got a kick out seeing kids struggle.

This is not a book review!

The orphan farmboy who gets taken off on a mysterious quest, saves the world, marries a princess and discovers he’s the heir to hidden royalty is possibly the biggest clique in the fantasy genre. And probably the most famous example of this overused and boring plot device is David Eddings’ 5 book series titled The Belgariad.

Here’s the book titles and year they were published:

Pawn of Prophecy ~ Belgariad book 1 1982

Queen of Sorcery ~ Belgariad book 2 1982

Magician’s Gambit ~ Belgariad book 3 1983

Castle of Wizardry ~ Belgariad book 4 1984

Enchanters’ End Game ~ Belgariad book 5 1984

I’ve been reading fantasy ever since I was old enough to go and raid bookshelves, I cut my reading teeth on the likes of The Chronicles of Prydain, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. I know good fantasy. I’ll rephrase that, I know what I consider good fantasy. The Belgariad is not good fantasy.

So why then am I writing about it? Why have I reread it on more than a few occasions? I will answer both questions, but first a little bit of history.

I first came across book 1 in this series near the end of my life in secondary school. I was doing what I normally did in those days, namely skipping school so I could hide in the town library all day. School was rather mundane and boring and I much preferred to go and lose myself in someone else’s created world. To those reading this, I’m not advocating the skipping of school, in hindsight it’s a rather stupid thing to do and more often than not it results in you working in crap jobs and hating yourself. So I happened across book 1, found myself a little alcove which seemed untainted by grubby hands and proceeded to read. I actually read most of the book in a few hours and found myself really enjoying it. What wasn’t to like? It had sorcerer’s, thieves, assassin’s and men waving swords around, everything a growing geek needs. My library actually had all 5 books in, so I obviously checked the lot of them out, went home at the correct time and over the course of the next few nights read the lot. For quite a while afterwards they were among my favourite books, I ended up buying the series and they had pride of place on my little bookcase. But then, as often happens, I discovered other authors, lots of very good authors, and slowly but surely they eroded my belief that Eddings was a literary god.

So to answer my first question. I’ve reread The Belgariad and other works of Eddings over the years, generally while waiting for the likes of George Martin, Guy Kay and latterly Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch to finish whatever they are currently working on. And while I am now firm in my belief that Eddings’ tales are actually pretty damn bad, I also am of the belief that they occupy an important niche in the fantasy genre.

To anyone looking to read fantasy, a book like Lord of the Rings can seem a pretty daunting prospect with its slow pace, and reputation as the most important fantasy book ever. I read it when I was quite young, but I am a weird case. So a gateway is needed, preferably something light and fluffy, something that won’t tax the brain too much and that something is The Belgariad.

It’s not a complex story (in fact I can think of several kids TV programmes that are a great deal more complex), the simple plot moves quickly from A to B with a plethora of predictable scenes. The writing is quite basic, which isn’t really too much of a problem as the pacing of the series is usually at set sprinting speed. Eddings also has the annoying habit of having a lot of characters share the same sarcastic sense of humour. This isn’t too bad at times, when only a few are in scene together, but trust me when you have a large group of people all being sarcastically insulting and tossing out witty one-liners it gets rather tedious in a hurry. Also, thanks to a huge deus ex machina, you’re never left with the feeling that any of the good guys in the series are in any danger whatsoever. With some of the things they face you should be able to sense some sort of peril, but it’s not there at all.

Despite me bad-mouthing the series I actually still like it. Sure it can be annoying, predictable and safe, but it’s fun to read, it’s light-hearted, occasionally gory fluff. Like the trashy action TV shows of the mid-80’s it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s a good thing. I’ll continue to reread The Belgariad faults and all, and I’ll continue to recommend it to people looking to enter the genre.

The main reason I do reread the series (the above reasons are true but not the primary reason), is because of the characters. On that score Eddings has succeeded were a lot of technically better authors have failed. His characters literally do spring to life in your mind and they’ll continue to live with you, even when you don’t think of them for months or years at a time.

So let me introduce you to the main cast here, because it’s always nice to meet future friends.

Garion AKA Belgarion

Garion is our rather naïve, kitchen pot cleaning hero. He’s your stereotypical fantasy lead, the farmboy/kitchenboy orphan who goes on a great journey and learns all kinds of interesting things about himself. He’s a likeable lad, albeit a bit too humourless and practical at times, but I think you’ll sympathise with him.

Belgarath AKA Mister Wolf AKA The Eternal Man AKA Thieving Scoundrel

It’s just possible that Belgarath may be one of my most favourite characters in all fantasy. He’s a 7000 year old sorcerer with a drink and slight kleptomania problem, he’s also a great storyteller and is feared by most of the known world. Any way you look at him Belgarath is cool. He even makes tramps clothing look fashionable.

Polgara AKA Aunt Pol

Polgara is Belgarath’s daughter and has had a long, long love hate relationship with him. She’s a strict disciplinarian who disapproves of anything remotely resembling fun, offset against that is the fact that she has looks every super-model would kill for.

Silk AKA Prince Kheldar AKA that rat faced little man

Along with Belgarath, Silk tops many readers lists as favourite Eddings character ever, and it isn’t hard to see why. He’s witty, wittier than most in a genuinely funny way, he’s smart and his moral compass appears to be in a state of constant malfunction. When you add in the fact that he’s a thief, spy, con artist and master of disguise you know you’re on to a winner.

Barak AKA The Earl of Trellheim AKA The Dreadful Bear

Barak is the main muscles of the group, he’s a huge, brutish warrior who possesses all the subtlety of a large sword to the face. When he gets seriously pissed off he has been known to literally transform in a gigantic bear, whatever drawbacks that can have I’ll bet it makes pub fights extremely interesting.

Durnik AKA Goodman Durnik

Durnik’s like an older and wiser version of Garion, he’s even more practical and lacks a lot in the humour department. He’s also a bit of a xenophobe and can often be found criticising foreign people and their cultures. Despite this rather obvious flaw he’s a fundamentally decent man, possessing a lot of loyalty to his friends.

Hettar AKA The Horselord

Hettar can talk to horses, which in a fantasy world is an extremely great talent to have. He’s a quiet sort, probably because he spends all his time in equine conversations. He also possesses and overwhelming hatred towards a race of nasty people known as Murgo’s, the fact that they killed his parents and dragged him along behind a horse for a few miles probably explains this. If given his way he’d probably kill every one of them in various gruesome ways, he’s that committed.

Mandorallan AKA The Knight Protector

Mandorallen is, by his own admission, the greatest knight who has ever lived, and given how much he’s respected and feared outside of his homeland this may possibly be true. He’s a very courtly, chivalrous and polite man, a rare thing in a lot of men, espeicially in those trained in the use of big swords. He’s known far and wide for his utter fearlessness, though when you combine that with his complete lack of anything resembling common sense then you may understand how he could be a dangerous man to be friends with.

Lelldorin AKA The Archer

First thing many readers notice about Lelldorin, he’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the box. And while he is actually more headstrong and accident prone than completely stupid, ridiculous events do have a tendency to happen wherever he is. He’s an archer of vastly impressive skill and could likely hit the balls of a flea from a hundred yards away.

Ce’Nedra AKA Her Imperial Highness AKA The Irritating One

Ce’Nedra is small and red haired, that’s a bad combination right there. Ce’Nedra is also an Imperial Princess, and boy doesn’t she just love informing everyone and everything about her station, even when they already know and couldn’t give a damn. She is the very epitomy of spoilt royalty. When she chooses not to be a royal brat though she is a smart and charismatic woman, capable of great things.

Relg AKA The Zealot

Relg can walk through rock, any type of rock anywhere in the world he can actually pass his body through it. This automatically raises him into the realm of the supercool, his status is let down, and let down quite badly by the fact that he is a bigoted, ultra-religious zealot. He is actually a very tormented man, tormented by the sin he perceives everywhere around him and most especially in himself.

Taiba AKA The Slave Woman AKA Harlot

Despite having important character status, Taiba doesn’t actually have too much to do with the main plot (such as it is). She was born into slavery and the only life skill she finds useful is the ability to use her body to get what she wants. She finds Relg extremely fascinating and believes her main challenge is to seduce him.

Errand AKA that innocent little child

I was a bit doubtful whether to include Errand here, as he isn’t actually a significant player until the sequel series The Mallorean. But Errand, despite only being able to say one word, has actually played a major role in the events that lead up to the start of the series. So on that basis, plus knowledge of what is going to happen to him further down the line, I’m introducing him here. Little Errand is fairly limited in his vocabulary (not his fault as events do show), but he’s a pure and innocent soul, and even the most cynical of readers will feel a certain amount of protectiveness for him.

So there we go, that’s the main cast. There’s others who have fairly prominent roles but they have less screen time than this lot and so aren’t as important.

I had a debate with myself about whether I should write a review of the plot here, but I decided against it for a couple of reasons:

• It would be so long it’d be like a mini novel in itself, and no one would bother to read it.
• I hate spoiling books, no matter how good, bad or old they are.

All I will say is that it’s a standard fantasy quest story with larger than life characters. It has a lot of the usual fantasy elements; magic, big battles and exotic locations, there’s even a dragon and some carnivorous horses. And at the end of the series the heroes will face the Big Bad Evil.

 So in conclusion, it’s not brilliant, it’s not going to be included on any schools reading curriculum, but it is fun and sometimes you need something like this just to add some cheer to your day.

Let me be your fantasy!

Now I know we all love fantasy beasties (well I do and as I'm writing this blog my opinion is the only one that matters), dragons and gryphons and minotaurs, they're all fucking cool right? They stomp, chomp and burn the shit out of everything they see, what more can you ask? Fantasy beasties are badass!

But I'm not going to write about dragons, gryphons, minotaurs or even honest politicians (the most fantastical of all fantasy beasts), instead I'm concentrating on the equine beasts; the unicorn, the Pegasus and the centaur. With the exception of the unicorn they're all criminally overlooked, well unless Tesco and Findus are about, then they're very much looked at!

Don't trust big brands by the way, they're always looking to make mincemeat of all their opposition!

Ahem! Anyhow this post is just me trying to answer a very simple question.

Which is better:

The Unicorn; cute, glittery, farts rainbows and is probably a psychotic killing machine?

The Pegasus; handsome, dangerous, has wings and is far cheaper than British Airways?

The Centaur; a fucking freak?

I have done extensive research on this question, trust me I didn't even need to utilise LSD.....

Erm, right, so let's start.

The Unicorn.

The cute unicorn, beloved of females of all ages, but why? What is it about this bastard offspring of a horse and narwhal that makes it a favourite? I mean c'mon, the fucking thing has a dildo on its head, it should make its home in an Ann Summers shop! How the fuck can you take such a thing seriously?

In order to understand better I went to a knowledgeable friend for answers. Now Charley might like to drink a bottle of wine in one gulp, but she knows what she's on about! That could be the result of too many drunken hallucinations though, hmm.....

What I got was this; unicorns are magically magical, able to cure bad moods with a single touch, fart rainbows and shit cupcakes and they're lovers not fighters. I dunno about you but that last point doesn't ring true, I mean why have a big, sharp horn on the head if they're not gonna fucking stab things to death? It seems a total waste to have a natural weapon and not use it for gory purposes! And what's so special about farting rainbows? Sure they look nice, but do they actually do anything? Well apart from providing Bungle, George and Zippy a TV show to prance around on! Oh I remember, a farted rainbow can lure the unwary into walking into large holes in the ground, resulting in bruises and blushes. Yeah that's impressive, not!! The cupcakes could be useful though hmm...

Personally I think that unicorns are sneaky, nasty little bastards! They act all cute and innocent and pure just to get themselves a good reputation, but I bet as soon as your back is turned they'll shove that horn right up your arse and screw you properly! I guess there are some people in this world who might find that appealing, I however am not one of those!

The Pegasus.

Here we have the noble Pegasus, born from a god and a gorgon and has a better disposition than both. And it can fly!!

So what's so good about it? Other than the fact that it can fly? Well unlike unicorns there's only one Pegasus, he's unique. Take that you unoriginal, horned future burgers!

Did I mention Pegasus can fly? And he's cheaper than British Airways and when you're on him you don't have some fucking annoying passenger digging their elbows into every part of you they can!!

I don't know if you've gathered from my subtle hints above, but I like Pegasus, he's cool. He interacts with those psychopathic Greek gods and us puny little mortals and for patiently dealing with us all and not kicking the shit out of us what does he get for a reward? A field full of willing mares? Shit loads of gold and gems? A penthouse suite in the poshest hotel in every city in the world? Nope, he gets some friggin' stars named after him! Ain't that a pure let down?

It's a real shame that Pegasus will never win a popularity contest, certainly not while those damn unicorns are about, manipulating the general public to love them! But I'm a fan and a proud one!

The Centaur.

Ah the centaur, part horse, part man and all genetic freak.

Seriously, apart from looking odd and being supposedly mystical, do these guys even have a point? They don't have a good PR image like unicorns, they can't fly like Pegasus, you couldn't even race one in the Grand National as you'd likely be disqualified for trying to cheat! Even Tesco's might think long and hard before making cheap burgers out of them! They're like chocolate fireguards, completely useless.

Hmm, maybe I was a tad harsh calling them completely useless, they can hold a weapon so you could use them as cannon fodder if you ever fancied taking over the world and needed expendable soldiers. And I suppose you could give them menial jobs, if you can ever distract them from looking at the sky. Seems that's all the lazy bastards want to do all day! So they're only slightly useless.

Hope I've not upset any centaur groupies there ... (weirdo's)

I don't actually dislike centaurs, just feel a bit of pity for the freaky bastards!

So which is best? Fucked if I know, I like the Pegasus, I'm biased, I'm certainly not going to give a fair write up of the others! Study all three and make your own minds up ya lazy gets!