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How to Rescue a Dead Princess
From the creative genius who would have brought you Hamlet, The Scarlet Letter, and a less-boring Moby Dick (if he'd been born on time) comes this outrageous comic fantasy. It's a tale filled with so much adventure, so much excitement, so much vocabulary, that all who read it will suffer a fit of giddiness that will freak out everyone in their general vicinity. It's the saga of Randall, a squire assigned to escort the lovely Princess Janice on a diplomatic journey of utmost importance. Then she gets killed. Now Randall must overcome desperate odds and ridiculous dangers in his quest to bring her back to life...before the entire Generic Fantasy Land falls into the evil clutches of The Dark One! Packed to the bursting point with unrestrained silliness (so be sure to hold it a safe distance from your face when reading), How to Rescue a Dead Princess is the novel all the really cool people are reading this year, an epic fantasy for your family to cherish approximately forever.
188 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2000
43 people are currently reading
190 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Strand
229 books2,217 followersBram Stoker Award-winning author of a bunch of demented books, including PRESSURE, DWELLER, CLOWNS VS. SPIDERS, AUTUMN BLEEDS INTO WINTER, MY PRETTIES, the official novelization of ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES, and lots of others!
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 5, 2025
The author said it best when he said he tried too hard. It’s a humorous story of a knights quest, yet the knight plays a subordinate role to the squire.
Evocative of Pratchett and Adams, Strand tries to up the ante by making every paragraph quippy. The result is a 90-minute symphony of the same, never changing note.
The story has merit and the author is quite clever (I’ve made several highlights of my favorite passages) but I wouldn’t recommend this book to others.
Evocative of Pratchett and Adams, Strand tries to up the ante by making every paragraph quippy. The result is a 90-minute symphony of the same, never changing note.
The story has merit and the author is quite clever (I’ve made several highlights of my favorite passages) but I wouldn’t recommend this book to others.
January 18, 2026
What can I say about "How to Rescue a Dead Princess" without any apples?
I mean without any spoilers?
For starters, one needs a niiiiice kiriki in order to survive a quicksand encounter. No apples are mentioned or hurt in that scene. Relax.
This is a goofy fantasy comedy. But then again, the book blurb already tells you that.
But there is also a distinct lack of apples.
I guess the good news is that you can celebrate with a bottle of water and some croutons. It's in the book. So, it's highly recommended.
This book also goes far in answering the age old question: "why did you start collecting toe nails in the first place?"
I'm satisfied with the answer even though there was still a distinct and almost purposeful lack of apples as if Jeff disdains them but doesn't want you to know it.
One of many complaints is that there is a long period of time from the introduction of grandma until the point where you finally find out what she's hiding in the attic.
For fans of Jeff's horror, and not the attrocious apple-free fantasy comedy offering pictured, there is a very scary part. The aforementioned attic scene. It scared me. Poor Randall. What gets revealed there was so horrible, even the addition of apples could not ease the utter shock and trauma of the reader on behalf of Randall's experience.
In the end, the dead princess is rescued. Chill. That's not a spoiler. It's literally the whole story. Read the title before you get upset.
Just remember not to drop the Stone of Vaporization if you accidentally find one.
Why the damn apples?
My phone decided to auto correct "spolier" to "apple". So, I went with it. Sue me. Or read the book for yourself and find out how much Jeff hates apples for yourself.
I mean without any spoilers?
For starters, one needs a niiiiice kiriki in order to survive a quicksand encounter. No apples are mentioned or hurt in that scene. Relax.
This is a goofy fantasy comedy. But then again, the book blurb already tells you that.
But there is also a distinct lack of apples.
I guess the good news is that you can celebrate with a bottle of water and some croutons. It's in the book. So, it's highly recommended.
This book also goes far in answering the age old question: "why did you start collecting toe nails in the first place?"
I'm satisfied with the answer even though there was still a distinct and almost purposeful lack of apples as if Jeff disdains them but doesn't want you to know it.
One of many complaints is that there is a long period of time from the introduction of grandma until the point where you finally find out what she's hiding in the attic.
For fans of Jeff's horror, and not the attrocious apple-free fantasy comedy offering pictured, there is a very scary part. The aforementioned attic scene. It scared me. Poor Randall. What gets revealed there was so horrible, even the addition of apples could not ease the utter shock and trauma of the reader on behalf of Randall's experience.
In the end, the dead princess is rescued. Chill. That's not a spoiler. It's literally the whole story. Read the title before you get upset.
Just remember not to drop the Stone of Vaporization if you accidentally find one.
Why the damn apples?
My phone decided to auto correct "spolier" to "apple". So, I went with it. Sue me. Or read the book for yourself and find out how much Jeff hates apples for yourself.
August 15, 2019
This was bizarre, and funny, and random, and really quite easy to read. The only reason it took me a bit to read was because I wasn't doing much reading (I was watching TV instead).
I liked how each chapter starts with a subheading of "wherin....", they were funny and well done, and yet also great previews of the chapter.
I liked the characters, almost especially Randall because he is just hopeless and flawed and ruled by luck/fortune/fate.
There were lots of both obvious and subtle jokes in this book, and it was pretty funny throughout.
I had wanted to read this book for a while and am glad I finally did. It made me curious about some of this authors other work, and I definitely would recommend this to others.
I liked how each chapter starts with a subheading of "wherin....", they were funny and well done, and yet also great previews of the chapter.
I liked the characters, almost especially Randall because he is just hopeless and flawed and ruled by luck/fortune/fate.
There were lots of both obvious and subtle jokes in this book, and it was pretty funny throughout.
I had wanted to read this book for a while and am glad I finally did. It made me curious about some of this authors other work, and I definitely would recommend this to others.
November 11, 2018
Like David Eddings got mugged by the Marx Brothers. Clearly not a book fro everyone, but if you like it.....
April 19, 2019
It is not a bad book. I quite like the authors humor but I get tired of all the shortcuts he takes. I feels like lazy writing to me. And that with a under 200 pages book.
July 11, 2024
I don't think a book has made me smile or laugh more.
October 2, 2024
Definitely tried a bit to hard for me but loved it regardless
July 19, 2024
This story was fun.
It could have been a 5-star read, if it had been 100 pages shorter. Its story/characters are not strong enough, and its humour alone isn't enough to make up for its faults.
Not the best Jeff Strand work, sadly, but still worth a read. (We love Jeff Strand.)
It could have been a 5-star read, if it had been 100 pages shorter. Its story/characters are not strong enough, and its humour alone isn't enough to make up for its faults.
Not the best Jeff Strand work, sadly, but still worth a read. (We love Jeff Strand.)
October 29, 2010
Having read a few other books (mostly his horror works), I knew that Strand had a strange sense of humor. The synopsis of the book sounded like it was a mixure of Terry Pratchett, Monty Python & Mel Brooks. After reading it I can say that it tries to channel those successful elements & occasionally it succeeds.
The story surrounds a somewhat reluctant squire by the name of Randall as he's commanded by his knight & liege to escourt Princess Janice to a neighboring kingdom. After botching an attempt to rescue the Princess from a gang of thieves, the Princess is charbroiled. The only person who can help is a witch (of course) who demands that Randall go about collecting the spell ingredients, none of which are that easily retrieved.
Overall I have to say that I did enjoy the book. The humor in it is cute, but the humor is also the thing that tends to grate on the nerves after a while. It's not that the scenes aren't funny, it's just that every. single. paragraph. has a joke in it & there's really not enough non-joke parts of the book to really level it out. There's no "straight man" or it's equivalent in this comedy book & as a result the book's humor tends to get a little old after a while. (If you are unaware of the term "straight man", it's a term used in comedy.) The author does seem to resemble Pratchett a bit, but the thing is that Pratchett's humorous Discworld series works because it doesn't overdo it on the jokes. This book does & at times I yearned desperately for a more serious scene to balance out the rest of the humor.
Even so, the book is still fun to read. Fans of the above mentioned people would probably like this, although I do recommend that they flip through it a bit first. I'm not trying to discourage people from reading this book (far from it), but people who are looking for something a bit more serious humor-wise might not like it. (I do have to say that this would probably make for an interesting movie if anyone was to adapt it- much of the humor here would probably work better in a visual context than literary.)
The story surrounds a somewhat reluctant squire by the name of Randall as he's commanded by his knight & liege to escourt Princess Janice to a neighboring kingdom. After botching an attempt to rescue the Princess from a gang of thieves, the Princess is charbroiled. The only person who can help is a witch (of course) who demands that Randall go about collecting the spell ingredients, none of which are that easily retrieved.
Overall I have to say that I did enjoy the book. The humor in it is cute, but the humor is also the thing that tends to grate on the nerves after a while. It's not that the scenes aren't funny, it's just that every. single. paragraph. has a joke in it & there's really not enough non-joke parts of the book to really level it out. There's no "straight man" or it's equivalent in this comedy book & as a result the book's humor tends to get a little old after a while. (If you are unaware of the term "straight man", it's a term used in comedy.) The author does seem to resemble Pratchett a bit, but the thing is that Pratchett's humorous Discworld series works because it doesn't overdo it on the jokes. This book does & at times I yearned desperately for a more serious scene to balance out the rest of the humor.
Even so, the book is still fun to read. Fans of the above mentioned people would probably like this, although I do recommend that they flip through it a bit first. I'm not trying to discourage people from reading this book (far from it), but people who are looking for something a bit more serious humor-wise might not like it. (I do have to say that this would probably make for an interesting movie if anyone was to adapt it- much of the humor here would probably work better in a visual context than literary.)
April 4, 2011
This is a silly, silly book. Make no mistake about that. If you can't stand dimwitted characters, talking bugs, deus ex machina out the wazoo and dry humor, you probably won't care for the book too much. However, if you've read Douglas Adams or Pratchett, then this book is probably something you want to check out.
The fourth wall in this novel is thin. When I say thin, imagine very old cheese cloth...eaten my moths....after someone has driven a truck through it. That's how thin we're talking about. The author addresses the reader directly all the time, and the characters puzzle over how contrived certain developments or other characters are in the course of their conversations. The author doesn't take the book, the characters or the world too seriously (or seriously at all, as it were), but that's kind of the point.
I did laugh while reading this, so mission accomplished. The book is short, and once things get going they just snowball to the final climactic finale, which unfortunately was lost due to a computer problem, but I think the summation of the event that the author provided captured the flavor of the missing chapter well.
It's worth a look if you need something quick and are not averse to a chuckle here and there.
The fourth wall in this novel is thin. When I say thin, imagine very old cheese cloth...eaten my moths....after someone has driven a truck through it. That's how thin we're talking about. The author addresses the reader directly all the time, and the characters puzzle over how contrived certain developments or other characters are in the course of their conversations. The author doesn't take the book, the characters or the world too seriously (or seriously at all, as it were), but that's kind of the point.
I did laugh while reading this, so mission accomplished. The book is short, and once things get going they just snowball to the final climactic finale, which unfortunately was lost due to a computer problem, but I think the summation of the event that the author provided captured the flavor of the missing chapter well.
It's worth a look if you need something quick and are not averse to a chuckle here and there.
April 10, 2011
Well I finally finally finally finished reading this one. It was pretty good but I will admit, a little tedious in a funny, sarcastic sort of way. Once I set my mind on the fact that it was in no way a serious book I enjoyed it. But I could only take it in small doses. The good thing was that I enjoyed it every time I picked it up to read it and never felt like I had to re-read page after page to reaquaint myself with the story. I like Randall the Squire very much and his adventures on his quest had me chuckling more than once. I would reccommend this to anyone who is not looking for a serious read and someone who can handle plenty of sarcasm, humor, and silliness above all else.
How to Rescue a Dead Princess
How to Rescue a Dead Princess
July 27, 2015
I want to give this book 2.5 but I didn't want to see it having 3 from me so I say what the heck 2 it is. When I first saw the cover I was intrigued by it so I add it to my to-read list its been five days since I've start reading FIVE DAYS OH GOD THIS BOOK IS BORING AS HELL, this is actually a children's book like Cinderella or snow white having zero character background and the R rated scene which were added are totally deletable having no effect what so ever and the weird thing is I think it is actually added later to make it look like a novel. Yeah some jokes are good and make me laugh but some joke are so out of place and the pace of this book is slow as ..... . did I read it whole yes will I read it again no way
December 5, 2010
Jeff Strand is a funny guy. I like the tongue-in-cheek approach to fantasy.
The only thing I'd say against this book is a slow-moving section and, possibly, some joke scenes that could be omitted. Got a bit tedious through the torture stuff. Yeah, torture is funny.
Even so, I read through without wandering off to one of the other 150 books I have on my Kindle, so that's saying a lot.
The only thing I'd say against this book is a slow-moving section and, possibly, some joke scenes that could be omitted. Got a bit tedious through the torture stuff. Yeah, torture is funny.
Even so, I read through without wandering off to one of the other 150 books I have on my Kindle, so that's saying a lot.
December 28, 2011
BRILLIANT..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 16, 2014
The first half is pretty awesome. I liked every sentence of it, but after around he 100th page it went south to fast, and kept there until the end.
February 23, 2015
A bit forced sometimes but overall a quick and funny read (:
July 27, 2010
just can't get through this - corny vs funny
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews