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korin_catbyte's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
winterscape's review against another edition
4.0
I picked up The Corpse-Rat King on a whim and I'm pretty glad that I did. Its got the right kind of nonsense that compliments genuine character development and emotional exploration. It's silly at times, but also dark, thinking, and sombre. I think that the quote that best describes this book is:
"He smiled, and even though his face was ruddy and in the bloom of health, Gerd saw something dead lurking just below the surface, and shuddered." - page 408
Even though this book is slick with a mask of comedy and goofiness, just below the surface, barely concealed, there lies something so much deeper. What does it mean to be dead? Is madness subjective? How far can you run from your problems before facing them? How does the knowledge of death shape us as human beings, for better and for worse?
There were a few bits that I could have done without, such as the (sometimes) excessive swearing (although, I found that a few well-timed f-bombs gave me the most laughs) and a fairly gross sexual scene. I also think that the story could have been tightened somewhat. As is, it's a bit all over the place in terms of following the main objective. That being said, I think this was meant to be more of a character study of Marius Helles, his duality with Marius don Hellespont, and how each brush with death (his own and others) changes him. He is certainly an interesting, very flawed, and damaged individual to follow.
The author is very good at what he does and the writing is of a very high quality. Could have done with a cliché'd fantasy map though!
One of the highlights for me was Nandus. Loved everything about him.
The Corpse-Rat King is a great addition to the comedy fantasy genre, as well as a great character driven story in its own right. 3.5 stars!
"He smiled, and even though his face was ruddy and in the bloom of health, Gerd saw something dead lurking just below the surface, and shuddered." - page 408
Even though this book is slick with a mask of comedy and goofiness, just below the surface, barely concealed, there lies something so much deeper. What does it mean to be dead? Is madness subjective? How far can you run from your problems before facing them? How does the knowledge of death shape us as human beings, for better and for worse?
There were a few bits that I could have done without, such as the (sometimes) excessive swearing (although, I found that a few well-timed f-bombs gave me the most laughs) and a fairly gross sexual scene. I also think that the story could have been tightened somewhat. As is, it's a bit all over the place in terms of following the main objective. That being said, I think this was meant to be more of a character study of Marius Helles, his duality with Marius don Hellespont, and how each brush with death (his own and others) changes him. He is certainly an interesting, very flawed, and damaged individual to follow.
The author is very good at what he does and the writing is of a very high quality. Could have done with a cliché'd fantasy map though!
One of the highlights for me was Nandus. Loved everything about him.
Spoiler
His underwater chapters were the most creative and brilliant things I've read in awhile! He merged with his beloved horse! Excellent! But also genuinely sad. This is a prime example of why I think that quote up there describes this book so well. Who knew that a crazy skeleton king that is half horse getting crushed by a shark could be so saddening?The Corpse-Rat King is a great addition to the comedy fantasy genre, as well as a great character driven story in its own right. 3.5 stars!
dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
When battlefield scavenger Marius mistakenly winds up in the Kingdom of the Dead, he's given a chance to win his life back. All he has to do is find them a king...
After a series of disappointing books, The Corpse-Rat King is just what I needed. Marius is from the
Cugel the Clever/Drake Douay/Rincewind school of loveable cowards and his quest had me smiling a great percentage of the time.
On the surface, the plot doesn't seem all that complicated, and it isn't. What makes the Corpse-Rat King such an enjoyable read is that Lee Battersby is nearly as hilarious as a Monty Python marathon. He's like a mean-spirited Terry Pratchett. He's also Australian. I lost count of hilarious one-liners. "As mad as a ferret in a bucket of honey" was one of my favorites. I also love that one of the more colorful locales visited was The Dog Crap Archipelago.
Marius's semi-dead condition lends itself to a surprising amount of comedy. The bit with the old fortune teller was one of my favorites. The humor is a combination of Monty Python and Terry Pratchett with some of Sam Raimi's Hercules: The Legendary Journeys thrown in. Bruce Campbell could easily play Marius if this was made into a movie. It also reminded me of Michael Shea's [b:Nifft the Lean|139344|Nifft the Lean|Michael Shea|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1288136920s/139344.jpg|134321] a bit.
The supporting cast was an interesting bunch. Gerd, Marius's dead and dimwitted sidekick, Nandus, Scorbus, the pirates, all of them were fairly memorable. The story came to a satisfying conclusion but was open-ended enough to allow for a sequel. Please, let there be a sequel!
I don't really have anything bad to say about The Corpse-Rat King. The ending wasn't what I was expecting. I was thinking it would end in a cliche with Marius becoming King of the Dead but it didn't go down that way. I guess my only complaint is that I wish it would have been longer. Four easy stars.
After a series of disappointing books, The Corpse-Rat King is just what I needed. Marius is from the
Cugel the Clever/Drake Douay/Rincewind school of loveable cowards and his quest had me smiling a great percentage of the time.
On the surface, the plot doesn't seem all that complicated, and it isn't. What makes the Corpse-Rat King such an enjoyable read is that Lee Battersby is nearly as hilarious as a Monty Python marathon. He's like a mean-spirited Terry Pratchett. He's also Australian. I lost count of hilarious one-liners. "As mad as a ferret in a bucket of honey" was one of my favorites. I also love that one of the more colorful locales visited was The Dog Crap Archipelago.
Marius's semi-dead condition lends itself to a surprising amount of comedy. The bit with the old fortune teller was one of my favorites. The humor is a combination of Monty Python and Terry Pratchett with some of Sam Raimi's Hercules: The Legendary Journeys thrown in. Bruce Campbell could easily play Marius if this was made into a movie. It also reminded me of Michael Shea's [b:Nifft the Lean|139344|Nifft the Lean|Michael Shea|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1288136920s/139344.jpg|134321] a bit.
The supporting cast was an interesting bunch. Gerd, Marius's dead and dimwitted sidekick, Nandus, Scorbus, the pirates, all of them were fairly memorable. The story came to a satisfying conclusion but was open-ended enough to allow for a sequel. Please, let there be a sequel!
I don't really have anything bad to say about The Corpse-Rat King. The ending wasn't what I was expecting. I was thinking it would end in a cliche with Marius becoming King of the Dead but it didn't go down that way. I guess my only complaint is that I wish it would have been longer. Four easy stars.
mxsallybend's review against another edition
5.0
There is almost nothing better than looking forward to an upcoming release from a favourite author, getting a chance to give it an early read, and finding out that it not only lives up to all your expectations, but completely exceeds them. The satisfaction is almost immeasurable.
I say almost, because there is one thing that really is better - stumbling across an upcoming release from an author you've never read before, picking it up entirely on a whim, starting the read with absolutely nothing in the way of expectations, and being completely blown away. If the satisfaction is almost immeasurable, than the pleasure is completely immeasurable.
Such is the case with The Corpse-Rat King by Lee Battersby.
Not only did I have no expectations of this one, I wasn't even sure I'd have time to give it a read. It was one of the newest electronic ARCs available to the Robot Army, so I snagged it alongside Adam Christopher's Seven Wonders, figuring I'd give it a cursory glance if I happened to get through the other before September rolled around. It just so happened that I was between books last weekend and, completely on a whim, I decided to give it a shot.
I think I was about 10 pages in before I knew I had something special on my hands.
What Battersby has concocted here is equal parts Bruce Campbell slapstick, Monty Python absurdity, and Terry Gilliam imaginative wonder, filtered through the same literary sense of the macabre as Jesse Bullington or Neil Gaiman. It's an extremely funny, extraordinarily imaginative tale, that never stops surprising the reader with where it's going next. Really, it's one of those novels where the less you know going in, the better the reading experience is likely to be.
Marius is one of the unlikeliest heroes I have encountered in a very long time. He's a greedy, self-centred, cowardly bastard . . . who just so happens to be clever, amusing, and embarrassingly likable at the same time. He's the kind of guy who will gladly stand at your side in the face of imminent danger, but only so he can pick your pocket and knock you down at the last moment to expedite his own getaway. He is a scoundrel in every sense of the word, but an entirely pragmatic one. While he does develop significantly over the course of the novel, demonstrating a tenderness of heart and soul, he remains delightfully despicable throughout.
The writing (and storytelling) here is absolutely top notch. Battersby has a very intimate, very casual way of telling a story, one that's more conversational than literary. He's entirely aware of the absurdities of his tale, and makes no apologies for them. Whereas some authors try too hard to justify, explain, or otherwise validate the comic elements of their tale, Battersby is content to let the humour work. What's more, he proves himself equally adept at elaborate set pieces of slapstick humour, quick throwaway gags, and ridiculous asides.
There's a particularly prolonged sequence of events that involves Marius walking across the bottom of the sea, attempting to scale a submerged shipwreck, and desperately trying to reason with the skeleton of a king who was already crazy before he inadvertently merged the bones of his horse with his own. It's a scene that should have fallen apart and worn out its welcome long before the hungry shark appears on scene, but Battersby makes it work so well, it's a shame to see it come to an end .
Similarly, whereas the various tangents and asides should begin to wear away at the reader's patience, you can't help but gleefully anticipate the next one. It was these half-pages that so often had me laughing out loud, or at least visibly smirking with glee.
"Discovered less than four hundred years ago by the famous Tallian adventurer “Literal” Edmund Bejeevers, the Dog Crap Archipelago lay like a giant turd across the passage between Borgho City and the Faraway isles. Early explorers found nothing there to recommend the place to anybody, and indeed, early maps show a simple ovoid outline with the words “Don’t Bother” written inside."
Even the throwaway gags, such as the "Secret passage closed due to repair works" sign, work better than any author has any right to expect. It's all about the balance between the humour and the story, and the simultaneous commitment to both, that makes it work. Battersby never allows one to suffer at the expense of the other, and never forgets to involve the reader emotionally as well as intellectually.
This was a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed and will gleefully recommend, without reservation. Of course, Battersby has now placed himself within the first scenario I mentioned, so here's hoping The Marching Dead manages to exceed my expectations as well as The Corpse-Rat King managed to blow me away.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
I say almost, because there is one thing that really is better - stumbling across an upcoming release from an author you've never read before, picking it up entirely on a whim, starting the read with absolutely nothing in the way of expectations, and being completely blown away. If the satisfaction is almost immeasurable, than the pleasure is completely immeasurable.
Such is the case with The Corpse-Rat King by Lee Battersby.
Not only did I have no expectations of this one, I wasn't even sure I'd have time to give it a read. It was one of the newest electronic ARCs available to the Robot Army, so I snagged it alongside Adam Christopher's Seven Wonders, figuring I'd give it a cursory glance if I happened to get through the other before September rolled around. It just so happened that I was between books last weekend and, completely on a whim, I decided to give it a shot.
I think I was about 10 pages in before I knew I had something special on my hands.
What Battersby has concocted here is equal parts Bruce Campbell slapstick, Monty Python absurdity, and Terry Gilliam imaginative wonder, filtered through the same literary sense of the macabre as Jesse Bullington or Neil Gaiman. It's an extremely funny, extraordinarily imaginative tale, that never stops surprising the reader with where it's going next. Really, it's one of those novels where the less you know going in, the better the reading experience is likely to be.
Marius is one of the unlikeliest heroes I have encountered in a very long time. He's a greedy, self-centred, cowardly bastard . . . who just so happens to be clever, amusing, and embarrassingly likable at the same time. He's the kind of guy who will gladly stand at your side in the face of imminent danger, but only so he can pick your pocket and knock you down at the last moment to expedite his own getaway. He is a scoundrel in every sense of the word, but an entirely pragmatic one. While he does develop significantly over the course of the novel, demonstrating a tenderness of heart and soul, he remains delightfully despicable throughout.
The writing (and storytelling) here is absolutely top notch. Battersby has a very intimate, very casual way of telling a story, one that's more conversational than literary. He's entirely aware of the absurdities of his tale, and makes no apologies for them. Whereas some authors try too hard to justify, explain, or otherwise validate the comic elements of their tale, Battersby is content to let the humour work. What's more, he proves himself equally adept at elaborate set pieces of slapstick humour, quick throwaway gags, and ridiculous asides.
There's a particularly prolonged sequence of events that involves Marius walking across the bottom of the sea, attempting to scale a submerged shipwreck, and desperately trying to reason with the skeleton of a king who was already crazy before he inadvertently merged the bones of his horse with his own. It's a scene that should have fallen apart and worn out its welcome long before the hungry shark appears on scene, but Battersby makes it work so well, it's a shame to see it come to an end .
Similarly, whereas the various tangents and asides should begin to wear away at the reader's patience, you can't help but gleefully anticipate the next one. It was these half-pages that so often had me laughing out loud, or at least visibly smirking with glee.
"Discovered less than four hundred years ago by the famous Tallian adventurer “Literal” Edmund Bejeevers, the Dog Crap Archipelago lay like a giant turd across the passage between Borgho City and the Faraway isles. Early explorers found nothing there to recommend the place to anybody, and indeed, early maps show a simple ovoid outline with the words “Don’t Bother” written inside."
Even the throwaway gags, such as the "Secret passage closed due to repair works" sign, work better than any author has any right to expect. It's all about the balance between the humour and the story, and the simultaneous commitment to both, that makes it work. Battersby never allows one to suffer at the expense of the other, and never forgets to involve the reader emotionally as well as intellectually.
This was a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed and will gleefully recommend, without reservation. Of course, Battersby has now placed himself within the first scenario I mentioned, so here's hoping The Marching Dead manages to exceed my expectations as well as The Corpse-Rat King managed to blow me away.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
100pagesaday's review against another edition
4.0
A hilarious journey with a not-quite dead and not-quite likeable main character.
We join Marius with his new found partner-in-crime as they are robbing corpses of their riches on a battlefield. One of the corpses happens to be the fallen King of Scorby, Marius has no trouble robbing the corpse of the King, crown and all.
Meanwhile, the free dead of the underworld are looking for a King...Marius gets transported the the world of the free dead to rule them; except, he is neither a King nor dead. For his trickery, the dead take his heartbeat and send him on a quest to find them a King, his newly dead fried Gerd is supposed to accompany him.
Marius' adventure is full of comedy and magic. Reminding me of a Captain Jack Sparrow character, Marius is a liar, thief, pickpocket and general con artist but I came to feel for him and his journey. An intriguing and unique plot, great for a Halloween-time read.
I'll look forward to reading the next book with Marius, The Marching Dead.
This book was received as an Advanced Reading Copy from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
We join Marius with his new found partner-in-crime as they are robbing corpses of their riches on a battlefield. One of the corpses happens to be the fallen King of Scorby, Marius has no trouble robbing the corpse of the King, crown and all.
Meanwhile, the free dead of the underworld are looking for a King...Marius gets transported the the world of the free dead to rule them; except, he is neither a King nor dead. For his trickery, the dead take his heartbeat and send him on a quest to find them a King, his newly dead fried Gerd is supposed to accompany him.
Marius' adventure is full of comedy and magic. Reminding me of a Captain Jack Sparrow character, Marius is a liar, thief, pickpocket and general con artist but I came to feel for him and his journey. An intriguing and unique plot, great for a Halloween-time read.
I'll look forward to reading the next book with Marius, The Marching Dead.
This book was received as an Advanced Reading Copy from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
shane_tiernan's review against another edition
2.0
I really had high hopes for this book. I read summary and thought it sounded really original and like a fun romp through a fantasy landscape. I bought it new which I don't do often AND I instead of putting it on my TBR shelf with over 100 other books I left it laying on my desk so I was sure I would read it "next".
Unfortunately, I read it next and didn't really enjoy it all that much. The writing was good,it's definitely funny, very gritty and fairly original in it's ideas, but for 80% of it there's only one character. That, to me, made it feel like a young adult novel and it also made it kind of boring.
The main character is a scumbag who gets a little nicer through the book but he never became someone I was really routing for.
Also there was an intense ending hinted at about half way through the book that ended up being kinda non-intense and just no big deal.
I wouldn't write off Mr. Battersby completely but this one didn't really do it for me.
Unfortunately, I read it next and didn't really enjoy it all that much. The writing was good,it's definitely funny, very gritty and fairly original in it's ideas, but for 80% of it there's only one character. That, to me, made it feel like a young adult novel and it also made it kind of boring.
The main character is a scumbag who gets a little nicer through the book but he never became someone I was really routing for.
Also there was an intense ending hinted at about half way through the book that ended up being kinda non-intense and just no big deal.
I wouldn't write off Mr. Battersby completely but this one didn't really do it for me.
tehani's review against another edition
5.0
It took me a while to get into the swing of this, but wow, once I did I couldn't put it down! A unique take on the undead, in a high fantasy setting, an unlikeable but loveable protagonist and a very difficult quest. Loved it!
(note, I am friends with Lee, and he does mention me in the acknowledgements, which was very nice of him - doesn't change my review one bit though!)
(note, I am friends with Lee, and he does mention me in the acknowledgements, which was very nice of him - doesn't change my review one bit though!)
kitvaria_sarene's review against another edition
3.0
This is hard to review... I kinda liked it, but it also kinda annoyed me at times...
It is a bit grim, but also a lot of funny. The main character is chosen by the dead (living underground, can be reached via graves) to be their new king. When they notice he want an actual king even alive, just stole a crown in a battle field, they send him back up to fetch them a real dead king. As incentive to do so, they steal his heart beat, which shall be given back when he succeeds.
The main character is a liar, a thief, a cheater and sometimes a murderer. He kinda has to find himself throughout the story. I mostly liked him, and also liked his transformation.
The plot is really crazy at times, which worked in some parts for me, where it had me laughing out loud, but in other parts it had me rolling my eyes. Especially the few dick jokes made me think of teenage boys and not an adult who been through a lot. Humour obviously is a very personal thing, so what didn't work for me might be perfect for someone else.
All in all it was entertaining, and I don't regret the time spent on it!
It is a bit grim, but also a lot of funny. The main character is chosen by the dead (living underground, can be reached via graves) to be their new king. When they notice he want an actual king even alive, just stole a crown in a battle field, they send him back up to fetch them a real dead king. As incentive to do so, they steal his heart beat, which shall be given back when he succeeds.
The main character is a liar, a thief, a cheater and sometimes a murderer. He kinda has to find himself throughout the story. I mostly liked him, and also liked his transformation.
The plot is really crazy at times, which worked in some parts for me, where it had me laughing out loud, but in other parts it had me rolling my eyes. Especially the few dick jokes made me think of teenage boys and not an adult who been through a lot. Humour obviously is a very personal thing, so what didn't work for me might be perfect for someone else.
All in all it was entertaining, and I don't regret the time spent on it!