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Cups and Sorcery #1
Another Day, Another Dungeon
IF YOU were going adventuring, in search of some great treasure, would you choose these companions? TIMAEUS D'ASPERGE is the leader of the expedition. He's a newly graduated wizard, and he knows just as much about magic as brand-new MDs know about doctoring. NICK and SIDNEY are partners in the business of assembling expeditions. They're pretty good at it...when they're speaking to each other. GARNI, the dwarf, is Nick's roommate. He's a good adventurer, but he does have a tendency to carry too much equipment. KRAKI, the barbarian, is one of the strongest men and best fighters alive. However, he's not too bright. FATHER THWAITE is a fine cleric and a good healer. That is, if he's not drunk. Together, they travel into the Caverns of Cytorax. And what they bring back causes far more trouble than any-thing they run into on the original expedition.
241 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
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200 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 24, 2016
It's hard to write fantasy comedy. With the exception of Terry Pratchett's disc world most people don't do it well. This series is the exception. Great story and I laughed throughout the book, Highly recommended
July 3, 2013
Some laugh out loud moments. For me, a little goes a long way with parodies and I had to push myself through this.
July 29, 2019
Have read the first two books in the series, but have never been able to find out why the third book was never written. Does anyone know?
February 3, 2016
A book written by one of the creators of the game "Dungeon & Dragons". It is light-hearted, with humor and an occasional bad pun. (Just what I needed.)
July 31, 2020
This is one review I'm very sad to have to write. I only got halfway through it before finally, reluctantly, giving up.
Author Greg Costikyan created the role-playing games Paranoia (one of the funniest RPGs out there!), Toon, and the Star Wars RPG of the late 1980s. The man clearly knows sci-fi and fantasy adventure and humor. So then he turned his hand to writing a novel, the first of two...
This is not a horrible book. It's just a very disappointing book that has sprinkles of funny characterizations, running gags, a few oddities, and... not much else. The one funny characterization is clearly a spoof of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian, and the other characters are just flat and not interesting at all. They feel like stock characters given lines and all done in a rather generic fantasy setting. There's almost no worldbuilding. And the humor is funny when it happens, but it doesn't happen anywhere near frequently enough (the scenes about the barbarian needing a passport were VERY funny - the book just needed a lot more stuff like that!). The book clearly is based on typical RPG gameplaying with some nods and winks to those familiar with such, but at over 300 pages it needs to be MORE than that. This was boring, uninteresting. I shouldn't look at a book clearly intended to make me laugh and think to myself "Well, I guess I better make an effort to finish it". An author who makes me laugh always grabs my attention. Mr. Costikyan grabbed it and then let it slip through his fingers. And he wrote a sequel to this (or planned it as a two-parter), but I feel no inclination to slog through the second half of this book and find the second book may have the same issues. (Also, according to reviews on here, the 2nd book ends on a cliffhanger after being a more serious tale, and there's never been a conclusion written! So definitely time to jump and bail.)
This really needed a lot more fleshing out and maybe some help in bringing in the humor at a much more rapid-fire pace. This book feels as if Terry Pratchett wrote one his Discworld novels but didn't have his heart in it and just phoned it in. (There's also several scenes where the sentences are extremely short and choppy - Such and such did this. Such and such did that. This happened. That happened. - but fortunately that was mostly confined to the early part of the book.)
If you like role-playing games and like humor, you MIGHT enjoy this more than I did, but don't expect too much.
Author Greg Costikyan created the role-playing games Paranoia (one of the funniest RPGs out there!), Toon, and the Star Wars RPG of the late 1980s. The man clearly knows sci-fi and fantasy adventure and humor. So then he turned his hand to writing a novel, the first of two...
This is not a horrible book. It's just a very disappointing book that has sprinkles of funny characterizations, running gags, a few oddities, and... not much else. The one funny characterization is clearly a spoof of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian, and the other characters are just flat and not interesting at all. They feel like stock characters given lines and all done in a rather generic fantasy setting. There's almost no worldbuilding. And the humor is funny when it happens, but it doesn't happen anywhere near frequently enough (the scenes about the barbarian needing a passport were VERY funny - the book just needed a lot more stuff like that!). The book clearly is based on typical RPG gameplaying with some nods and winks to those familiar with such, but at over 300 pages it needs to be MORE than that. This was boring, uninteresting. I shouldn't look at a book clearly intended to make me laugh and think to myself "Well, I guess I better make an effort to finish it". An author who makes me laugh always grabs my attention. Mr. Costikyan grabbed it and then let it slip through his fingers. And he wrote a sequel to this (or planned it as a two-parter), but I feel no inclination to slog through the second half of this book and find the second book may have the same issues. (Also, according to reviews on here, the 2nd book ends on a cliffhanger after being a more serious tale, and there's never been a conclusion written! So definitely time to jump and bail.)
This really needed a lot more fleshing out and maybe some help in bringing in the humor at a much more rapid-fire pace. This book feels as if Terry Pratchett wrote one his Discworld novels but didn't have his heart in it and just phoned it in. (There's also several scenes where the sentences are extremely short and choppy - Such and such did this. Such and such did that. This happened. That happened. - but fortunately that was mostly confined to the early part of the book.)
If you like role-playing games and like humor, you MIGHT enjoy this more than I did, but don't expect too much.
September 17, 2022
Timaeus is a freshly minted fire wizard and is being pushed to find employment. Finding most of his options to be unpalatable, he opts instead to become an adventurer hiring a party to be guides and guards for a delve into the nearest dungeon. And there his troubles begin..
I read the second book in this series and found it to be not very good. Which is strange because this book is fantastic. Costikyan is a legend in comedic TTRPGs and his wit (honed in playing Slobbovia) shows through here. This works as an excellent parody of dungeon crawling games. There's a sequence where the Dwarf in the party guides another party member in the step-by-step disassembly of a desk to search for hidden valuables. This sort of comedy will ring true for any OSRhead reading it.
Being a significantly old fantasy novel there is some bits that haven't aged well. There is an extended sequence featuring Efreet taxi drivers who use flying carpets and their characterization is a pretty bad Arab taxi driver stereotype. Not a great moment.
Costikyan knew the ins-and-outs of fantasy gaming and he brings a lot of fantastic references to this book. The writing quality is pretty good too. About halfway through there's a frantic battle as more and more factions try to push each other out of attacking an apartment. This is spurred by the apartment being entered by toughs bent on evicting the occupants. This eventually grows into a full riot requiring military intervention. Costikyan is a master of comic exaggeration and it shines here.
I read the second book in this series and found it to be not very good. Which is strange because this book is fantastic. Costikyan is a legend in comedic TTRPGs and his wit (honed in playing Slobbovia) shows through here. This works as an excellent parody of dungeon crawling games. There's a sequence where the Dwarf in the party guides another party member in the step-by-step disassembly of a desk to search for hidden valuables. This sort of comedy will ring true for any OSRhead reading it.
Being a significantly old fantasy novel there is some bits that haven't aged well. There is an extended sequence featuring Efreet taxi drivers who use flying carpets and their characterization is a pretty bad Arab taxi driver stereotype. Not a great moment.
Costikyan knew the ins-and-outs of fantasy gaming and he brings a lot of fantastic references to this book. The writing quality is pretty good too. About halfway through there's a frantic battle as more and more factions try to push each other out of attacking an apartment. This is spurred by the apartment being entered by toughs bent on evicting the occupants. This eventually grows into a full riot requiring military intervention. Costikyan is a master of comic exaggeration and it shines here.
April 17, 2023
Really like this one.
It's like a dnd session but without combat taking 6 hours.
Well-written and on the lost sleep to it meter.. a 3. I just sleep better now, it's good, really.
There's a fire wizard in it and a dungeon and a flying carpet service and a club built in the clouds.
There's mystery and treasure and it reads like a fun cartoon.
I read somewhere there's only two books.. hope it concludes!
On to the next one..
It's like a dnd session but without combat taking 6 hours.
Well-written and on the lost sleep to it meter.. a 3. I just sleep better now, it's good, really.
There's a fire wizard in it and a dungeon and a flying carpet service and a club built in the clouds.
There's mystery and treasure and it reads like a fun cartoon.
I read somewhere there's only two books.. hope it concludes!
On to the next one..
December 24, 2022
Bust a gut laughing funny. Easily as good as other, better known, light fantasy like Asprin and Shaw. Sad that this hasn't gotten a recent reprinting; but it is available on the authors old website in text format.
abandoned
September 8, 2019Why I didn't finish this: This was a D&D-style parody that I was just not in the mood for.
February 17, 2022
One of the very first adventure novels I read as a teen. I still quote portions of it today and we purchased a new copy for our kids. Incredibly fun read.
August 10, 2025
not bad.. you can tell the writer is very into DND and rpg by his descriptions of location and technicality of battle and spells.
June 26, 2015
There are some books you read simply to give yourself a feeling of hope because, as an aspiring writer, you know you can do better. This little gem is one such book. Although it has NO ISBN number on it, it does have the imprint of TOR Fantasy. This means, to me, the author was paid - unlike the equally abysmal Dungeon Crawl by William F. Mason, ISBN 978-1442133785, which was published as a softcovr on Amazon's CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Truthfully, the story is not worth mentioning. The Cleric/Friar had a promissing start in the first chapter as a member of an order devoted to a Dionysian-like God who is cast out to the street for shameful if drunken conduct. But this is a couple of paragraphs of what was mercifully a 241 page novel.
I have played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the early 80s and it is a certainty this work is a derivative of the author's game. But it does not make for interesting reading and the phrase "you had to have been there" repeated itself in my head. Not worth a greep except to gain confidence as an aspiring author.
Truthfully, the story is not worth mentioning. The Cleric/Friar had a promissing start in the first chapter as a member of an order devoted to a Dionysian-like God who is cast out to the street for shameful if drunken conduct. But this is a couple of paragraphs of what was mercifully a 241 page novel.
I have played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the early 80s and it is a certainty this work is a derivative of the author's game. But it does not make for interesting reading and the phrase "you had to have been there" repeated itself in my head. Not worth a greep except to gain confidence as an aspiring author.
February 24, 2013
While reading it was fun, and they covered some things we came up with when I played D&D as I was younger, it was very... jumpy. it was like watching a TV show, there were some plot holes I kinda just ignored. and it was trying very hard to be funny.
I think other people would have liked it more than I did.
I think other people would have liked it more than I did.
Read
August 8, 2008Cups and Sorcery #1
January 12, 2014
Not to my dungeon dwelling tastes. I got about halfway through and put it down. Might be for someone else.
May 20, 2016
I just could seem to get into this and I really wanted to. I'll try again later.
June 7, 2014
Humorous fantasy somewhat like Robert Aspirin's Myth series. An easy light read.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews