Journal of an Outlaw

By: Mick McArt

Narrated by: Faust Kells

Journal of an Outlaw is a comedic take on the fantasy genre.

It is a book with 120 journal entries that tell you the adventures on an unnamed rogue in the Unremembered Realms. The book has numerous winks to Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, roleplaying games, World of Warcraft, social media, Wizards of the Coast, board games, and many others. The author treats these with love and respect, but also with a tongue-in-cheek approach that fans of the fantasy genre will truly appreciate.

The book is meant for adults, but the humor is safe for kids to hear. The references and situations that the Outlaw finds himself in will have you listening on to see what other mess he's gotten himself into.

©2017 Mick McArt (P)2017 Mick McArt

Very Punny!

Pun for all ages! If you enjoy all things fantasy, roll playing, and adventure based this a book for you. Faust does an amazing job narrating this journal of a nameless outlaw with great voices and impressions. Through short entries the outlaw takes you with him on his many adventures and random encounters he has experienced. From looting dungeons, battling smelly druids, to back stabbing any creature standing in the way of a payday. Plenty of humor and Easter eggs related to many types of pop culture sprinkled throughout. A fun book that is well worth your time even if you are just taking a break between campaigns. Looking forward to second volume and the related board games that are currently in development from McArt!

GIve it a shot.

I took a shot on this book and then almost gave up on it a little ways in. Thankfully, I was too lazy to take the effort of returning it and choosing a new book, because it actually got quite entertaining.

The book is more entertaining than it is funny. I didn’t laugh out loud or anything like that, but it was a good way to kill time. The reason I almost returned it was because it started out pretty rough with each little entry basically ending with “lulz, so I stabbed him in the back.” Once that was out of the way it was filled with all kinds of puns and references to nerd gaming (tabletop and digital) conventions and tropes.

I recommend this to anyone that’s a fan of fantasy games and want to kill some time. And I hope there are more books with this kind of super short fiction writing.

A geekgasm of fantasy humor

This is a rare book that combines fantasy with modern references, with the humor squarely centered on MMO's, RPG's, and other such things you might expect. It is written in a journal format, which allows you to read it in easy to digest chunks. You'll probably want to read it all the way through in one sitting, but thankfully you'll be able to break off whenever you want.

The story is light and fast paced, and of course, full of funny. You will love the characters, and enjoy the plot of the story as it unfolds. In one way, this kind of reminds me of Gene Wolfe's Soldier series, in which an amnesiac keeps a written journal so that he will know what he has done each day. I think that I just enjoy journal books, actually. Anyway, this is a great piece of fantasy unto itself, even if you don't get the humor.

Faust Kells hammers the narration home like a rivet gun. He provides the humor flawlessly, with perfect comedic timing, I might add, and plays the characters like he was a one man broadway show. I'd love to see a book two in the future. Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. In fact, getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.

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a few times where I cracked a smile

“Journal of an Outlaw” is a satirical comedy written by Mick McArt giving the listener a view into the life of a rogue fantasy game character who finds himself in a land called the Unremembered Realms.  The book is narrated by Faust Kells who has a few other fantasy type books performed under his name, and I liked his voice and narrating on this book.  It was my first time listening to an audiobook by this narrator.  If you like stories poking fun at not only other fantasy literature but also include such items as D&D, social media, along with many modern items, you may find the book enjoyable.  For me, I found it to be too disjointed and the humor overall not very whimsical even with fantasy books being my favorite genre.  I will say that I liked the artwork of the book’s cover, it drew me into wanting to listen and learn who this odd character was.

The book contains one-hundred and twenty (120) journal entries which the author says are not told in chronological order.  Yet, many of the later records reference items from earlier sections and you can feel the progression as the book moves along.  These journals entries are simply small vignettes, or snippets, where I would have preferred the story to be told in a more traditional fashion. Although there were a few times where I cracked a smile, I found the flow of the story to be difficult to follow and the humor felt forced and often crude in nature.   But, as a whole, the story was quite imaginative and unique in the way it was presented to the listener.  It must have taken some time for the author to create all the various quips, puns, and pokes for the various events you will experience in the book.

I liked that the author included many of the known fantasy tropes such as troll and even maintained their known weakness against such things as fire.  He seemed quite knowledgeable in fantasy works.  A few of the creatures were unique while others were what one expects generally to find in a book of this category.  I enjoyed the scene with the gelatinous cube as I have myself faced such a creature in my own role-playing adventures.  The characters themselves I found to be rather non-dimensional and flat.  I understand that in a book consisting of only journal entries, you will not have a lot of narrative or backstory to fill in these important details.  What you do learn of the main character, the author of the journal, is that he is quite the outlaw with very few morals.  He is a rather selfish character who is always looking out for number one, even during battles.  The audiobook has promise, I would have liked to have had more depth and complexity than simply all humor; understanding this was a piece of satire.

The audiobook’s narration was well done with only a few noticeable audio artifacts; mainly swallowing which was not edited out.  Nothing that would prevent you from listening though.  The volume of the book was consistent from the start to finish, and I do not recall any other issues with the audio itself.  The narrator’s voice was believable as the main character and even the other characters he voiced along the way.  I look forward to hearing future narrated books to see if they are as well performed.

For parents and younger readers, as the author himself says, the book is really intended to be listened to by adults.  Yet, some of the gaming and fantasy humor will be picked up by younger readers, I think much of it will be over their heads.  As stated earlier, some of the humor is rather crude and may not be suitable for younger readers.

In summary, I liked the short chapters (journal entries) as it made consuming the book easier when large blocks of time could not be set aside for listening.  I really wish this was told more in a traditional story with more depth and character development than it was.  I think one can still have a fair amount of humor and satire told in a story more than the numerous journal entries.  I do have to give the author credit for thinking outside the box and attempting to tell the story in this way.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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scatological

if you enjoyed Critical Failures xxxx for the boyish humor then you'll probably enjoy this. Otherwise skip it.