Books: Satirical fantasy

MYTH-TAKEN IDENTITY
by Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
Ace Books, New York 2005
294 pp, $6.99 in paperback

Before we plunge into realms of fantasy, let us note the annoyance that Hurricane Katrina has wrought. New Orleans was home to a cultural scene, not just Mardi Gras and jazz and French influences, but also some wonderful writers. Anne Rice of vampire fame may be the best known among them, but Robert Asprin is also one of their number. Now this reviewer does not intend to move back to the USA, but if a zillion dollars dropped into his possession and life in Panama somehow became untenable, the “bicoastal” American lifestyle does look attractive --- bicoastal as in Great Lakes and Gulf, with Louisiana one of the poles of attraction. The book that is about to be described, though it is set in an entirely different dimension, is but one more proof of the value of the national treasure that was and ought to again be New Orleans.

Fantasy as boring hack writing is often about swords and sorcery and damsels in distress. Quite frequently in that sort of book you get some dragon action.

In MYTH-TAKEN IDENTITY, the dragons are minor and mostly unreal characters, personae taken on by a larcenous gang of shapeshifting mall rats led by the megalomaniacal Rattila, the janitor from Ratislava who stole a special Master Card and seeks the powers of a fully qualified magician and then some. The most salient thing about dragons discussed in this novel is a comment about the impossibility of buying dragon fire insurance anymore.

The main character, Aahz the Pervect (NOT pervert, he repeatedly reminds us), is a green scaly creature who was once a magician but has --- temporarily, at least --- lost his powers. In his recuperation he runs M.Y.T.H. Inc., a detective agency of sorts, and until recently he served as mentor to Skeeve, a young Klahd of roughly human appearance and promising magical talent. When bill collectors from an amazing shopping mall in another dimension come looking for Skeeve to collect debts that Aahz's protegé could not possibly have incurred, the pervect, his troll partner, Massha the Court Magician and a number of other odd friends set out in search of the evil forces who have stolen Skeeve's identity, a pursuit that they join with mall security, a Ratislavan detective and the merchants' association.

During the chase consumer culture and the mercantile class that creates it, the power-mad and their suffering minions, bill collectors, tax collectors, the less than competent in many fields and the foibles of many races of which you have never heard get skewered. It's relevant contemporary social satire set within the fantasy genre.

It's also part of a series of M.Y.T.H. Inc. novels, most by Asprin alone, this one in collaboration with Jody Lynne Nye. Asprin is also the creator of the Phule's Company series, another group of social satires more or less in the science fiction genre wherein the bored, rich and erratically brilliant Mr. Phule joins the galactic military and is given command of a company. I first met Asprin in “Phule's Paradise,” arguably a subtle parody of the militarized War on Drugs in which Phule and the men and women under his command are given the task of keeping gangsters from taking over a naive young man's orbiting casino.

I am told that someone who very occasionally has contributed to The Panama News is planning to open an English-language bookstore. This particular volume I found among the sparse offerings of the English rack in a place that sells mainly Spanish-language books as a small part of its business. I hope that the contemplated venture is a wild success, because good fantasy, as well as good science fiction, is hard to come by in this country in any language and the problem is particularly acute in English.

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