The Philosophical Strangler
Publisher Description
PHILOSOPHY: THE HANDS ON APPROACH 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 the point of it allBut 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 wayThat'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 life . . .-as if their new girlfriends haven't complicated it 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-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!At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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 Schr dinger's Cat, but she can't find Schr dinger) 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.
