Book Review: The Last Available by Sean R. Frazier
Hey all, Sam here.
Here we go…hopefully I’m starting to get the review train rolling down the tracks again. I have a few posts prepped already that I’m trying to finish writing and get scheduled, and then when I get my “weekend” again (which is Tuesday-Thursday) this week, I’ll try to get my posts prepped and partially written for the next work week. Hopefully I can make that schedule work. If I focus on writing my posts on my days off, maybe I’ll be a little less stressed on the days that I do work. Maybe.
Anyway, I hope you are all having a lovely day. Today I bring to you a book review for a book I discovered last month thanks to AuthorThreads–as a side note, I’m really enjoying my use of and scrolling through Threads so far. I’m sure it has problems like other social medias, but so far it’s just been a rather nice place for me. So, obviously I bought myself a copy and then I read it fairly quickly at the beginning of the month.
All that to say that I definitely owe you all a review for this book, so let’s just not waste any more time and get started with that.
My Thoughts
An orc warrior, a halfling rogue, a priest, a pyromaniac wizard, a female barbarian, and a bard walk into a tavern … it’s a small miracle they didn’t burn it down.
They were hired to save the world but might accidentally end it. Follow the bumbling adventures of these unlikely heroes as they attempt to quest their way into defeating Gobthorak the Eater of Worlds.
Are they the heroes for the job? No, definitely not. Can they get the job done? Unlikely. Are they the world’s last hope? Unfortunately for everyone, yes.
When the final battle looms will the Last Available heroes stand and fight or heed the call of a tankard of ale? Will they even make it out of the tavern and show up for the final battle? Nobody’s certain but whatever happens, it won’t be pretty.
Rating: 4 stars
Was this an entertaining book? Yes. Did it have a massive amount of shenanigans and puns and word-play? Also yes. Are these the types of “heroes” I would want to adventure with/play in a TTRPG with? Absolutely NOT.
These are not heroes…but there was something about them that compelled me to keep reading. They only did the bare minimum when hired for a task. If a monster had been kidnapping people and holding them captive, and these adventurers were hired to take care of the monster, they did…but then they left the captives locked up (because it wasn’t something they were tasked to do and paid for).
They were only in these jobs for the money and other loot. It wasn’t out of some heroic moral conviction. They are liars and thieves and cheats…but man if they weren’t fun to follow on this journey.
To me, these characters did not feel like well-rounded or deep characters. They were shallow archetypes, and we didn’t ever really feel like we knew any of them particularly well by the end. Which, honestly, has made me think back to many a D&D game I’ve had, with players who didn’t really worry about crafting a backstory for their character or worrying about anything more than hacking and slashing and then gathering loot. And that’s fine, if the whole table is good with that play style. I’m in tabletop role-playing game for the role-playing and character/story development. So while this was an enjoyable story for me to read, because it was only a couple hours of a time investment, this is not the sort of campaign that would work for me.
I wanted to know more about these characters, and I wanted more for the worldbuilding too. Yes, everything was fine for the purposes of this story. It plays out how you’d expect for a group of adventurers who are in it for the gold, not the glory. As stated in the book’s back cover copy, this story isn’t pretty, but it is effective.
I did get quite a few laughs out of this while reading, and I didn’t find myself wanting to set the book down to read something else instead, so I’m still ranking it as a very good book. But I can say that and still imagine more. If I had felt like I got to know the characters more, to understand their backstory and how they ended up in this position, I probably would have loved the book instead of just liking it.
But it was fun and ridiculous and certainly worth a read.
All right. Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
