cover image The Soddit, or, Let’s Cash In Again

The Soddit, or, Let’s Cash In Again

A.R.R.R. Roberts. Orbit, $12.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-316-21395-0

Roberts’s parody reads very much like Terry Pratchett updating National Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings by removing all the fart jokes while upping the level of Silly Names That Are Capitalized. While diehard fans of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit will enjoy the way Roberts jumps through various hoops, such as turning trolls into cross-dressing “trollps” Burt, Bill, Gerd, and Old Gill, others will find it wearying. The prose varies from cute and clever to slightly too arch, as in the footnotes commenting on ostensible “errors” in the text. Despite a number of truly funny moments, such as Biorn the Bear-man’s fatal flaw and the social spiders of Mykyurwood, the humor never manages to be self-sustaining. (Sept.)