The Soddit: Or, Let's Cash in Again

by Adam Roberts

Book Overview

Bingo Grabbins is a soddit who enjoys a comfortable life (apart from his feet, of course). But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandef, and a company of bizarrely Welsh dwarves drag him away on an adventure.
They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard (or so they say) guarded by Smug, a large and very tedious dragon. Bingo is reluctant to take part in this insane venture, but a dwarven dagger held to his throat soon surprises even...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316213950
• ISBN13: 9780316213950
• Release Date: September 2012
• Publisher: Orbit
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.3" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

A Hobbit with a vengeance

Like every Soddit Bingo Grabbins enjoys a comfortable life and violently attacks anyone who dares to endanger this goal, as long as the opposition is much smaller than him, that is. Indeed Bingo can be a real pain in a dark cave, certainly when one treads on his extremely painful feet. So it is no wonder that when Gandef and his company of brainless Welsh dwarves force him to go on a long and tedious adventure that Bingo is far from happy and never misses an opportunity to make this very clear. And wouldn't one agree that he has reasons enough: wasn't it indeed Gandef who completely ruined Bingo's front door with a magical spell gone haywire? And by the way, the dwarves claim that they are on mission to find enormous amounts of free gold. Well, Bingo does not believe this to be the real purpose of their quest. They are probably out just to get in some real painful trouble and how Bingo pities his painful feet. Although The Soddit hints at being a parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, it basically only uses the characters of that masterpiece of fantasy and tells a completely different story. True, Gandef and Bingo do go on a quest (although no one knows what the real purpose is), but that is about where the similarities end. In a way not following the original story has been a good decision, because it gives the reader the enjoyment of not knowing what will happen next. On the other side it also reveals that the author while writing the story never really had an ending in mind and just went along to see what the story would turn out to be. But then again, this kind of book is made by its puns and jokes, and The Soddit is really packed full with them. Of course not all of them are as funny as they were intended, but on average it has enough successful ones to make this book an enjoyable and hilarious read.

Funny, If Different From the Original

This book is a parody of The Hobbit, incase you couldnt tell from the book's title. This book focuses on comedy rather than following along with Tolkien's original classic, there is a feeling that Tolkien provided the insparation for this novel but, the characters and the story arent like those in the Hobbit, which is the the norm for a parody. The humor, though a bit weak at times, was virtually non-stop. This was the only reason reason that this book earned five stars from me. The humor was the main reason I purchased this book, there were laughs and many puns. The characters were well developed and there were many details. This book is worth its money and it should be read with, not instead of, the Hobbit. The Hobbit gives you the background for the tale and you can distinguish between characters far more easily, but, nontheless, this is a very entertaining book, thats it. There isnt any true literary value other than the fact that it makes fun of a great book and will make you laugh yourself to sleep. Buy it, or at least, borrow it from your local "hobbit-hole" library.