Product Description

Bingo Sac Grabbins is asked by the coughing wizard Gandef and some (oddly Welsh) dwarves to help them relieve the great dragon Smug of his gold. SF author and Tolkien scholar Adam Roberts has written a parody that is both hilarious and intelligent. With knowing digs at the fantasy genre in general and the mystique that has built around middle earth in particular this will make Tolkien's 21st century readers laugh in a way that BORED OF THE RINGS made his fans of 1969 laugh.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184631 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Adam Roberts is 36 and a Senior Reader in English at London University. His first novel, Salt, was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. He has also published a number of academic works on both 19th century poetry and SF.

Customer Reviews

Could have been funnier
Swapping names like "Bilbo Baggins" for "Bingo 'Sac' Grabbings", you'd expect A.R.R.R. Roberts' 'The Soddit' to be an enjoyable romp and an entertaining parody of Tolkien's classic novel. Instead, the author settles for mediocrity and offers the reader very little in the way of humour. Saying this though, 'The Soddit' wasn't a terrible read, but it was a disappointing one.

Loan it from your local library instead.

A disappointment.
THE STORY:
A humble, and fairly stupid, soddit is whisked off on an adventure by a group of Welsh dwarfs, boyo, and Gandef the hard of hearing wizard. There travels will lead them into battles with Gobblins (mutant turkeys), through the Mykyurwood and finally to the Only Mountain. Well, obviously it's not the only mountain...

WHAT'S GOOD:
The author's notes at the bottom of the pages are a constant source of amusment, reassuring us of things like the fact that the sun didn't literally dance on the water, because that would mean fiery and agonising death for our heroes. The wittiest part of the book is actually in the back, where there are parodies of the adverts you get in a lot of books. In these ads, we get an early look at the adventures of Frodeo and Scram, who are just good friends, that's all. There's also an ad for the latest Soddit game for the PlayGameBoxCube 2, which follows in the merchandising tradition of games such as 'SimSoddit' and 'Metal Gear Soddit'. I thought some of the elements of these adverts were really scathing satirisations of the way in which Tolkien's books have become a merchandising frenzy. You can't enter a bookshop anymore without seeing some new 'Lord of the Rings and Me' cash-in by some unknown who hasn't had any success writing a proper book.

WHAT'S BAD:
Naturally, this book has to face comparison with 'Bored of the Rings' and, unfortunately, it doesn't come out too well from that comparison. Despite the fact that much of 'BotR's jokes were purile, it was still witty enough to tickle even the most mature reader, 'The Soddit' however, lacks this mixture of humour styles and, as such, fails to bring forth anywhere near as much mirth (in fact, I didn't laugh out loud until I was through the main body of the book and into the psuedo-ads in the back). I think Roberts' mistake was to try to write a good story, as well as a parody. Because of this, much of the book reads like a sub-standard version of 'The Hobbit' without any satire or parody and you end up feeling that you would've better spent your time just reading 'The Hobbit' itself.

Amusing, but not hilarious.

The Soddit
Laugh, I nearly wet myself and if like me you've also read J.R.Tolken's The Hobbit you'll also be rivited to its pages.
An absolute joy to read! Even the sad bits are hilarious and the last few pages are so well written that when this books finished all you want to do is start reading again. I did. And I can tell you that it was just as funny the second time around. I couldn't put this book down, I didn't want to put it down and I certainly cannot wait until someone produces a Block Buster out of this particular offering.