Richard Titus

Weird. Totally weird. Bonkers…about as nutty as a fruitcake and mad as a box of frogs. Quirky, odd, mystifying. But...utterly unique and very enjoyable.

I'm not so sure I made total sense of this tale, and after a few pages, I did wonder what I'd let myself in for. But then you get totally sucked in by the king of Nibb and, of course, Yill.

I really have no idea what it's about. Actually, not quite true: it's about the land of Nibb, the pirates on the Blaggard, and the Quoxxel, of course. It's whimsical, magical, with some very dry wit. It's brimming with imagination and fantasy and at the same time written with intelligence, articulately and with humour.

I may have started the book with some misgivings, but by the end, I was totally topsy-turvied in a very pleasant way.

I'm off to my baker now to tell him that doughnuts, cupcakes and custard slices are so very last year and that he should start to make some gwinberry quffs and blanderberry bitquicks.

Told you. Totally bonkers.
… (plus d'informations)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

"The Gift of the Quoxxel" is a very light-hearted and silly tale. There are two POVs: some chapters follow King Norr, and others follow Captain Gadd, the pirate.

Before I get into the story, I'd like to comment on the formatting. I usually don't mention it, but this book is put together exceptionally well. Each chapter has a fancy header, many have a vibrant illustration at the end, there are links within the story that lead to a glossary explaining unusual words, and there are even music sheets with lyrics linked. It's obvious the author has put a lot of time and care into this and it looks wonderful.

If I were to suggest additions as a reader, I would say to add links back in the footnotes. Sometimes I accidentally hit a link when I was flipping pages, and I'd have to go find my place again. This would take more work with some words that are linked more than once, but I think it would be worth it. There were times when I skipped the notes simply because there might be five links on a page, and I knew that I would have to bookmark the page and browse back to it each time. The extra time it took doing that would mess up the pace of the story. A quick return link on the note itself would fix that.

As for the story itself, it's very whimsical. To get the cons out of the way first, there were times that I was confused. Confusion mostly came from events happening suddenly without much explanation. For example, at one part Captain Gadd was being hung off the ship. And then he was on board the ship again and being cut free. I really wasn't sure what happened to get him from position A to B. This is common throughout the book. An example:

"His roundness is a contributing factor," Dingley added, "not unlike a pearl."
"Yes!" the king concurred. "Uncle Fenwad has pearl-like attributes. No doubt we'll find the two together in the same spot."
"I'm sure he's somewhere," said Vayla. "He's very introverted, so it's difficult to say."
"SOMEWHERE could be ANYWHERE," Norr was getting frustrated.
"The pearl is not at the bottom of the stairs," Dingley emerged out of breath from the stairwell, "but we did find Uncle Fenwad."

It never says Dingley is going downstairs to check, he just suddenly has. In this case it was easy to figure out that he went downstairs, but other times actions aren't mentioned and it's harder to decipher what happened. There's also another part where Bink meets Pearl, and is surprised that she can talk. However, he's only just met her, so I wasn't sure why that surprised him.

It also does need some editing. There were many places that were missing commas in particular.

Besides that, the story is cheerful and bright, full of quips and colorful (literally on some pages). It's full of humor and clever jokes. Even the glossary has jokes. Some excerpts I liked:

"Yes, yes! Parents! Urgent!" the king motioned to Dingley. "Reminder -- "Norr dictated, "leash law for children ... question mark ... feasibility."
"Right!" Dingley scribbled officiously.
"Footnote," added the unsmiling Vayla. "Muzzle law for government officials... hyphen ... inevitability!!
(There is a missing quote at the end.)

"I'm Queen Vayla, dear. What is your name?" The little girl did not respond, occupied as she was making faces in a mirror.
"Apparently no name," the king noted. "Very suspicious."
"No doubt a criminal," the queen joked.
"Diabolically disguised as a little girl," Norr scrutinized.

For the moment, he would dismiss the prospect of gabthrax, eager mouth syndrome, and two annoying monkeys chattering in a nearby tree. Regrettably, he knew, one of them was probably his daughter.

"Have you never had the need for defense against hostile outsiders?" Gadd was intrigued.
"Neither insiders nor outsiders," Norr said. "The freckled tsentaflods do get cantankerous from time to time but we've never found it necessary to explode one."

"SHUT IT!" Crippen thundered. "How's a man to mutiny proper with merry moppets mucking about?"

As you can see, there's quite a few of them. The book is full of quips. I was interested to see what would happen when King Norr and Gadd finally met, and there definitely was a lot of fun in the story.

If you read the quotes above and enjoyed them, you would probably love this book, and I'd recommend taking a look at it. It's also good to note that I don't think there was anything in here that would be inappropriate for younger audiences. The characters are generally good-natured, and there isn't much in terms of violence. It might be hard for small kids to understand because of the jargon, but I bet a teenager would get a kick out of this.… (plus d'informations)