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A quest, a war, a ring that would be grounds for calling any wedding off, a king without a kingdom, and a furry little "hero" named Frito, ready-or maybe just forced by the wizard Goodgulf-to undertake the one mission that can save Lower Middle Earth from enslavement by the evil Sorhed. Luscious Elf-maidens, a roller-skating dragon, ugly plants that can soul kiss the unwary to death-these are just some of the ingredients in the wildest, wackiest, most irreverent excursion into fantasy realms that anyone has ever dared to undertake.For everyone who has delighted in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy masterwork-or anyone who's just looking for a good laugh-Bored of the Rings is the "all-in-one-volume" comic extravaganza that will convince lovers and haters of fantasy that they've finally experienced it all, and that they'll never need to read another fantasy parody again.… (more)
User reviews
"As the great quadruped staggered tailfirst into the black East, there came from deep in the surrounding forest the sound of some great bird being briefly, but noisily, ill." MB 19-iv-07
Add to the fact that this was originally published in 1969 - and you get all the wonderfulness of a ganja smoking Googulf, with a foul mouthed Boggies (er hobbits)
"Gulp!", said Frito.
30 years after reading this book, I still remember these words from the inside cover...
Unfortunately, this scene appears
What DOES appear is one hell of a continuous belly laugh for any lover of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings!
Some of the names were really runny, like Eorache and Dildo Bugger, but others I didn't really get. Not sure if it is because of how long ago that it was written.
Felt they missed an opportunity to have Appendices, especially as
Seemed to follow Fellowship quite closely but Two Towers and Return of the King kind of merged together, cutting out some bits I expected them to do.
What I found is that the humor was crude and forced. I was also annoyed the same gags being constantly repeated. The names of places and characters from LOTR were parodied by long-defunct brand-names that sounded similar. The songs or poems from the original source material were especially laden with these, and the occasional bit of song or verse that Tolkien had rendered in one of his constructed languages (i.e., Quenya, Sindarin or the Black Speech of Mordor) were generally just strings of old brand-names. Example: "A Elbereth! Gilthoniel" in Bored of the Rings comes out as "A unicef clearasil". I thought this was quite overdone. It might have been amusing at first, but it went on for 160 pages.
Then there are the endless references to the meals that the adventurers make along the way. "After a hasty meal of frankincense and myrrh", "The company arose and, after a hurried breakfast of yaws and goiters", "an austere breakfast of eggs, waffles, bacon grapefruit, pancakes, hot oatmeal, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and goden cheese blintzes", "a frugal breakfast of loaves and fishes", "after a leisurely meal of apple cheeks and cauliflower ears", and more. It might have gotten a chuckle the first two or three times, but it went on throughout the book, and quickly became tiresome.
While I can't give high marks to this book on its own merits, I do find it interesting to see how my tastes in reading have changed over the years. Just to be clear, I can still appreciate a good parody, but I think that this book fails in that.