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Joe's World #1
The Philosophical Strangler
When Greyboar, a professional strangler, discovers the Supreme Philosophy of Life, he becomes a new man--but how can a villain in good standing pay the bills with his philosophical exploration getting in the way? Then Greyboar's long-lost sister asks him to help persecuted dwarves escape their human oppressors.
448 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
69 people are currently reading
540 people want to read
About the author
Eric Flint
250 books874 followersEric Flint was a New York Times bestselling American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works were alternate history science fiction, but he also wrote humorous fantasy adventures.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
April 25, 2014
Please note: I read and reviewed this book in January 2008. Just copying over my review.
My Synopsis: Greyboar is the world's greatest strangler ("Have Thumb, Will Travel") and Ignace is his manager. During the course of this hilariously chaotic book they have such adventures as: visiting Abbess Hildegaard, who regularly corresponds with God (he insists on using the postal service); helping steal a Rap Sheet (a Joe relic) in Prygg; breaking into a high-level cleric's house (after setting him up to be kidnapped); breaking into The Pile (high-level-security prison) to break out Schrodinger's Cat, who is Greyboar's girlfriend; and descending into the Place Worse than Hell and facing Hands Worse Than (the CEO of Hell) to rescue Benvenuti, who is Greyboar's sister's ex-boyfriend. Along the way, in the various courses of their adventures, they meet such characters as: a fallen angel (and learn the differences between a fallen angel and a devil); a troll (and learn the differences between a troll and an ogre); and various types of snarls.
My Thoughts: It is almost impossible to define the plot of this book; it wanders, it rambles, it carries on. But it is WONDERFULLY fun! Eric Flint is one of the best at writing humorous fantasy/science fiction/military science fiction (and if you don't believe me, check out Rats, Bats & Vats and/or The Rats, the Bats & the Ugly (The Rbv Series)) and is sure to keep you coming back for more. I can heartily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good laugh!
My Synopsis: Greyboar is the world's greatest strangler ("Have Thumb, Will Travel") and Ignace is his manager. During the course of this hilariously chaotic book they have such adventures as: visiting Abbess Hildegaard, who regularly corresponds with God (he insists on using the postal service); helping steal a Rap Sheet (a Joe relic) in Prygg; breaking into a high-level cleric's house (after setting him up to be kidnapped); breaking into The Pile (high-level-security prison) to break out Schrodinger's Cat, who is Greyboar's girlfriend; and descending into the Place Worse than Hell and facing Hands Worse Than (the CEO of Hell) to rescue Benvenuti, who is Greyboar's sister's ex-boyfriend. Along the way, in the various courses of their adventures, they meet such characters as: a fallen angel (and learn the differences between a fallen angel and a devil); a troll (and learn the differences between a troll and an ogre); and various types of snarls.
My Thoughts: It is almost impossible to define the plot of this book; it wanders, it rambles, it carries on. But it is WONDERFULLY fun! Eric Flint is one of the best at writing humorous fantasy/science fiction/military science fiction (and if you don't believe me, check out Rats, Bats & Vats and/or The Rats, the Bats & the Ugly (The Rbv Series)) and is sure to keep you coming back for more. I can heartily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good laugh!
June 19, 2011
My absolute favorite book by Eric Flint, and he is in my top five authors, so yes I really do love this book. This is the first in the Joe's World series, of which he has lamentably written only two thus far.
Now I understand that there is not as much of a following as for his other series, that the high humor in Joe's World is truly only savored by a few. I understand the cries of the masses, the myriad of intriguing projects, the wonderful authors that are just clamoring to work with him. So he works on other books. But Joe's World is a priceless gem that can only be told by Eric Flint! No one else has the twisted imagination, the dripping satire, the ability to drown on and on and on and on and on and on till just before the point that one screams and throws the book across the room. In no other fantasy series have I ever had to look up words every few minutes. No other fantasy cries forth with such interesting, intriguing, demented, unforgettable characters. These books are after all one of the very few series that I have actually purchased multiple copies and then inflicted upon others (And yes inflicted is the right word). I have even read chapters of the books over the phone.
So do I love and recommend this book? Yes, yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes! Ignace and Greyboar are a charm to read, and Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini (admittedly only a minor character in this first book) is not to be missed. And as the wise man says 'Folly ever comes cloaked in opportunity.'
A fun read for those demented few souls who are able to understand its high humor (and much easier to read than Forward the Mage or even A Desperate and Despicable Dwarf which you can only find as a work in progress online).
Now I understand that there is not as much of a following as for his other series, that the high humor in Joe's World is truly only savored by a few. I understand the cries of the masses, the myriad of intriguing projects, the wonderful authors that are just clamoring to work with him. So he works on other books. But Joe's World is a priceless gem that can only be told by Eric Flint! No one else has the twisted imagination, the dripping satire, the ability to drown on and on and on and on and on and on till just before the point that one screams and throws the book across the room. In no other fantasy series have I ever had to look up words every few minutes. No other fantasy cries forth with such interesting, intriguing, demented, unforgettable characters. These books are after all one of the very few series that I have actually purchased multiple copies and then inflicted upon others (And yes inflicted is the right word). I have even read chapters of the books over the phone.
So do I love and recommend this book? Yes, yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes! Ignace and Greyboar are a charm to read, and Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini (admittedly only a minor character in this first book) is not to be missed. And as the wise man says 'Folly ever comes cloaked in opportunity.'
A fun read for those demented few souls who are able to understand its high humor (and much easier to read than Forward the Mage or even A Desperate and Despicable Dwarf which you can only find as a work in progress online).
October 30, 2011
Meh. Picked this up from the library after thoroughly enjoying The Belisarius series (in which Flint collaborates with David Drake.) I only made it through about 50 pages before deciding it wasn't worth the already-three-days-old library fine. My husband (who also enjoyed Belisarius) made it not much further. He described it as (Terry) Pratchet-esque. While there are overtones, for whatever reason it reminded me more strongly of the Steve Jackson game "Munchkin." It also reminded me a bit of Jasper Fforde's "Tuesday Next" series, specifically in that it should have been funnier than it actually was, but the author got so caught up in his meme that the rest of the story simply didn't work. A series of alternately scatological and philosophical puns and plays on words (over)populate an otherwise straight-from-the-Well-Of-Lost-Plots medieval-magical world, and apparently never let up. I don't know: I didn't hang in long enough to find out. Perhaps it would have worked better as a card-based RPG?
November 15, 2015
Reading this book was sort of like sitting across a table from a madman or a drunk who’s trying to tell you a story. Well, to be honest I’ve never had either experience, but reading this book is what I imagine that experience might be like. The story is told in a rambling, conversational manner, and the narrative jumps back and forth in time as the storyteller interrupts himself to go off on random tangents. The stories have many preposterous elements to them, and occasionally even the narrator will say he can’t explain how certain things happened. And yet, in spite of all this, the story really wasn’t confusing. It was just… odd.
The narrator of this story is an agent for a strangler. A strangler in this setting is basically like an assassin hired to kill people, and he usually accomplishes the job by strangling them. The narrator, his agent, is responsible for finding clients and negotiating the fees. The agent himself is a tiny, wimpy guy who usually isn’t much use in a fight but, since the strangler is ridiculously strong, he doesn’t really need help anyway. The strangler is infatuated with philosophy, much to the agent’s dismay, hence the name of the book: The Philosophical Strangler. The story is about the various jobs they take, and random other adventures they find themselves caught up in. Or the story is about hanging out in a bar. It kind of depends on which part of the story is being told.
After the darker things I’ve been reading lately, I decided I should read something lighter in tone. I’ve had this e-book for several years, originally downloaded from the Baen Free Library, but I kept putting off reading it because I’ve been skeptical about it. I thought the book looked like it would be overly silly, but I’ve read a few books by Eric Flint that I really liked, so I figured I should at least give it a try. Overly silly, often crossing into complete absurdity, pretty much describes this book. It occasionally made me laugh, but everything was just too silly for me to really lose myself in the story or become invested in the characters. I love it when books have humor, but only if that humor is in a believable context.
I didn’t expect to like the book at all, but I did enjoy it more than I thought I would once I resigned myself to the fact that the story would be ridiculous. It certainly supplied the desired change of pace from what I’ve been reading, but I started to lose interest by the end. It was a quick read, which is good because I would have lost patience with it if it had gone on much longer. There’s another book that’s set chronologically in the middle of this book, apparently telling a story that’s frequently referenced but always glossed over in this book. I already have that e-book since it too had been available from the Baen Free Library a few years back, but I’ve decided not to read it.
The narrator of this story is an agent for a strangler. A strangler in this setting is basically like an assassin hired to kill people, and he usually accomplishes the job by strangling them. The narrator, his agent, is responsible for finding clients and negotiating the fees. The agent himself is a tiny, wimpy guy who usually isn’t much use in a fight but, since the strangler is ridiculously strong, he doesn’t really need help anyway. The strangler is infatuated with philosophy, much to the agent’s dismay, hence the name of the book: The Philosophical Strangler. The story is about the various jobs they take, and random other adventures they find themselves caught up in. Or the story is about hanging out in a bar. It kind of depends on which part of the story is being told.
After the darker things I’ve been reading lately, I decided I should read something lighter in tone. I’ve had this e-book for several years, originally downloaded from the Baen Free Library, but I kept putting off reading it because I’ve been skeptical about it. I thought the book looked like it would be overly silly, but I’ve read a few books by Eric Flint that I really liked, so I figured I should at least give it a try. Overly silly, often crossing into complete absurdity, pretty much describes this book. It occasionally made me laugh, but everything was just too silly for me to really lose myself in the story or become invested in the characters. I love it when books have humor, but only if that humor is in a believable context.
I didn’t expect to like the book at all, but I did enjoy it more than I thought I would once I resigned myself to the fact that the story would be ridiculous. It certainly supplied the desired change of pace from what I’ve been reading, but I started to lose interest by the end. It was a quick read, which is good because I would have lost patience with it if it had gone on much longer. There’s another book that’s set chronologically in the middle of this book, apparently telling a story that’s frequently referenced but always glossed over in this book. I already have that e-book since it too had been available from the Baen Free Library a few years back, but I’ve decided not to read it.
January 2, 2018
ugh.
I can't decide whether this is supposed to be an homage to Disc World or to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but the characters are neither as funny as Leiber nor as well developed as Pratchett's.
I'm quite fond of Flint's stories, but this is a huge fail.
September 28, 2009
Very humorous in a "stupid" kind of way. If you like Piers Anthony and Terry Prachett you will like this book. Great characters, and I have to say I have never looked up more terms (Schrodinger's Cat, entropy, the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics) in any fantasy novel. :)
September 7, 2007
Four stars for entertainment value. Two stars for philosophy. Bonus points for humorous use of non-Euclidean space.
December 28, 2020
The endorsements compare this book to the Discworld series of Terry Pratchett. The comparison is to some extent accurate. Both are set in a sort of parody world of fantasy cliches either turned up to 11 or purposefully inverted. Also, both use their setting to satirize However, Eric Flint seems much more mean-spirited in his humor than Pratchett ever did.
In addition, Pratchett seems to me to have a better understanding of human nature than Flint. While Pratchett continuously pointed out the flaws of those in power, he always did it with the understanding that "common people" were similarly flawed - they simply had less opportunity to show it. However, in this book, Flint's division between "good" and "evil" is more or less equivalent to the division between the rich/powerful and common people (with a few exceptions). I feel that this is an over-simplification, which combined with the aforementioned mean-spiritedness, greatly brings down the potential of this book.
In addition, Pratchett seems to me to have a better understanding of human nature than Flint. While Pratchett continuously pointed out the flaws of those in power, he always did it with the understanding that "common people" were similarly flawed - they simply had less opportunity to show it. However, in this book, Flint's division between "good" and "evil" is more or less equivalent to the division between the rich/powerful and common people (with a few exceptions). I feel that this is an over-simplification, which combined with the aforementioned mean-spiritedness, greatly brings down the potential of this book.
November 11, 2020
I just read this book for the second time, after about 15-20 years. Wow, this book was even funnier than I remember!
Basically, the whole book is a satire on the fantasy hero/quest trope. The hero is a professional strangler who gets involved in philosophy and becomes more and more restrictive about who he strangles. The strangler's agent is his adopted brother who is really smart and really small.
Then there are thieves and crooked politicians and religious leaders and wizards and damsels in distress--but you get the idea. Inexorably the two ruffians are drawn to herohood throughout the book.
The reader is regaled with reams of raucous laughter emitting from his or her throat at the ridiculous situations, set ups, language and wordplay. This is the funniest and cleverest book Eric Flint ever wrote.
Basically, the whole book is a satire on the fantasy hero/quest trope. The hero is a professional strangler who gets involved in philosophy and becomes more and more restrictive about who he strangles. The strangler's agent is his adopted brother who is really smart and really small.
Then there are thieves and crooked politicians and religious leaders and wizards and damsels in distress--but you get the idea. Inexorably the two ruffians are drawn to herohood throughout the book.
The reader is regaled with reams of raucous laughter emitting from his or her throat at the ridiculous situations, set ups, language and wordplay. This is the funniest and cleverest book Eric Flint ever wrote.
February 19, 2020
I will say that it was amusing at times in a very Pratchett-esque way (enough that I gave it 3/5 instead of the 2/5 stars I was considering), but between its continual bouts of toilet humor and the frankly appalling cast of characters, I quickly grew tired of it and the best I can say about this book is that it isn't the worst Eric Flint book (Iron Angels is so much worse), but given that he's one of my favorite authors for his alternate history and science fiction books, I'm incredibly grateful that I read 1632 first rather than this or I may never have given him a second chance. Ah well, everyone has to start somewhere...
June 19, 2017
This book has one major redeeming quality: for the first time, I am able to understand what people who don't like Terry Pratchett must feel like when reading Terry Pratchett.
I read the whole entire thing, due to a combination of the sunk cost fallacy and being on an airplane with no wifi for most of it.
I like cheap satire and junk fantasy; I often compare it to literary candy. This was...this was, like, literary candy made with artificial sweeteners.
That lingering taste of aspartame, you know?
I read the whole entire thing, due to a combination of the sunk cost fallacy and being on an airplane with no wifi for most of it.
I like cheap satire and junk fantasy; I often compare it to literary candy. This was...this was, like, literary candy made with artificial sweeteners.
That lingering taste of aspartame, you know?
May 12, 2018
This book was oddly quirky, and I have to agree with another Goodreads reviewer; it feels a lot like listening to a drunk man telling long, rambling stories that frequently diverge onto long tangents, and then he forgets the point he was trying to make to begin with. I liked a lot of the story, don't get me wrong. There's a particular and unique 'flavor' to the world and characters, but you have to swim through a lot of long-winded and eccentric narrative to get there.
October 13, 2022
Not really my cup of tea. It's humor kept failing on me, and the failure mode of humor isn't pretty.
We read it to celebrate Eric Flint, who just died, but I think this was a very early work. I've definitely read better stuff by him. Oh well, most of us finished, so it wasn't the worst thing we've read!
We read it to celebrate Eric Flint, who just died, but I think this was a very early work. I've definitely read better stuff by him. Oh well, most of us finished, so it wasn't the worst thing we've read!
October 5, 2017
Fantasy farce. I laughed, but halfway through its sequel, I got tired of it.
October 12, 2017
I just couldn't get interested enough...
February 24, 2018
This is a bit of silliness. Fun read.
December 22, 2018
Did not finish
August 28, 2019
I got soooo tired of the ogre/strangler's philosophical maunderings.
February 15, 2020
DNF. Found it on the library's new books table, so gave it a try. I don't like farcical humour. I don't like books about criminals. Thus I didn't bother reading more than a few pages.
April 6, 2020
It’s got some funny bits, but certainly nothing like Terry Pratchett or Monty Python.
It was pretty good.
It was pretty good.
March 23, 2021
I love the writing. Great ending.
April 14, 2022
This seems to a series of shorter stories that are tied together.
The first 2 were good but the thread was lost after those 2.
The first 2 were good but the thread was lost after those 2.
March 12, 2024
Excellent story, imagine Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser in Discworld and you've get The Philosophical Strangler.
August 26, 2024
Not the best book of Eric Flint; but readable.
March 23, 2025
Overall an enjoyable and fun book despite the occasional long-windedness. 75/100
September 19, 2025
*I didn't complete this book. I love philosophy and those jokes were great but this book just wasn't for me. Not enough substance.
March 2, 2014
From Publishers Weekly
This oddly satisfying humorous fantasy usually achieves the zany and frequently the bizarre. In the city of New Sfinctre the professional strangler and amateur philosopher Greyboar and his agent and sidekick, Ignace, accept a contract they're unable to fulfill, but which leads to some amusing adventures. At their watering hole, the Sign of the Trough, the pair encounter a nearsighted swordswoman named Cat (actually Schrdinger's Cat, but she can't find Schrdinger) and learn that Gwendolyn, Greyboar's Amazonian sister (who's active in the literally underground dwarf-liberation movement), has an artistic lover named Benvenuti. After Benvenuti's disappearance, the duo have to spring Cat from prison, help Abbess Hildegard of the Sisters of Tranquility intimidate a fallen angel and harrow hell and several even worse places to get Benvenuti back. The author's inventiveness is unblushingly demanding of the reader passages in the journey to hell satirize (or more accurately, skewer or even impale) role-playing games, Dante, the Greek playwrights and the Norse sagas with ferocious accuracy and a complete lack of scruples. Good taste prevails most of the time, and there are a fair number of serious grace notes, such as the cult of Joe, the caveman who invented God (aka the Old Geister). The sexual content is higher, but otherwise Flint can stand comparison with at least early Terry Pratchett. Fans of Harry Turtledove's elaborate wordplay will also revel in this volume. (May)with David Drake, and for the novel 1632.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library JournalGreyboar's professional career as an assassin for hire falls prey to his penchant for philosophy as moral qualms intervene to cause disaster in even the simplest tasks. The latest fantasy by the author of 1632 features an angst-ridden hero, a fast-talking side-kick, fast-paced action, and bawdy humor. Though sometimes the comedy misses the mark, Flint tells a multilayered tale of camaraderie in the face of misadventure with apologies to the great philosophers. A good choice for large libraries' fantasy collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
August 11, 2020
I first read The Philosophical Strangler when it was being posted in sections on Baen’s Bar. It is a humorous fantasy about politics, weaponised philosophy and revolution. Our Protagonists are a professional strangler named Greyboar and his hapless agent Ignace. Though very successful in his profession, Greyboar is feeling a great deal of ennui about his lifestyle. Motivated by the disapproval of his political activist sister, he attempts to find a philosophy worth following. (Ignace is not happy about this, and complains about it frequently.)
Then Ignace finds out that if Greyboar searching for a worthwhile philosophy was bad, Greyboar actually finding one turns out to be even worse. Ignace finds himself being dragged along on missions involving “Joeist” heretics, an artist who is too handsome for his own good and thrilling heroics of various kinds. (The last being particularly worrisome, since Ignace and Greyboar are not heroes. They have a reputation as lowlifes to maintain, and being a hero is not a lucrative profession!)
Since this is Eric Flint, we also have some romances. Ignace ends up in a relationship with two young ladies after Greyboar is hired by the former “paramour” of one of them. (Greyboar does not strangle women. The guy who hired him neglected to mention that his “mistress” ran away with her seamstress. This created some severe difficulties with Greyboar’s professional ethics. Said problems were resolved by the young ladies hiring him to strangle the guy who hired him.) Meanwhile, Greyboar pursues a strange woman known only as Schrodinger’s Cat, a woman who defies physics and all notions of predictability.
Stories of Greyboar’s thrilling heroics eventually lead to his sister Gwendolyn turning up, asking for his help to rescue her on-again-off-again boyfriend Benvenuti Sfondroti-Piccolomini. This leads to a trip to Hell and the Place Worse than Hell to rescue him. (These chapters are written in verse and are a parody of Dante’s Inferno.)
This is a fun book with a lot of clever (and not so clever; oh god the puns) humor.
Then Ignace finds out that if Greyboar searching for a worthwhile philosophy was bad, Greyboar actually finding one turns out to be even worse. Ignace finds himself being dragged along on missions involving “Joeist” heretics, an artist who is too handsome for his own good and thrilling heroics of various kinds. (The last being particularly worrisome, since Ignace and Greyboar are not heroes. They have a reputation as lowlifes to maintain, and being a hero is not a lucrative profession!)
Since this is Eric Flint, we also have some romances. Ignace ends up in a relationship with two young ladies after Greyboar is hired by the former “paramour” of one of them. (Greyboar does not strangle women. The guy who hired him neglected to mention that his “mistress” ran away with her seamstress. This created some severe difficulties with Greyboar’s professional ethics. Said problems were resolved by the young ladies hiring him to strangle the guy who hired him.) Meanwhile, Greyboar pursues a strange woman known only as Schrodinger’s Cat, a woman who defies physics and all notions of predictability.
Stories of Greyboar’s thrilling heroics eventually lead to his sister Gwendolyn turning up, asking for his help to rescue her on-again-off-again boyfriend Benvenuti Sfondroti-Piccolomini. This leads to a trip to Hell and the Place Worse than Hell to rescue him. (These chapters are written in verse and are a parody of Dante’s Inferno.)
This is a fun book with a lot of clever (and not so clever; oh god the puns) humor.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2017
I really need to stop getting tricked into reading books I've never heard of just because a) the cover was neat b) the title is witty and c) a little text blurb on the back compared the writer to a writer I liked.
In which case, this book has a really neat cover of a really cool bat monster, the name of this book is "The Philosophical Strangler" (why, a professional assassin as a protagonist? That sounds like fun!) and the back of this book compared the writer to Terry Pratchett.
While I can see where you would draw the comparison between Eric Flint and Terry Pratchett - and the style of writing can be pretty fun at times - Terry Pratchett never wrote a book that made me fall asleep. There are elements of witty writing and wordplay, but it's just trapped with protagonists and a story I couldn't give a single crap about. It had all the elements of something I would've liked, but I just...didn't.
Needless to say, I didn't stick around long enough to see if the bat monster was actually in the novel or just there to make the cover look pretty.
As a quick aside, I spent the first 50 pages of this book envisioning Greyboar the strangler as the bat monster on the cover and it might've improved the book a little bit. I know I got a kick out of picturing this leathery but thoughtful creature having a sister he cares for and sitting in a human bar and drinking alcohol with some tiny manager.
Did not finish after about 150 pages in. I think later on I'll try to give this book another shot, but for now I'm considering myself done with this.
In which case, this book has a really neat cover of a really cool bat monster, the name of this book is "The Philosophical Strangler" (why, a professional assassin as a protagonist? That sounds like fun!) and the back of this book compared the writer to Terry Pratchett.
While I can see where you would draw the comparison between Eric Flint and Terry Pratchett - and the style of writing can be pretty fun at times - Terry Pratchett never wrote a book that made me fall asleep. There are elements of witty writing and wordplay, but it's just trapped with protagonists and a story I couldn't give a single crap about. It had all the elements of something I would've liked, but I just...didn't.
Needless to say, I didn't stick around long enough to see if the bat monster was actually in the novel or just there to make the cover look pretty.
As a quick aside, I spent the first 50 pages of this book envisioning Greyboar the strangler as the bat monster on the cover and it might've improved the book a little bit. I know I got a kick out of picturing this leathery but thoughtful creature having a sister he cares for and sitting in a human bar and drinking alcohol with some tiny manager.
Did not finish after about 150 pages in. I think later on I'll try to give this book another shot, but for now I'm considering myself done with this.
February 8, 2016
Ugh. Made it made it 4% into the book before giving up. Eric Flint may write good books, but this is not one of them. The title character is a whiner and the narrating (POV) character is a complainer and manipulator. I *think* the story is meant as a parody and to be humorous, but it is either slap-stick humor or ... I don't know.
Gave up at "there are possibilities for the future. Perhaps even a new school!" ... says a martial artist when his spine is crushed, the comment is about developing a new school of fighting for paraplegics. ... ha, ha?? isn't that a funny one-off joke?
By the time I stopped the slapstick-styled fights included permanently crippling a legbreaker, tearing the face off a law enforcement officer, removing an arm from one man and then beating four other people unconscious with it, and driving a mage insane. Nothing bloody or graphic, again these are slapstick fights. All the while during them the title character was whining about philosophy and the POV character was trying to get him to shut up by belittling him or bemoaning to the reader about having to listen.
Would recommend reading the sample before purchase to see if the story appeals to you.
Picked up while free on Kindle. Deleted after the attempted read.
Gave up at "there are possibilities for the future. Perhaps even a new school!" ... says a martial artist when his spine is crushed, the comment is about developing a new school of fighting for paraplegics. ... ha, ha?? isn't that a funny one-off joke?
By the time I stopped the slapstick-styled fights included permanently crippling a legbreaker, tearing the face off a law enforcement officer, removing an arm from one man and then beating four other people unconscious with it, and driving a mage insane. Nothing bloody or graphic, again these are slapstick fights. All the while during them the title character was whining about philosophy and the POV character was trying to get him to shut up by belittling him or bemoaning to the reader about having to listen.
Would recommend reading the sample before purchase to see if the story appeals to you.
Picked up while free on Kindle. Deleted after the attempted read.
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