MythAdventures

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MythAdventures or Myth Adventures is a fantasy series created by Robert Lynn Asprin. After twelve novels by Asprin, published 1978 to 2002, he and Jody Lynn Nye continued the series with seven more books that they wrote together. After his death in May 2008,[1] Nye has continued the series on her own.[2]

The Myth Adventures are noted for and popular for their whimsical nature, myriad characters, and liberal use of puns. After the first book, every title turns on the similarity between the word "myth" and the prefix "mis-" or the word "miss". The inaugural title, Another Fine Myth, puns on the phrase "another fine mess". Chapters are usually headed by made-up quotes by famous or semi-famous persons.[3]

The first book was advertised under that title, Another Fine Mess, from

typo in the catalog.[4]

According to Asprin, the original inspiration for the Myth Adventures was the Road to ... comedy movie series, which stars Bing Crosby and Bob Hope as wandering con-artists/adventurers.[4]

Characters

The stories mostly revolve around the adventures of a few central characters:

  • Skeeve, a youngish
    dimension
    of Klah.
  • Aahz, a green, scaly "
    apprentice
    , despite having lost his powers through a prank pulled by Skeeve's now-deceased mentor, Garkin, at the beginning of the first novel. Later on, he and Skeeve dissolve their mentor/apprentice relationship and become partners in a magician-for-hire enterprise called M.Y.T.H. Inc.
  • Gleep, Skeeve's excitable pet, a baby dragon with a one-word eponymous vocabulary ("Gleep!") that belies his incredible intellect. However, in the twelfth book Gleep speaks simple, short phrases.
  • Massha, a woman of truly monumental girth with bright orange hair and a gaudy fashion sense; she begins the series as "only" an expert user of magical weapons and tools, but eventually apprentices herself to Skeeve.
  • Guido and Nunzio, a pair of hulking and highly capable
    Guys and Dolls
    . Both are much more intelligent than their stereotype suggests.
  • Chumley, an enormous but quite gentle and erudite Troll whose professional persona is a monosyllabic muscle-for-hire called Big Crunch.
  • Tananda, a.k.a. Tanda, a professional assassin and Chumley's nymphish Trollop sister.
  • Bunny, Don Bruce's beautiful niece and Skeeve's assigned moll; she is an accomplished and intelligent accountant and is in love with Skeeve (though he does not know it).
  • Markie, a small doll-like girl who is actually a character assassin in disguise. Cupys (small, doll-like people) are from the Cupid dimension.

The Phil Foglio comics based on the books also involve The Winslow: A small fuzzy alligator which happens to be utterly indestructible and presumably immortal, and figures prominently one way or another into fully three-fourths of the galaxy's known religions.

Known dimensions

Many of the names, like so much else in this series, are puns; see the parenthetical comments.

Dimensions that have been mentioned but not explicitly depicted:

  • Imper: Not much is known about Imper except that it is close to Deva and the Imps were wiped out financially by the Deveels. The Imps have since tried to mimic the Deveels (whom they physically resemble) with only marginal success. The kindest thing anyone has said about Imps is that they are snappy dressers. ("Imp")
  • Trollia: Chumley and Tanda's home dimension. The males are Trolls, and the females are Trollops. ("Troll", "trollop")
  • Rinasp: A dimension that suffered a ghastly fate when Tanda was hired to go there on a collection job. (Apparently a syllable-swap of "Asprin".)
  • Archiah: The dimension that "invented archery".
  • Zoorik: Home of the
    Gnomes of Zürich
    ", pronounced /ˈzʊrɪk/ in English.)
  • Ratislava: Whose rat inhabitants created an extremely powerful magical device that was then stolen and taken off-dimension. (The name, at least, comes from Bratislava, Slovakia.)
  • Mantico: Home of the formidable Manticore race.
  • Djinger: Home and base of operations for the Djinns. The Djinns, like the Imps, were hit hard by the cut-throat tactics of the Deveels, so they started providing emigrant magickal labor in bottles and lamps. Males are Djinns, females are Djeanies.[6] ("Djinn", "genie", I Dream of Jeannie, probably also "ginger")
  • Trofi: A dimension that has no businessmen, instead, everything is won in contests. It is also the dimension known for matchmaking. Many dimension travelers want a Trofi wife. ("Trophy", "trophy wife")
  • Cupid: Home of small doll-like people. They appear as young Klahds, when they are actually fully grown.
  • Caf: A dimension of Gorgon-ish creatures with living hair that brew the best coffee in all the known dimensions.
  • Mini: Home to the tiny, diminutive Minikins.
  • Tue: Home to the small, four armed Tues. Known for tiny professional wrestlers called Terrible Tues, a dance troup called the Tue Tours, and their secretarial work; Tue Fingered Typists.[7]

Books

The "first" Myth Adventures series was written by Asprin alone for the now-defunct publishing house

Meisha Merlin, who picked up the contract from Donning). All twelve are collected in Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures Volume 1 and Volume 2 (Meisha Merlin, 2006/2007).[8]

The "new" Myth Adventures series was co-authored with Jody Lynn Nye.

Nye has continued the series after Asprin's death in 2008.

  • Myth-Quoted (2013) (Advertised as "Robert Asprin's Myth-Quoted", but authored by Nye alone.[9])
  • Myth-Fits (2016) (Advertised as "Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits", but authored by Nye alone.[10])

After Myth-Gotten Gains, Meisha Merlin went out of business and publication of hardcover/trade editions changed hands again, this time to Wildside Press.[2] Robert Asprin died in May 2008, but Nye intended that year to write the books which she and Asprin had planned ("We had big plans").[2] According to the series website, the publisher of mass market editions Ace Books has commissioned two.[11]

Short stories

In 2010, Baen Books published a collection of Asprin's short myth-stories under the title

ISBN 1-4391-3390-5 This collection contains short stories and short novels taking place in many worlds that Robert Asprin created. It is advertised as containing all of the Myth short fiction.[12]

Illustrated novels

The first novel was adapted into an eight-part WaRP Graphics comic book series in the mid-1980s. Illustrated and heavily rewritten by Phil Foglio, the series was later collected into two full-color graphic novels published by Starblaze Graphics, and in 2007 Airship Entertainment (the Foglios' publishing concern) reprinted the material in a single volume. Four more issues followed, featuring an original story by Asprin and artist Jim Valentino which attempts to bridge the action between the first and second novels in the series. (Apple Comics took over the second series halfway through.) In 2010, Airship Entertainment began re-releasing the story as a web comic.[13] Though this has been offline since sometime in February 2016, along with webcomic republications of Buck Godot and What's New with Phil & Dixie, when Airship Entertainment's old website broke down.[14]

The second novel was later adapted into another eight-part comic series by Ken and Beth Mitchroney and published by Apple from 1987 through 1989. Neither of these two later series enjoyed a graphic novel collection.

Foglio has also done the cover art and accompanying illustrations for the first editions of most of the novels. Before he started the cover illustrations, Kelly Freas did the covers of the first editions of the earliest books of the series.

Film and theater

Short-lived rumors circulated in the 1980s that

Richard Pini, owners of WaRP Graphics, were considering turning their adaptation of Another Fine Myth into a feature-length movie after doing so with their own property, Elfquest
, though the latter has yet to even make it past concept to this day.

The board game

A board game called Myth Fortunes was developed by Mayfair Games and sold in 1990.[15]

References

  1. ^ Robert Asprin at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2011-07-29.
  2. ^ a b c Frequently Asked Questions Archived 2010-07-12 at the Wayback Machine (2008 inferred). by Jody Lynn Nye. Confirmed 2011-07-29.
  3. ^ Asprin, Robert (1978). Another Fine Myth.
  4. ^ a b Author's Introduction from "M.Y.T.H. INC. LINK" by Robert Asprin. (unconfirmed)
  5. ISBN 0-441-00194-7
    .
  6. ISBN 0-441-00194-7
    .
  7. ISBN 0-89865-331-2
    .
  8. ^ Myth Adventures series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2011-07-29.
  9. ^ Amazon. Accessed 2013-07-01
  10. ^ Amazon. Accessed 2016-05-29
  11. ^ News Archived 2010-09-18 at the Wayback Machine (no date). Myth Adventures.net. Retrieved 2011-07-29.
  12. ^ MYTH-Interpretations: The Worlds of Robert Asprin. Baen Books. October 2010.
  13. ^ "MythAdventures Comics Online". Archived from the original on 2010-08-19. Retrieved 2010-01-24.
  14. ^ "Wayback Machine". Retrieved 2023-01-26.
  15. ^ "The Myth Fortunes Game". Archived from the original on 2006-05-07. Retrieved 2006-06-24.

External links

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