CALGARY – After throwing down the first volume in disgust, local man Eric Patel declared that the new fantasy series Swords of Korregon is terrible but that he’s definitely still going to read all 14 books.
“The plot is derivative of Lord of The Rings, the female characters have no personality, and every joke is delivered with a slimy self-importance that makes you feel gross for laughing,” said Patel of the book that has thousands of dedicated haters across the nation. “This is a complete waste of the 90 hours I’m for sure going to spend reading it.”
The series, inaccurately described as ‘rip-roaring fun’ on the back cover, tells the story of a young water elf named Lido who is gifted a mysterious amulet and sets off on a quest to defeat the evil Lord Korregon who rules over the Kingdom of Guul with an iron fist. The books average between 700 to 900 pages, each more tepid and clichéd than the last.
“The amulet is supposed to be this big mystery but it’s obvious from the first 75 pages that it belonged to Lord Korregon’s father, the kindly king, and is the only thing that can defeat his son. I mean, it has a giant ‘K’ on it,” said Patel, who has already spent several additional hours complaining about the book to his spouse. “It’s the kind of clumsy foreshadowing that’s going to make the next 10,000 pages of swords and sorcery nonsense nearly intolerable.”
In reading the first volume, which Patel has been doing every night, stopping only to make little “tsk” noises, Patel has already encountered several of his least favourite fantasy tropes, including songs written in a made up language (without a translation), a sword with magic powers, and a creature that asks convoluted riddles.
“Honestly, I should probably stop reading it right now,” said Patel, who has several dozen better books he’s been meaning to read. “Except that I want to see what happens to The Bog Tinkerer, but this idiot writer probably won’t give him any plot development until the eighth book, Swords of Korregon: The Crimson Reckoning.”
At press time, despite the hamfisted prose Patel was actually getting a little choked up at the scene where Smorgle, the wise-cracking sidekick, is diagnosed with cancer.
