Sarcastic Sunday Its Old Time Fantasy Edition
 Wherein I talk irreverently about books I love and are hard to find more often than not.



Title: The Unlikely Ones
Author: Mary Brown
Publisher/Year: McGraw-Hill/1986 (hardcover edition)
Out of Print?: Yes.  Mass Market Paperback came out about ten years ago though

Why, pray tell do you like it? Anyone who ever felt the ugly duckling can relate to any of Brown's characters, but 'Thing' her protagonist for The Unlikely Ones is the ugly duckling who hides behind a mask.  And she's not really an ugly duckling; her companions are various animals--a toad, goldfish, kitten and crow, so they're definition of 'pretty' is far different from a human's.  I wasn't too keen on the ending, but I forgave the story since I think Thing was treated badly enough that she could have her shining knight if she wanted one so badly (prat or otherwise).

That's nice.  Why should anyone care?  There's a whole score of these sorts of books out--fantasy quest books that sound like they're DnD campaigns gone badly, but Thing has some of the most cynical, sarcastic and downright rude companions ever written.  Seriously.  This isn't to say they didn't care about Thing, but their former keeper (a nasty old hag of a witch who did...special things with her broomstick.  Special Kind of Hell sorts of things if you get the reference) was a nasty piece of work.  I'm not even sure how any of them managed to get anything done since they squabbled and complained so much.  Like a pack of toddlers!

Is this a series?  Stand alone?  Technically speaking its a stand alone--there are no direct sequels and it wraps itself up nicely.  Her 'Unexpected Dragon' set of books however (Pigs Don't Fly, Master of Many Treasures and Dragonne's Eg) follows a similar course.  That is: young girl who is rather unattractive bands together with a bunch of unlikely companions to remove the 'curse' upon herself, find her true love and maybe live a happy life.  Much of what happens in The Unlikely Ones is referenced in some way in Pigs Don't Fly as well.

And the ending? Sadly while The Unlikely Ones ends on an upbeat note, most of The Unexpected Dragon books do not.  Pigs Don't Fly ends with the death of one character, betrayal of several characters and the futile searching of a true love gone missing (on purpose. I can't stress this enough the true love went missing to protect the character...never let it be said that dumb characters don't make good protagonists).  Master of Many Treasures, the direct sequel, ends with much of the cast dead in some way (plus more betrayal over a stupid bauble!  yeah the betrayer totally deserved what he got in the end).  Dragonne's Eg is sort of a 'several hundreds of years later the events of Book 2 come to fruition' sort of book, and ends on a mostly happy, if very abrupt what the hell happened here, note.

You just depressed the audience.  Yes well, I like those bittersweet endings.  Give me death of true love over happily ever after any day of the week! (I'm joking)  Anyone can write about Hero and Heroine riding off into the sunset and having tons of crying babies--I like those that write about the Hero and Heroine dying for ridiculous or world-changing reasons.

Though to be fair Master of Many Treasures kind of ends on a more half full/half empty sort of way.  If you think the glass is half full--well you get to believe there's a happy ending!  If you think the glass is half empty--well you get your gruesome bittersweet ending!  Either way Justice gets its dues.

What did I learn? Never trust a horse that's not a horse, a pig that's not a pig or a greedy sneak thief who says he has changed his ways.  One way or another, I'm going to get screwed.