I think this title had a lot of potential, but I got bored. By the time we got to the dragon's world, I really didn't feel the need to continue the story. The dragon was interesting, but the main character was so blah. Maybe it was that I didn't feel like his motivations were strong enough to push the story. Just trying to get an idea for a game wasn't enough to pique my interest in the plot. He needed more motivation for it to appeal to me.

And when you title a book "Pundragon", I expect multiple puns all the time. They were very few and far between.

Ian MacDonald has a problem. Actually, he has a lot of problems. Rather than making money as a game designer, he is back in a small Canadian town as a reporter for the local newspaper. He has no ideas for a new game to restart his career. Then a hot pink dragon named Ether Pundragon woke him up in the middle of the night needing help. Who knew that duct tape was the perfect solution to reattaching wing scales? And so Ian followed Ether across the boundary into Connectome where animals make bets on falling humans, dwarves go on quests, and cabins supply what you need most. As Ether tells Ian, basically, Connectome is where the products of human imagination come to life. But not just the good ideas; the bad ones are around as well. And Ian need to help stop The Creature that is threatening the rest of Connectome before he can go home. It reminds me of a humorous spin on Silverlock, but not nearly so long or literary. A fun romp of a read!

Small-town Canadian reporter Ian McDonald is just trying to get through the day, when a hot pink dragon named Ether crashes into his life. Hoping to cure his case of writer's block, Ian follows Ether back to his world, the Connectome, and well, chaos ensues.

Oof. It's clear what this is trying to be - a winking take on fantasy, stuffed with pop culture references, wordplay, and bad puns. But reading something like this makes you realize that what people like Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams did is *really* *hard* because when it fails, it fails badly. This is just over the top and obvious, and any of the mildly humorous jokes are ruined by being shouted at you from miles away.

As the title suggests, this is a very gently punny book, and an overall enjoyable romp through another dimension that explores the overflow of human paraphernalia and its repercussions, and subtly implores people to aspire to more positive outcomes.

However, especially towards the latter part of the book, that romp does become a tad tiresome through the sheer volume of material. The reader knows something is going to happen, and anticipates a grand confrontation, but like trying to navigate through a graveyard of shipwrecks to get to the island harbor, it takes a bit of patience. The ending was reasonably satisfying, and there wasn't a huge plot twist deus ex machina style; it made sense within the scope of the book and was an optimistic conclusion to the story.

Is pink - sorry hót pink dragon Ether real?
Or is he just a figment of Ian's imagination?
In the end it all comes down to the same thing
Just read and enjoy Clarke's humorous creation!

We meet Ian Laughlin MacDonald when he celebrates his 30th birthday in the little town of Teisburg.
Working as a reporter for the newspaper The Express, he often thinks about his successful former job as a writer of game storylines. In the past he had a work-for-hire contract clause, but now he tries to write a new game storyline that he could sell or license to a studio for royalties.

"But the screen remained resolutely blank, and the little blinky-flashy line on the page went blithely on wit hits business, blinking and flashing and mocking him. He felt like swearing at it and wondered if that was why it was called a cursor."

But inspiration lacks …
Till one day he wakes up at midnight and notices there's a dragon in his bedroom.

“Riiight,” the dragon said. “Let’s start with the basics.” It cleared its throat.
“Me dragon, you not.”
Still sleepy, Ian nodded. “Okay.”
“I have a problem. You’re going to help me.”
More alert, Ian said, “Why would I do that?”
“More basics: me big, you little.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No. It’s a subtly worded construction designed to elicit optimum cooperation with only a minimum of coercive pressure.”

Dragon Ether is one of a kind.
Not only does he really stand out with his hot pink colour, but he has a fantastic sense of humour as well.

"I promise I won’t bite.
I generally swallow people whole.”

In the course of the story he goes on an adventure with Ian.
On a real fantastical quest actually.
Well, sort of.

“No, no.” Ether shook his big head. “When someone is trudging through the woods, wet, cold, wounded, etcetera and in need of shelter. Something always comes up, but not until that someone starts to despair. Are you despairing yet?”

As you'll discover along the story, Ether is really a champion in delivering puns.

“This flower. It’s … smiling at me.”
Ether throtted back to see. “Oh, of course. Those are twolips.”

Those puns are so much fun!
There are really many of them and it's such a joy to recognize the books, movies, characters, … they're refering to.
Author Chandra Clarke proves to have a very broad general knowledge, because a lot of the jokes refer to international themes (like Danish hygge, Greek Socrates, several Asian mythologies, England's Shakespeare and James Bond, …).
There are so much inspiring jokes and laughable situations in this story, that it's possible to talk about them for hours.
But instead of discussing them further, it's just better to discover them for yourself. That way you'll enjoy this humorous journey even more ;-)

Ian glanced back at the dragon. “What’s our greatest invention? You mean like the wheel or something?”
“No. The novel.”

Although the innumerable puns and other jokes could totally hijack this novel, that's not the case.
In fact, they're woven beautifully together and there's actually a good story underneath it all that takes the whole to a higher level.

"Let’s imagine that Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and the Monty Python guys would have met in a pub, and after a considerable amount of beers, decided to write a modern version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The result could have been ‘Pundragon’."

This is a quote from another reviewer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/345269931
It perfectly captures the overall impression this story leaves on its readers.

"ChandraKClarke.com is my space for writing humourous short pieces about science, life, technology, and parenting, and occasionally, more serious posts about things like business and the environment.
My partner, Terence Johnson (the best British import since the Aston Martin), and I founded Scribendi.com, an award-winning editing and proofreading company, which was acquired in 2017. We currently own Inklyo.com, an online writing courses company, and a fun little boardgames cafe.
Together we’re raising four children and a couple of dogs. We think they're pretty awesome, but we might be biased."

This description can be found on Chandra Clarke's author page on Goodreads.
Are you curious to know more about her other work, her sources of inspiration, …?
Feel free to head over to my interview with her: https://world-of-tau.blogspot.com/2020/09/pundragon.html


*Thanks to NetGalley and Tiger Maple Publishing for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Description
Ian McDonald is trying very hard not to think about how the world might be going to hell in a handbag. After all, what’s he going to be able to do about it? He’s just this guy, stuck in a small town, pinned there by a load of student debt and a stalled writing career. Oh, and a wicked case of writer’s block. Or at least he was, until a dragon showed up in his bedroom. At midnight. Quoting Freud and muttering about the space-time continuum.

So of course, Ian must Make a Choice and decide whether he wants to follow the dragon back into the Connectome and find his muse again, or stay in a house that surely wants to kill him, one repair bill at a time.

Follow Ian on a rollicking adventure, where he finds out that he can make a difference. And that some things are worth fighting for. Even if all you have is a can opener.

My Review
This is the first book I have read by Chandra Clarke. Pundragon was not what I expected, it was actually better. It was a fun read which included humor which made it quite enjoyable. There were puns and the story-line was easy to follow.

This ARC was provided to me in exchange for my honest opinion. I highly recommend Pundragon!!

Let’s imagine that Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and the Monty Python guys would have met in a pub, and after a considerable amount of beers, decided to write a modern version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The result could have been ‘Pundragon’. The book submerges readers in a fantasy world, inhabited by both everyday animals and weird creatures who can all speak, with on top of that a potpourri of absurd ideas. The impressive bit is that it all came out of the mind of only one person. Puns are literally everywhere in this book. It’s hilarious, but also tiring at times. If Chandra Clarke happens to be as nuts as the characters in her book, one might start feeling sorry for the people surrounding her ...

The book is not about putting as many puns as possible in a few hundreds of pages though. It actually contains a real story, in which our society is mildly criticized. The same is done with habits and beliefs that a majority of people considers normal but that are actually pretty weird and based on very little, once you start thinking about it. Clarke did the thinking for us and turned her findings into a smart and entertaining plot. This is not the kind of fantasy I usually read. Mostly I read dark and dystopic books, but this one was worth the exception because I was very entertained by it. It’s well written, intelligent, and relaxing in its funniness.

Ian's life is a bit of a mess right now; house needing a lot of repairs, a job he's not happy with, and a serious case of writer's block. Then a hot pink dragon shows up at his house, needing help. If you like adventure and puns you might like this story. It's well-written and sometimes made me laugh out loud.

It's rare for me to encounter a comic fantasy (other than Terry Pratchett, of course) that I actually find funny. I found this one funny, though, and I'm glad I picked it up from Netgalley, having earlier reviewed the author's more serious <i>Echoes of Another: A Novel of the Near Future</i> and found it enjoyable.

What often lets "funny" fantasy down is that the protagonists aren't too bright, and nor, often, are the authors, meaning that the humour can be heavy-handed and overly obvious. This author has (for my taste) a good level of judgement for when to let the reader pick up on the joke for themselves.

There are, as the title hints, lots of puns. That's not to everyone's taste, but I personally love clever wordplay, and the puns here are that. The punning is done with restraint, too; there aren't dozens of them used to paper over weak spots in the plot, as I sometimes see in so-called funny fantasy.

The other thing about a comedy for me is that, in order to work, it needs (like Dorothy's companions) a brain and a heart and a bit of courage. This book has all three. The prose shows some skill, there are clever bits that aren't trying to be too clever, it has a strong emotional arc, and it's not afraid to tackle a couple of serious issues among the comedy. The protagonist learns a lot from his portal-fantasy trip, and becomes a better person. And I cheered for the critique of grimdark fantasy, as well.

Recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this eARC
Ian’s life is a bit of a mess. He is in job he hates, living in a town he hates and his house is falling down around him. After yet another boring day of reporting on stories that he had no interest in he wakes in the middle of the night to a pink dragon called Ether sitting in his room. This book made me laugh most of the way through. Although it did have a serious side it as well about the history of the world and the changes that it has gone through as well as Ian’s and Ether’s self discovery and realisation of who they are.