Tales of New Stenchford by Ben Rubin
New Stenchford, Book 1
Publisher: Nat 1
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical, Action/Adventure
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeIf you visit the town of New Stenchford, you might consider leaving your good shoes at home. No sparkling castle, or square-jawed heroes here. Mostly it’s just mud, beer, and trouble.
Queen Strongbottom, brave of heart, strong of bottom, runs the place, but has no idea that Wanda Stickybuns, the secret mistress of Queen Strongbottom’s father Gluteus, is plotting to overthrow the King and install her illegitimate two-headed son on the throne.
If you choose to come and see for yourself you’ll want to keep a close eye on your belongings and wash your hands thoroughly when you get home, if you get home.
It’s not beautiful, but it is home.
The world building was complex and attention grabbing. I especially enjoyed the many references to the unique food and drinks that characters have access to in New Stenchford as this isn’t something that contemporary authors always think to include when describing a setting to their audience. Small things like that can go a long way to creating a three-dimensional understanding of a world, though, and they made me curious to see what might happen to these characters in the future if or when a sequel is ever released.
It would have been helpful to have more plot development. Rizzle and his pals met many memorable characters along the way, but there wasn’t as much emphasis on their quest or the secret plot to overthrow the King as I would have liked to see. Sometimes this read more like a series of anecdotes than a novel that was slowly building up to an important confrontation in the end, and despite how much I liked so many other aspects of the characters and storyline I needed more conflict than I was given in order to justify a higher rating.
I enjoyed the many humorous references to a wide variety of historical and pop culture events that were included here. They were an excellent addition to a universe that was already designed to avoid taking itsel too seriously. Sometimes there were also dreamlike qualities to these scenes due to how gently they blended into each other and how wonderfully absurd some of them were.
Tales of New Stenchford was lighthearted and creative.
