Of course, similar to Mythos. If you want a truncated and generally more humorous recounting of myths specific to heroes, this is the book for you. Fry, to his credit, even more often mentions alternative interpretations/tellings of some the myths. It’s definitely a bit more leaning toward artistic licence with the humour in this one. Sometimes it’s to cover up how much stuff doesn’t make sense—other times it to sort of punctuate or deflate an otherwise tense story. Incest, beastiality, rape, etc.

The premise and setting were interesting but I just do not like self-aware, humorous POVs. The authorial voice is really weird for such a dark story and I always bounce off of books like these because they’re entirely at odds with, presumably, the point of the genre conventions and tropes they’re invoking. If you’ve seen my other reviews, you also know about 10% of the books I read that try to be funny actually land for me, so this is just a really bad pairing.

Super into the police officer solving a crime aspect of the story, however neither of the other characters and their interactions grabbed me whatsoever. I may just be really burned out on crime stories around drugs. Feels like the same kind of characters with the same voices. Maybe it gets more interesting but I was starting to skim by page 15 and then just put it down entirely by 30.

While it glosses over some of the intricacies and brutal aspects of the mythology, it gains in brevity, excellent authorial voice, and a proclivity for actually landing jokes—a too rare thing. Narration from Fry is, of course, perfect. I’ve never heard a poor performance from him and this is his own material. It’s the most accessible way to consume this stuff imo.

3.5 rounded up.
There’s a lot I like about this book, especially how conflicts and consequences come to fruition here. The setting is vibrant, as are the characters. The only thing I think didn’t work for me was the pacing. It felt like a really long book just because of its structure. There’s quite a bit of quirky things that may test your ability to suspend your disbelief. But once the internal logic of the uncanny things are divulged, things start to clip along nicely.

Not quite as compelling as the last one in the series mystery wise, but well worth it for the advancement in worldbuilding and long term questions posed earlier.

DNF’d 40% in. The actual concept on these beings was mildly interesting, but in practice it was mostly Harlan pulling the pigtails of the girl he likes, and not much better social dynamics than that, to be honest. I’m sure that it would have gone somewhere but it was honestly insufferable to continue dealing with the dynamics. I’m guessing it would be a metaphor for two schools of philosophical thought regarding the ways in which humans exert control, but it is so annoying that it rapidly devolved into Harlan being a man child right after the setting is somewhat established! I just don’t care!

Surprisingly fun. The pacing clips along nicely and the world seems pretty well thought out. There’s definitely quite a lot of infodumps that will probably be quite overwhelming if you’re not familiar with RPGs. There is a lot going on at the start but it hooked me with the descriptions of the fights and a mystery being introduced.

The characters and prose are very YA, for better and worse, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously in a way that makes it very consumable and quite fun. It’s popcorn fiction at its best, basically.