Status Updates From Kööbik

Rather an abrupt ending. Felt like it should've gone another half-chapter to parody the finale of The Hobbit... but then, by this time, it wasn't doing a whole lot of parodying at all.

Also, ads for books that don't exist, probably. Mildly amusing.

And all of a sudden the book is playing the story 100% straight. It's not even trying to be comical, I don't think - apart from the turkey horde enemy. There's tension, there's drama, there's horrors of war, sadness, and a deus ex machina that made sense in an ironic way. It's pretty good at times, even, it's just not what I was supposed to be about.

Also, I was wrong about Mori. A missed opportunity.

Gotta wonder why everyone that isn't a dwarf still hates dragons, when the dragons should by all accounts be pretty chill.

Also, foreshadowing for Mori's wizardly evolution...?

Nice twist there. Even less connected to The Hobbit or to Tolkien's works as a whole, but if this were an original comedic fantasy novel, I'd take it fine.

Really should have explained things properly, though.

Beer instead of wine, I guess. That's about the extent of it.

Unexpected political commentary.

Another dwarf casualty. This one was played more properly for laughs, so I rather liked it better.

Oh, they actually killed off a few of the dwarves! That's a definite plus - it took a bit of guts, even if they were generally useless, and put a bit more of a unique turn on this parody.

But then right afterwards we get a few moments of sorrow played entirely straight and with no comedy, followed by elves parodying something altogether unrelated, so that rather dampened things.

Used to like Bored of the Rings as a kid - even as an adult - so I gotta take the chance when I get my hands on a Hobbit parody.

Pretty incredible step down so far. It follows Tolkien's style only superficially, does the usual parody thing of making everyone boorish and lower-class and generally filthy, overanalyzes things and how nothing should work, and the parody names are shoddy and forced and not funny.

Not my favourite read up until now