Available:*
Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
---|---|---|---|---|
33607001441511 | Adult Fiction | FLINT | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Mighty Greyboar, the world's greatest professional strangler, is dissatisfied with his lot in life. The work is steady and the pay is good, but what, he wonders, is thepointof it all?But when he learns that there is a Supreme Philosophy of Life*, Greyboar the Strangler is Born Again! Still, just how can a professional man in good standing pay the bills with all this philosophical exploration getting in the way?That's what his hard-headed agent and manager Ignace wants to know! And Ignace's skepticism turns quickly into outright horror when Greyboar's philosophical preoccupation leads to one disaster after another ... simple choke jobs turn into ethical quandaries... a bizarre artist and a deadly arms-master turn up to complicate their lives... as if their new girlfriends haven't complicated them enough! Before you know it, Greyboar the strangler and his disgruntled manager find themselves embroiled with an abbess at odds with her deity, heretics on the run, dwarves needing to be rescued, and then -- the worst of all!Greyboar's long-estranged sister Gwendolyn, political activist and revolutionary, comes back to town asking Greyboar's help in an insane mission to the underworld. it's purely a noble cause, one which no self-respecting assassin would touch for a moment. But in the pursuit of Enlightenment, anything can happen....*What? You want the details? Hint:Entropy.For more on the secret, buy this book!
Author Notes
Eric Flint was born in southern California in 1947. He received a bachelor's degree from UCLA in 1968 and did some work toward a Ph.D. in history, with a specialization in history of southern Africa in the 18th and early 19th centuries, also at UCLA. After leaving the doctoral program over political issues, he supported himself from that time until age 50 as a laborer, machinist and labor organizer.
In 1993, his short story entitled Entropy and the Strangler won first place in the Winter 1992 Writers of the Future contest. His first novel, Mother of Demons, was published in 1997 and was picked by the Science Fiction Chronicle as a best novel of the year. He became a full-time writer in 1999. He writes science fiction and fantasy works including The Philosophical Strangler and the Belisarius series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This oddly satisfying humorous fantasy usually achieves the zany and frequently the bizarre. In the city of New Sfinctre the professional strangler and amateur philosopher Greyboar and his agent and sidekick, Ignace, accept a contract they're unable to fulfill, but which leads to some amusing adventures. At their watering hole, the Sign of the Trough, the pair encounter a nearsighted swordswoman named Cat (actually Schrdinger's Cat, but she can't find Schrdinger) and learn that Gwendolyn, Greyboar's Amazonian sister (who's active in the literally underground dwarf-liberation movement), has an artistic lover named Benvenuti. After Benvenuti's disappearance, the duo have to spring Cat from prison, help Abbess Hildegard of the Sisters of Tranquility intimidate a fallen angel and harrow hell and several even worse places to get Benvenuti back. The author's inventiveness is unblushingly demanding of the reader passages in the journey to hell satirize (or more accurately, skewer or even impale) role-playing games, Dante, the Greek playwrights and the Norse sagas with ferocious accuracy and a complete lack of scruples. Good taste prevails most of the time, and there are a fair number of serious grace notes, such as the cult of Joe, the caveman who invented God (aka the Old Geister). The sexual content is higher, but otherwise Flint can stand comparison with at least early Terry Pratchett. Fans of Harry Turtledove's elaborate wordplay will also revel in this volume. (May) FYI: Flint is best known for his Belisarius series, coauthored with David Drake, and for the novel 1632. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Greyboar's professional career as an assassin for hire falls prey to his penchant for philosophy as moral qualms intervene to cause disaster in even the simplest tasks. The latest fantasy by the author of 1632 features an angst-ridden hero, a fast-talking side-kick, fast-paced action, and bawdy humor. Though sometimes the comedy misses the mark, Flint tells a multilayered tale of camaraderie in the face of misadventure with apologies to the great philosophers. A good choice for large libraries' fantasy collections. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.