I can very clearly remember when I first read this book. It was in the large print section of the local library and I was enthralled by the weird swamp creature and dragon on the front cover. I borrowed it and devoured it over the course of a week or so and loved every minute of it. I think I was about ten.

Ever since then I’ve been trying to get a copy for myself but it was out of print and copies were quite expensive. So when I saw that they were publishing a new run of it, and illustrated by Phil Foglio, who also does Girl Genius, I knew I had to have it. After all this was an amazing comedic fantasy series, on the level of Terry Pratchett!

Or so I thought. And after having read it again, older and more experienced, I have to admit that it isn’t on that level. It is very good though.

Skeeve is apprenticed to the magician Garkin, though he’s not particularly good at magic. In an attempt to inspire his apprentice and show him what magic can really do Garkin summons a demon from a different plane of existence. However, an assassin kills him before the summoning can be completed (and dies in the process) leaving Skeeve alone with the demon.

Who, it turns out, is a friend of Garkin and was mostly summoned here as a joke. A joke the old magician took too far, because the demon, called Aahz, has had his powers sealed in the summoning and now people are after them. So he need to take over the teaching of Skeeve while tracking down the mysterious figure who is after them.

This is not a long book, it’s got about 212 pages, and the plot doesn’t go super in depth with anything. But it’s fun, the jokes and comedy mostly land and getting through it is pretty light and breezy. While, as I said, not up to Terry Pratchett’s send up of society it does a good job of playing around with common fantasy tropes and working them into new ways. The ending was a little abrupt but there’s apparently a lot more to the series after this and I’m looking forward to reading them.

At the end of the day it is just a fun romp. I can see everything that my younger self loved about it and I’ve not changed so much that I can’t say that I enjoyed it to.