Status Updates From Escape from Undermountain (...

The story works best when we embrace the silliness of it all and just treat it as a Monty Python knockoff. After all, after that moment when our heroes get rescued from certain doom by two liches simultaneously missing a step and stumbling to their deaths, what else are we to do?

A good third into the book, we finally fiund some extensive dialogue, and immediately wish we hadn’t. And a new character that promises to be at least as much of an annoyance as the last one. The dialogue is full of exposition and bad jokes, and the book begins to feel as much of a slog to get through as the journey through the undermountain itself.

The strange shifts in tone continue. From campy and a cringeworthy attempt at humour, to a somber tone and back again. And although the writing itself remains decent, the addition of an idiotic noble character to the cast doesn’t help the book.

Well, the book is definetly fast paced, crossing between action scenes with a bare minimum oblog dialogue or plot needed to keep it moving. It also lurches between different tones, trying to be campy at one time, and intense, almost horror-like at others.

The book wastes no time in throwing out hero into the action/

Continuing on with a speck of gore and even some quick character building, the book is quick to get into the action, which becomes campy, and at times cringeworthy, fast. Quite a shift from the more serious, even horror like tone of the prologue.