I have a sneaking suspicion that the Enchanter novelization is aimed at young adults, but it doesn't say "Young Adults" anywhere, and anyway it's got too much profanity. The fact remains, however, that it's a fantasy novel and a novelization of a computer game, which means I'm attacking a target that's effectively all soft underbelly. I can only conclude that this is my day of being cranky about writing-related topics.
Wed Aug 21 2002 11:09:
More tiresome homages in the Enchanter novelization: Indiana Jones, The Empire Strikes Back, Puff the Magic Dragon. Now, an homage can be funny, but it is not automatically funny simply because it references something else. There needs to be some irony; some mismatch of dramatic scale; to scrape the bottom of the funny barrel, at least some self-awareness. Having your characters reenact scenes from popular movies is not intrinsically funny, and absent mitigating circumstances it is actually anti-funny.
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