A Quest of Undoing Reveals a Treasured Tome!

You read that post title correctly...

I found my first Treasured Tome!!!

The funny thing is that I had ignored this book twice in my searches, before finally giving it a go. I was a bit nervous about reading and reviewing a comedic fantasy. Generally, I find them not so much funny as, well, sad.

Let's face it. 

Humor is tough. All writing is tough, of course, but humorous writing has a few thorns and other stabby things that make it that much more painful to produce. 

Most people don't have the talent and skill to pull off a full length comedic novel of any genre. It can be done, of course, but it's extremely difficult. You have to have the right timing and you have to have humorous content that a broad range of people can relate to. Most of the time it falls flat.

Kind of like my jaw, which fell flat.

On the ground.

When I discovered this really was funny!

Cover art by Ric Lumb

John P. Logsdon and Christopher P. Young, the authors of A Quest of Undoing: A Tale From the Land of Ononokin, have that talent and skill. 

So what's it about?

Whizzfiddle has a slight problem. His vengeful ex-apprentice has accused him of never completing a wizarding contract to the letter. The 650 year old wizard has been given 30 days to do so, or lose his Wizarding Guild status... this means he'd actually have to work for a living. He heads to Gilly's pub, where he awaits the perfect quest, and finally finds it in an odd group of men that have been subjected to a transfiguration spell. Whizzfiddle heads off with them to complete a quest of undoing, while trying to keep the group under control and fending off his ex-apprentice's attempts to keep him from succeeding.

Good basis for a humorous work of fantasy? I think so, too.

The timing was excellent, and I never got tired of the puns or the broad humor. There were a few running jokes, and in this ebook they held up very well to the test of time. They never got old.

The characters were all unique individuals with their own backstories and personalities. I found myself sharing their aspirations, and taking part in their victories, as well as their failures. I never before imagined having anything in common with a smelly, rock-throwing giant... it was a new experience.

This story was fun.

Not just a little fun, understand, but holy-crap-I-finally-found-a-comedic-fantasy-that-I-actually-liked-so-I'm-going-to-dance-around-the-house-until-I'm-placed-in-a-straight-jacket fun. 

The kind of story that makes you want to read the next. Right now.

It did have some flaws, of course. All books do. In this one, a comma was forgotten between the words me and too somewhere in the last third of the book.

Seriously. The editing was so flawless that that's the only proofreading flaw I discovered. That's better than most novels that come through big publishing houses.

Ok, ok...

There was one flaw that did get to me. The elf felt overwhelmingly neglected. It seemed as though the authors were afraid of digging too deeply into his story. Perhaps this was due to a fear of losing readers, since the elf was not your standard neutral character? 

I hope not, because we need more diversity in literature, and I was happy to see that one of the dominant characters in A Quest of Undoing was gay. I just wish the authors hadn't shied away from him as much as they did.

Even with that, however, I found A Quest of Undoing to be a great example of comedic fantasy. The story flowed, the characters were likeable, and it made me laugh. I'll definitely read the next book in the series. 

And I should also point out that the Acknowledgements section was far more entertaining than any other I have ever read. I loved it!

Whoever thought they'd hear someone say something like that?!

A Quest of Undoing can be found on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.

And one last thing: Read the comments at the beginning of the book! Trust me. You'll see why.

Now that I've found my first Treasured Tome, I'm jazzed up and ready to seek out the next one.
Will it be yours?