Review: Critical Failures, by Robert Bevan

November 20, 2013 in General Topics

Minor profanity blurred on this image of the cover.

Minor profanity blurred on this image of the cover.

If the other books I’ve reviewed are polite visitors, then Robert Bevan’s “Critical Failures” is the guy in the GWAR T-shirt that cussed out a neighbor, drank all the vodka, and passed out in the bathroom.

This book spends a lot of time in said bathroom. Bevan answers the truly burning questions in the fantasy genre, such as “How badly does an orc’s feculence stink?” and “What god does a Dwarven cleric pray to when he forgot to designate one?” As you might guess, this one’s not for kids by any stretch of the imagination–the profanity comes early and often.

Tim, Julian, Dave and Cooper are four friends that seek to assuage their day of boredom working at a local chicken restaurant with a game of “Caverns and Creatures”, the book’s stand-in for the pen-and-paper RPG we all know and love. Said game will be run by a “Cavern Master” named Mordred, who has a fragile ego, only a loose connection to reality, and a bag of magical dice. Having him meet the exceedingly-caustic Cooper creates a situation as stable as a Soviet nuclear reactor. Read the rest of this entry →