Bloody Books Reviews - Mogworld

This is not a serious book. This is a silly book. This book tiptoes up to the parody line and then does some form of lewd dance, but never crosses fully into absolute insanity.

Mogworld is great fun.

The book opens on the typical fantasy medieval Europe we all know and have come to love, even though it's a setting we we all know has vastly outstayed it's welcome. Adventurers go off on adventures, as well as doing small chores for the peoples of the land. It's a much of a muchness, but it travels far once the boots are on.

We follow Jim, a apprentice wizard who was killed just before an outbreak of Immortality named The Infusion breaks out over the land,  and is raised sixty years later by a Grim Dark Necromancer who breaks the rules of magic by raising a mass horde of the undead to do his unholy bidding. A downside of this mass raising is that the Undead have all kept personalities, and are not a nameless shambling mound, but a series of characterful people, who may well be rotting. Reg Shoe would be proud. Jim is not overly pleased with his undead existence, as he was offered a glimpse of the afterlife and wants to return to the bottomless nothing.

It's not all bad though, as the Zombies are given a decent pay, and promised a theatre production every month. This does not, however, stop Jim from trying to end his new unlife in any way he can, only to discover that The Infusion won't let him die a second time, and he is stuck in this shambling frame forever. Once things go wrong, as they often do, Jim sets off the find the reason and a cure for The Infusion. Along the way (DON'T CALL IT A QUEST), he meets a colorful cast, including the truly amazing Slippery John and a Preacher named Barry, who becomes the main villain of the book. He is joined by a fellow zombie named Meryl, who may be the best take on how to make a love interest in a such a book. Every character has agency, with motivations that rise and fall throughout the tale. Small interruptions of Jim's main plot appears throughout, varying up the action and adventure in a multitude of manners.

There's a full understanding of MMO games that plays out through the story, with some barely contained disgust and outright annoyance at the way such a genre of game is played, which is one of the strengths of the book, creating a third act reveal that is simply stunning. The tone is well played, both making you laugh yourself silly in one moment, before making your skin crawl with disgust soon after. Even with that framework in place, the narrative is a breeze to experience, even when Jim's body is completely destroyed and he has to look outside his species for spare parts.

Well worth a read