Readers of the blog made remember me reviewing the first Badass book (cleverly entitled Badass: The Book). I quite enjoyed it, but the gigantic timesink that is A Song of Ice and Fire consumed all my reading time. However, I decided to take a short break before what is sure to be the huge pit of depression that is A Dance with Dragons, and decided I might as well finish off the second book by Ben Thompson of Badass of the Week fame.
One thing I did not realize until I was several chapters into this book is that a very definite thematic split exists between the two books. The first book deals exclusively with historical figures, whereas Birth of a Legend's focus is on mythological and/or fictional characters. Naturally there is a slightly fine line to be drawn there, since some mythological figures might be actually true (I'd say the tale of the 300 is an excellent example of this) but in general I think Thompson divides them quite well.
I think overall I don't have a ton of say about the book that I didn't already say in the first. It's very well written with the trademark humor and hyperbole, and the selection of characters is quite well done. It's complemented by a good selection of shorter biographies/histories and many excellent illustrations.
The one issue I have is the selection of some modern fictional people. I quite enjoyed reading a more thorough history of people like Thor and other gods of religions with which I little familiarity; it ended up being very enjoyable as well as informative (to a certain degree). However, I just feel it's weird to include people like "Dirty Harry" Callahan and Darth Vader. It's like taking a character who's written to be badass, and then being like "oh look this purposefully cool character is cool!" I know it's a weird distinction to make, since most mythological figures are similarly engineered, but for whatever reason I was less entertained by the more modern chapters. Perhaps this is also just due to familiarity with the material, but either way these sections just didn't feel quite as good as some others, especially compared to the first book.
The last thing that ended up making the book a super worthwhile read is a bit more personal. I'm currently in the alpha stages of creating a world for an upcoming D&D4E campaign, and reading about so many actual myths and legends of people throughout history was a fantastic way of generating ideas and seeds to appropriate for this homebrewed setting. Thompson conveys the awesomeness (literal use) of these tales much better than, say, a random Wikipedia article, and collects a kind of "best of the best," which makes it an incredibly useful kickstarter to brainstorming. I suspect if I get stuck coming up with a cool event or backstory, I may just open to a random page of this book and read till I find something I like.
Overall the book is still definitely not for everyone, as I can see the style bothering people (especially if you're looking for a completely factual account of something). However, if you're looking for a fun read that's still loosely grounded in fact (as far as anything mythological is grounded in fact) this book is a very fun little read, and to me is way more convenient than staring at the website for the time it took to read the book.
-HTMC
To those readers of this blag who will also be in the fall campaign: this book (and Badass) seem like they could both be very useful for the upcoming campaign we've been discussing.
ReplyDeleteThough you can't be Darth Vader or Captain Kirk in Fate/Stay in the Dungeon.