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The Hero Interviews by Andi Ewington
4.0

The Hero Interviews is a quirky blend of D&D and a mockumentary about a Loremaster on a journey to find what it means to be a hero by interviewing different heroes, those who support them, and the people whose lives are affected by them while hopefully finding traces of his missing adventurer brother who went off to be a hero 10 years ago.

Let’s talk about the format. This book is long with 46 chapters—each dedicated to a single interview of a new character—and filled with copious amounts of footnotes (1717 in total!). Although noticeably long, the structure really lends itself well to being read in more manageable bite-sized pieces (and in audio format for audiobook readers). As for the footnotes, I know that can be divisive, but I do think they worked here with some clever lines, funny pop culture references, and informative insight provided by Elburn, the loremaster (although I do think some that were just side comments could have been edited down).

I really enjoyed the tone of the book (I really enjoy mockumentaries) with its humor and willingness to make fun of classic fantasy tropes. I don’t play D&D or RPGs so can’t offer much commentary on that, but I do know fantasy and this was indeed a playful and insightful take. Although it may feel a bit disjointed to start, we do start to see the ultimate narrative as the story progresses and Elburn starts uncovering a conspiracy of corruption and fraud that have tainted the hero’s journey. I actually found the final conflict to be delightfully mundane, and I look forward to seeing how it goes in the sequel.

The Hero Interviews is a playful twist on the sword and sorcery fantasy that is fun, funny, and unique.

*I was provided an ebook copy as part of a book tour.