{"id":17765,"date":"2019-02-06T09:29:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T17:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/?p=17765"},"modified":"2019-01-29T19:40:59","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T03:40:59","slug":"inapt-review-combos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2019\/02\/06\/inapt-review-combos\/","title":{"rendered":"Inapt review combos"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>I recently read Tom Holt\u2019s 1987 fantasy novel <cite>Expecting Someone Taller<\/cite>. On the front cover is this blurb:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\u201cRECALLS BOTH TOLKIEN\u2019S <cite>LORD OF THE RINGS<\/cite> AND TWAIN\u2019S <cite>CONNECTICUT YANKEE<\/cite> \u2026 AN ENTERTAINING ROMP!\u201d \u2014<cite>Publisher\u2019s Weekly<\/cite><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>I\u2019ve never been terribly fond of the style of review where you describe a work as a cross between two other works, but I can put up with it when the combination comparison is reasonably apt. But this one is just wrong. The novel recalls <cite>Lord of the Rings<\/cite> in that it features a magic ring that can turn you invisible, and <cite>Connecticut Yankee<\/cite> in that it\u2019s a comedy set in Britain. Aside from those superficial facts, it bears no resemblance to either of the cited works.<\/p>\r\n<p>Which amused me enough to want to turn it into a game.<\/p>\r\n<p>So your task is to describe a work in terms of two other works that are almost but not quite entirely unlike the work you\u2019re describing.<\/p>\r\n<p>(I\u2019m quoting Douglas Adams here in passing because the Holt book is far far more like Adams than it is like either Tolkien or Twain.)<\/p>\r\n<p>Example:<\/p>\r\n<p><cite>A Wizard of Earthsea<\/cite> is like <cite>Harry Potter<\/cite> [wizard school] crossed with <cite>Titanic<\/cite> [boats].<\/p>\r\n<p>You may, or may not, find the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/logos\/things\/aplusb\/aplusb.html\">A + B = Awesome<\/a> pitchbot useful in coming up with works to compare to.<\/p>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","category-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17765"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17768,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17765\/revisions\/17768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}