Castle Perilous

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Castle Perilous is a giant castle with 144,000 rooms that are portals to other worlds. These portals are constantly shifting in and out of other dimensions and occasionally they temporarily open up somewhere on Earth. At those times people may stumble into the castle and not be able to get back out. They become one of the permanent ???guests??? who have great food, luxurious accommodations, and servants to wait on them. Best of all, they get to explore some of the stable portals leading to exotic places. When Gene, Linda, and Snowclaw each stumble into Castle Perilous, it???s under siege by the jilted lover of the castle???s owner.

Here???s a novel that???s got some fun and whimsical ideas but never really capitalizes on all of its creative potential. I love the premise and the story is amusing, but it lacks passion and depth. The characters are shallow, we spend little time exploring the other worlds, and the humor is rather juvenile.

Castle Perilous is like one of those cool-looking kitchen gadgets you see on TV. It promises to be awesome, but when you get it you realize that it only does one job well and it takes up lots of drawer space, so you would have been better off just using your trusty paring knife. Castle Perilous is gimmicky and doesn???t deliver what it promises. But, still, sometimes gimmicky kitchen gadgets are fun... until you want your drawer space back.

I???d recommend Castle Perilous to a teenager looking for a fluffy fantasy read. Fans of Piers Anthony???s Xanth series or Robert Asprin???s MythAdventures are likely candidates. Castle Perilous is the first in an eight-book series. Because I like the premise so much, I may give the second book, Castle for Rent, a try, but my guess is that this series is just too light for me.

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Several Earth humans and some non-humans randomly find themselves Guests in a huge, rambling castle that is also under serious attack. However, they find they're each developing magic powers that may be able to keep them from harm.

Review
There's nothing fundamentally new about Castle Perilous – you'll have seen many of these elements before – the huge, unmappable castle; the magic portals to other worlds; the clever/brawny pairing; the bubbly, can-do woman with talent. They all play pretty much the roles you expect. But, to be fair to DeChancie, he deploys them all well, and this is a fast, fun read – enough so that I was willing to pick up most of the series. My database tells me I have only one in paperback, though I recall reading more. I have 8 of 9 in e-form. They're a bit like John Morresey's Kedrigern books – not groundbreaking, but light fantasy entertainment with some humor.

DeChancie does cheat quite a bit at the end of the book, with respect to sequels, and I don't remember how that later plays out; we'll have to see. For this first book, though, it's easy, lazy entertainment.