Bored of the Rings/The Soddit

[MongoGutman]

A few, err, well, decades ago I started on Bored of the Rings but never finished it. Recently I was given The Soddit, and after a few pages I'm ready to discard it. Now, obviously I've got nothing against comic fantasy, but the vibe I get from these two isn't poking gentle fun, but a sneering disdain for the fantasy genre and an implied contempt for the fantasy reader.

Maybe I'm being unfair - as I said I didn't finish either - so I wonder if others have the same experience of these two books?

 

[Anonymous]

Once started reading Bored of The Rings.... struck me as pretty standard trying-too-hard spoof.

 

[HazelRah17]

I can't say I was ever keen on them. I read The Soddit and I thought it was alright but the beginning was probably the worst bit, so I guess that's just like Tolkien. One of my uni lecturers actually wrote The Soddit I think.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

I liked Bored of the Rings total pisstake but what else do you expect from National Lampoon, the 1st page where he was dreaming that made me laugh. the Soddit and Sellamillion I have but yet to read,I also have Doon by the same crowd parodying Dune.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I liked Doon too Dessert Planet... ccasion-cake:

The Harvard Lampoon's not known for it's finesse (look what happened when they start making movies with Animal House etc :twisted: ) but I think that Bored of the Rings was a good sabre-rattling parody in its rough and ready day and I will go to grave laughing at the aptness of Tim Benzedrine and Hashberry. If you take it purely as an early emerging aspect of 'alternative' comedy of the Alexei Sayle politicised variety, it's just a hoot because it comes at the whole thing from the opposite direction and jumps up and down at great length and energy in a silly and amusing enough way.

I like the way they reworked the terribly drippy Eowyn crush on Aragorn as well - making her a nazi-style pig herder was pretty hoopy as well and at least Sorehed and his pathetic minions got a few kicks in on the way in a more meaningful manner. I adore Tolkien with a vengeance, but it's good to laugh at the stupider bits of it as well.

 

[Penfold]

I only read it a couple of times in my youth but I remember it as being enjoyable. My friends, who were Tolkien fanatics, were less than impressed.

 

[Bouncy Castle]

If you want a good parody book, The Asti Spumante Code is a right hoot, especially if you've only recently read The Da Vinci Code and the story is fresh in your mind! :dance:

 

[meerkat]

I've got the Va Dinci Cod (NOT the film tie-in edition)! As if! It's a hoot!

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

He also has written:
Star Warped & The Mcatrix Derided as the Robertski Brothers

There is another author who has a few out, Michael Gerber –The Chronicles of Blarnia (the Lying Bitch in the Wardrobe) & three Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody,the Unnecessary Sequel,and the Dead Horse.

 

[Sister Jennifer]

Mongo I was given Bored of the Rings for a present years ago. I think I started off laughing, but then I was kind of, Huh? What? Hang about! Funny thing, my friend that gave it to me asked if it was good & of course I said, 'No, it was bollocks!'... In my head, out loud I said it was really good. He gave me The Soddit next present giving thing. I never read it & eventually had to fess up. So, you're not the Lone Ranger.

 

[SpideyGirl]

I'm with you on this one Mongo :hand:

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

He also has written:
Star Warped & The Mcatrix Derided as the Robertski Brothers

There is another author who has a few out, Michael Gerber –The Chronicles of Blarnia (the Lying Bitch in the Wardrobe) & three Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody,the Unnecessary Sequel,and the Dead Horse.

Where DO they get their ideas from!

I'm know these types of writing are pulp rip-off fiction but really lets get real and find our funnybones here - JKR definitely needs a rough and irreverent deconstruct with a bad coffee enema and some of these genre 'me-toos' that parade as cutting edge original fantasy are just begging for a good dragging down and going over with something jagged and crude. Can't wait for Twilight to get the 'treatment' - the the only way I'd read that tat is if it was played for jammy claret laughs all over

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Jan just in case you have not seen this came across it on twitter this morning as a link in the main feature I was reading.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksbl ... ddle-earth

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

That's just taking nerd-dom to the giddy limits

I'm currently part of (the evil bits mostly) a massive pen and paper RPG across the entire timeline of Arda and made a huge concession by starting to read through the more pertinent of the 12 volume History of Middle Earth so I'd have a better grasp of the bits of storyline that Tolkien didn't quite flesh out too well... To say it's a labour of love is really pushing it - you have to be seriously anal to actually enjoy doing that just to get little flashes of background and to say that I skim read a lot is putting it mildly. :shifty:

Tolkien's one of those writers who are big on detailed substance when it comes to genealogy and linguistics and very shady on form to help the story along. That's actually part of the appeal for most people of course as some of the story arcs are left so enigmatic as to be very open to interpretation and lets me mess around with Sauron and Morgoth as perverted genetic alchemists a whole bunch before I even get around to the far more interesting psychopathological profiling... :ugeek:

But doing a family tree for every bloody character - that's definitely psycho-geek territory! Not least because Christopher Tolkien already wrote up his dad's notes more or less in one of those 12 volumes...

 

[Imagineer]

I read it when it came out when I was, perhaps 12 years old. I could do much better. Couldn't we all? But it does get the creative juices spurting.

I have stories in my head I've never shared based on Tolkien characters.