The Jeopardous Jade Djinn Gem (original) (raw)

The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy – It had been a while since I’d read the first book in this series, so I didn’t remember all the characters’ personalities, but it’s a fun read. Briar Rose is trying to get her hands on a magical jewel that can summon a jinn (the Jeopardous Jade Djinn Gem), and forces the League of Princes to help her. These princes are just as well-meaning and bumbling as before. They end up in Rauberia, a country newly founded by the child bandit Deeb Rauber, and disguise themselves as circus performers to get into the castle. This just happens to be when the bandit-turned-king is entertaining a warlord who’s much more evil than he is, and looks down somewhat on Rauber’s juvenile attempts at villainy.

Apoca Lips, by Piers Anthony – There’s not really anything new in this, the forty-seventh Xanth book, but it’s not like I really expected there to be. There’s another couple that gets together pretty much immediately, a lot of meta-references to the number of puns and the changes in protagonist, and not a whole lot of direction to the plot. Apoca is a Lips, a kind of being who can control people by kissing them, and her paramour is Nolan, the son of a naga and a merwoman. Also involved are a ghost, an imaginary baton that shows who the current character of focus is, and some telepathic insects. There are also puns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I’m not sure what I think of those.

A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher – This is one of the author’s works that’s loosely based on a classic fairy tale, but goes off in its own direction. The inspiration in this case is “The Goose Girl,” which is why it has a magical horse named Falada who is beheaded, only in this version he’s a demonic familiar to a sorceress. The writer admits to having a fear of horses. Evangeline, the titular magic-worker, has a daughter named Cordelia whom she treats very poorly, sometimes using magic to make her obedient. Evangeline takes Cordelia to the home of some wealthy nobles in hopes of either marrying into money or getting her daughter to do so. There’s a lot of influence from regency romance, a genre I’m not that familiar with, as well as the fairy tale and horror elements. I noticed that Evangeline seems not to understand Cordelia at all, constantly being afraid that she’ll do the same things she does, when the daughter isn’t treacherous or ambitious like her mother.

The Legend of Zelda: The Crown Prince of Darkness, by Akio Higuchi, translated by Micicle – I saw a link to this new translation of a Japanese tie-in book on Bluesky. Originally published in 1992, it’s essentially a loose adaptation of the original Zelda game, with a fair number of elements added to make it work as a narrative. Higuchi comes up with his own names for different parts of Hyrule, including the capital city of Assam and a town called Gurudo, although it isn’t in the desert and isn’t inhabited entirely by women. Link himself is said to have been raised by Hobbits, although they don’t seem much like their namesakes from Tolkien. Zelda’s parents are Wilhelm and Yohanna, and Link’s birth mother is Diane. This book is also an example of Link having a fairy companion who explains things to him before the idea was used in a game, although it was used in the DiC cartoon and the manga of A Link to the Past.

I always appreciate the extra lore that materials like this provide, even if later games don’t always take it into account. Many of the monsters from the first game appear, and it’s explained that Ganon‘s curse is the reason why Octoroks walk around on land. He’s also the one who turned the normally peaceful Zoras violent, and the orbs they shoot from their mouths are said to be plasma. Leevers have acidic blood, and the Gleeok is described as being able to live for millions of years and fly at the speed of sound.

Ganon tries to gain Zelda’s trust by assuming the identity of the mysterious Count Ruguel. There’s some humor with the old hermits who give hints all belonging to a secret society.

I saw some of the pictures by Shinpei Itou online before I knew what the book was, including this one of Zelda and Ganon from the frontispiece.

The Lunar Trilogy, by Edgar Rice Burroughs – Since this author wrote adventure series taking place on Mars and Venus, it’s not too surprising he’d turn to Earth’s natural satellite as well. The first book, The Moon Maid, fits the general pattern of these tales, with a heroic guy from Earth arriving on another world to befriend some of the inhabitants and fight others, and have a romance with a hot alien woman.

The Moon is described as more desolate than the other planets visited in Burroughs’ stories, and the people there have to resort to cannibalism to survive. One of the other crew members turns traitor and joins up with the villains. A twist on the formula is that the book takes place in the far future, narrated by someone from our time who has a psychic link with his reincarnations in later times. The flight to Mars takes place after a world war that’s won by “Anglo-Saxon forces,” and after the visit to the Moon, the lunar people invade and conquer Earth. The sequel, The Moon Men, has another reincarnation living in a time when the world is ruled by a totalitarian government of people from the Moon and their descendants, with the human traitor from the first book apparently having spawned an entire race of cruel hybrids. There’s some speculation that Burroughs originally wrote this one as a more Earthbound story of the United States under communist control, but he thought it would be more palatable as science fiction. Finally, The Red Hawk describes the final defeat of the Lunar Kalkars, centuries later when humanity had returned to a more primitive way of life, explicitly compared to the Native Americans but without any respect for the real natives, with some of them worshipping an old American flag like a god. The trilogy isn’t as bizarrely imaginative as some of Burroughs’ other work, and is definitely reflective of attitudes around the time it was written.

This entry was posted in Animals, Art, Authors, Book Reviews, Cartoons, Comics, edgar rice burroughs, Fairy Tales, Humor, J.R.R. Tolkien, Magic, Monsters, Piers Anthony, Relationships, Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Television, Video Games, Xanth, Zelda and tagged a link to the past, a sorceress comes to call, akio higuchi, aliens, apoca lips, cannibalism, christopher healy, coronavirus, fairies, ganon, gerudo, ghosts, gleeok, hobbits, horses, hyrule, jinn, kalkars, league of princes, leevers, mars, mermaids, micicle, moon, nagas, octoroks, princess zelda, puns, shinpei itou, sleeping beauty, t. kingfisher, the crown prince of darkness, the goose girl, the hero's guide to storming the castle, the legend of zelda, the lunar trilogy, the moon maid, the moon men, the red hawk, ursula vernon, venus, zoras. Bookmark the permalink.