A Comedy of Terrors

A Comedy of Terrors

A Novel by Graeme Smith

Genre: Humorous Fantasy

Release: June 15, 2012

Editor: Christine I. Speakman

Line Editor: Richelle Putnam

Cover Designer: Charlotte Volnek

Words: 52393

Pages: 152

Price: $5.50

ISBN: 978-1-77127-068-7

Back Cover:

Segorian Anderson’s an Idiot. But that’s fine with him. It’s a well paying job with no heavy lifting.

Nobody ever remembers Segorian. It isn’t magic - he just has the sort of face his own mother could forget, and she’s been trying to for years. But being forgettable is a job requirement for an Idiot.
No, he's not the Court Jester. He doesn’t wear motley (whatever motley may be). That's a different union. He’s the Idiot. In a Queen’s castle, wine spilt down the wrong dress can lead to war, so someone unimportant has to be blamed for it. That’s the Idiot’s job. He’s the Idiot that did it, for any value of ‘it’. Of course, as soon as he’s exiled-for-life out of the castle gate, he uses his back-door key and sneaks back in. But that's not all. Someday, something really bad will happen. Really, really bad. Badder than a bad thing on a very bad day with extra badness. When the world’s about to end (or the washing up won’t get done – whichever comes first), who you gonna call? No, not them. They haven’t been invented yet. You call the Idiot, someone nobody will miss if things don’t work out. And now Peladon has a case of dragon.

But the dragon may be the easy part. Segorian has woman trouble, and he’s the only person in the castle who doesn’t know it. Because to Segorian, women are an open book. The problem is, he never learned to read.

REVIEWS:

“A Comedy of Terrors” is that rare breed, a fantasy designed to make you laugh. Many fantasies revolve around a hero, but Segorian Anderson is hardly the run-of-the-mill fairy tale hero. --A Book A Day Reviews...READ FULL REVIEW

About the Author:

Graeme Smith. Fantasy author. Mostly comic fantasy (which is fantasy intended to make you laugh, not fantasy in comics).

When I'm not writing I'm doing things like online gaming. If you know Bard Elcano (who says things like ‘greetings, Lady Desdemona’ a lot - sometimes even when he’s talking to someone called Desdemona), you know me. If you know a grumpy old dragon called Sephiranoth (who never uses one word where ten will do), you know me. If you know a tall, dark, handsome but brooding vampire, charming witty and brilliant - we never met. That's someone else.

So there you are. Graeme Smith. Me. Short, fat, bald and ugly (fortunately my wife has lousy taste in men). Time was, I worked on a psychiatric ward. Now I write about people who believe in magic and dragons, and who live where the crazy folk are the ones who don’t.

Customer Reviews:

What do you do when you find you are reading pure genius? If you're me, you stay glued to your seat and devour every word, then call to your family member for the Krazy Glue antidote. May I say, before I continue, my butt is a tad sore. The antidote is a scraper and Krazy Glue does not give up its hold upon one's flesh easily.rnrnThat said, I have to also acknowledge to write this review I am sitting in a pan of ice...so my butt is pleasantly numb!rnrnOkay...moving on...A COMEDY OF TERRORS by Muse It Up Author Graeme Smith is a trip into the gifted mind of a man who can spin a tale so well and with such brilliance, you laugh and then during the body shaking guffaws realize the brilliance woven within the giggles. And of course, you're going to LOVE "The Idiot."rnrnIt isn't often I can honestly say I am in the presence of tantalizing brilliance. From the title I expected it to be a pleasant romp...and from the cover I also anticipated a dragon would be somewhere in the journey...what I got was humor at its tantalizing best.rnrnMr. Smith wove a story so intricately linked you do not realize where the story is REALLY headed. When you find out, you are jolted and then know genius has been guiding you in spite of the obvious giggles along the way.rnrnWell done Mr. Smith. I look forward to reading more of your brilliance. rn

Okay, a quick disclaimer. I know the author, Graeme Smith, through an online writing group and I read one of the earlier versions of COMEDY OF TERRORS a year or so ago.rnrnIt made me laugh out loud then. When I reread it this weekend, it made me laugh out loud again.rnrnThe hero is the Royal Idiot who works for Queen Sonea. Anytime wine's spilled on a visiting dignitary at a state banquet or anytime the army loses a battle... It's always some idiot's fault. And Segorian is that Idiot. He shows up in the right uniform (servant or general or whatever) and gets banished from the kingdom. Then he sneaks back through the back door, ready to be blamed again the next time an idiot is needed.rnrnThe queen kind of likes Segorian, though Segorian's a little too dense (he admits women are an open book to him but he never learned to read) to understand the situation, and sends him off on a dragon-slaying mission with some trepidation. No worries. The dragon's too smart and Segorian's too...rnrnLet's just say the dragon turns out to be a main character who helps Segorian and Sonea tackle the bad guy who's coming to eat up all the people of the kingdom.rnrnOh, yeah. There's always a villain in these things. So in COMEDY, we have mayhem, murder, misunderstandings and misanthropy, all rolled up in one book. Along with some atrocious puns and play on words that would make the dourest person chuckle.rnrnReaders who enjoy the Myth series of Robert Asprin or the Xanth series of Piers Anthony will delight in discovering a new comic fantasy author. I know I did.(less)rn