2023-10-29: A rough start but it eventually grew on me and was quite enjoyable. We're getting the story in a conversational fashion, with lots of side trips, from the agent of a professional strangler who has an obsession with philosophy. The agent is of a more practical bent and just wants them to do the job and get paid and then go to The Trough (best ale in New Sfincter) but the strangler's philosophical penchant often interferes with that plan. There is no serious philosophy to be found in this book and if you're still looking for it after chapter 1 you're not paying attention.

I guess Forward the Mage tells the bit that happened in Prygg so I'll put that on my list. ( )

Reading this book was sort of like sitting across a table from a madman or a drunk who’s trying to tell you a story. Well, to be honest I’ve never had either experience, but reading this book is what I imagine that experience might be like. The story is told in a rambling, conversational manner, and the narrative jumps back and forth in time as the storyteller interrupts himself to go off on random tangents. The stories have many preposterous elements to them, and occasionally even the narrator will say he can’t explain how certain things happened. And yet, in spite of all this, the story really wasn’t confusing. It was just… odd.

The narrator of this story is an agent for a strangler. A strangler in this setting is basically like an assassin hired to kill people, and he usually accomplishes the job by strangling them. The narrator, his agent, is responsible for finding clients and negotiating the fees. The agent himself is a tiny, wimpy guy who usually isn’t much use in a fight but, since the strangler is ridiculously strong, he doesn’t really need help anyway. The strangler is infatuated with philosophy, much to the agent’s dismay, hence the name of the book: The Philosophical Strangler. The story is about the various jobs they take, and random other adventures they find themselves caught up in. Or the story is about hanging out in a bar. It kind of depends on which part of the story is being told.

After the darker things I’ve been reading lately, I decided I should read something lighter in tone. I’ve had this e-book for several years, originally downloaded from the Baen Free Library, but I kept putting off reading it because I’ve been skeptical about it. I thought the book looked like it would be overly silly, but I’ve read a few books by Eric Flint that I really liked, so I figured I should at least give it a try. Overly silly, often crossing into complete absurdity, pretty much describes this book. It occasionally made me laugh, but everything was just too silly for me to really lose myself in the story or become invested in the characters. I love it when books have humor, but only if that humor is in a believable context.

I didn’t expect to like the book at all, but I did enjoy it more than I thought I would once I resigned myself to the fact that the story would be ridiculous. It certainly supplied the desired change of pace from what I’ve been reading, but I started to lose interest by the end. It was a quick read, which is good because I would have lost patience with it if it had gone on much longer. There’s another book that’s set chronologically in the middle of this book, apparently telling a story that’s frequently referenced but always glossed over in this book. I already have that e-book since it too had been available from the Baen Free Library a few years back, but I’ve decided not to read it. ( )

I love Eric Flint's writing - he is humorous and entertaining, and manages to bring serious topics into a book without making it a serious book. However, this particular book didn't carry me through it. I read somewhere that many of the chapters of this book were in fact written completely independently as short stories, and Mr. Flint cobbled them together into a novel. The result is a novel without much of a plot. Its appeal is in its cleverness and sometimes off-color humor, but you had best find that cleverness and humor immensely entertaining and repeatedly so, or you will grow tired of the book and not finish it - as was the case with me. The lack of consistent plot leaves no reason to want to finish the book when you lose interest.

Still, some people will love it. My brother thought it was absolutely hilarious through to the end. I did, in fact, find it highly enjoyable up until about half-way through, when I got bored with it. I'm giving it 3 stars for enjoying it half-way through, and a little extra for my brother's two cents.

I would recommend reading some of the author's other books that actually have well-considered plots rather than choosing this one, but if you wind up with a free copy somehow, it's worth starting it to see if you like it. The nice thing about a book without much plot is you can quit when you want to and not feel like you're missing out. What you can get out of this review is knowing, if and when you become tired of it, that there is no reason to force yourself to read further, because it's not going to change for the better. So, you've nothing to lose by trying it. Maybe you'll be like my brother and enjoy the heck out of it. Nothing risked, nothing gained! ( )

Tries too hard.

GreyBoar is a professional assassin/mugger, a strangler by preference with stupidly excesively developed musculature. His duly registered agent is Ignace, who is the narrator of this tale. He thinks he's funny.

The narrative tone is supposed to be some coniveal pub like gossipy session of telling stories. It quickly grates and doesn't get any better as the book progresses. One incident leads ot another which reminds me of when .... you never actaully get a reason. It is almost a collection of short stories. There is just about an underlying theme.

All fo the characters are ridiculously exagerated, Ignace is a midget, his girlfriends are dykes (their words), the sister equally over the top straightlaced, the bishops totally venel. For instance, there his Hell, and then 'The Place Worse Than That', without any normal for balance, it just fails.

The attempts at philosophy aren't any better - particularly the corruption of famous names, without linking to their underlying thoughts that they are famous for. It could have been funny, but without more actual philosophy to show that the author understood what he was trying to satirise, it isn't. The concept is all good, the execution just doens't work well enough to make it worth struggling through.

I did finish it, without having laughed at any point, and the ending was predictable. Is that all? I thought. ( )

Read Online: http://webscriptions.net/10.1125/Baen/0671319868/0671319868.htm