1. Castle Perilous

I am going to steal an idea from my friend Brian and number the books as I post about them; that should make it easier to keep track of whether or not I'm meeting my modest little goal.

Which is off to a modest little start. Castle Perilous is an old book, my edition was published back in '88. I'm pretty sure that I haven't read it before. I have no memory of buying it, and must have picked it up during my tenure at the Harvard Book Store. It has two stripes on the bottom, indicating that it has been sold there twice as a used book, and they're going to get it back again if they want it. It was an undemanding read, but most of the time I was doing so all I could think of was how my new coterie of critiquers would rip into it.

The characters barely exist as such. They are bodies that do things (mostly running), not people. They spend most of their time being lost, complaining about being lost, and eating. The plot is simplistic. The villains verge on motiveless. The ending, I found enormously unsatisfying. It might make a halfway decent fantasy-action film--the shallow characterization and Lots of Shiny Stuff would be pretty easy to translate--but it's an inch of shelf space I'll be getting back now.