I'll be honest - the story was fail for me. It jumped between the storyteller and the actual tale itself, with pathetic attempts at humour and very little in the way of engaging characters. It was almost like reading a set of directions for a script in between the actual dialogue - lots of descriptive eye movements and gestures which added nothing to the actual story, such as it was. It had moments when I thought "ok, yes - this is going somewhere" only for it to fall back into failing miserably with some crappy pseudo-sarcasm. The basic plot was predictable and dull but could have had potential in the right hands - there are few original tales left in the world, if any, but it's the way they are told that makes them stand out from the others. Unfortunately, this doesn't stand out. It's frustrating because it could have done.
For me personally, it reads like a story you'd probably find in a school written by an English student in Year 8, maybe. It doesn't flow very well and it was hard to follow because of all the utterly pointless interjections made by the characters. Way too much time spent on eyebrows arching, gesticulation and ridiculously long words that NO ONE aside from Stephen Fry would use in normal, everyday language.
But this really is just my opinion - I bet almost everyone else thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread etc. I just wish they'd picked someone else to write it - it feels sloppy, rushed and it's incredibly boring to me.
EDIT: I can't find anything I did like about it, Scousa - otherwise I'd be able to mention it. The only other books to ever make me dislike them as much as this one have been the Sword of Shannara series by Terry Brooks - an author I otherwise enjoy. It's just personal preference, not an unbiased review.
