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🧙 Most Frolicsome Soviet Wizards R Us Buddy Read (MFSWRUBR��) with Evgeny (aka He Who Forces Me To Read All This Russian Stuff Against My Nefarious Will) 🧙

Actual rating: 8.568426 stars

⚠️ This crappy non-review is a disgraceful disgrace, and a revolting insult to the Greatness that is this book. Thou hast been warned and stuff.

There’s really just one thing you need to know about this Slightly Very Good Book (SVGB��): the characters in it work at a place called NITWITT. Don’t believe me? Check this out:



Ha! Now if that isn’t the best incentive to read a story ever, I don’t know what is. And for those of you who show spectacular lack of judgement think this frolicsome NITWITT business isn’t reason enough to pick this SVGB�� up, here are a few things that better might entice you to read it post haste:

�� Evgeny might unleash his Villainously Villainous Minions (VVM��) on you if you don’t. (Given that I am one of said minions, expect a friendly visit from the murderous crustaceans pronto and stuff.) But hey, no pressure and stuff.

�� NITWITT stands for National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. I want to work there when I grow up. Because it is ��gloriously, colorfully and perfectly believably dysfunctional.�� Meaning complete, utter, delicious wackiness abounds, and the place is packed with complete loonies (aka one of the mostest gloriousest cast of characters ever). In other words, the perfect work environment for my nefarious little self and stuff.



Yeah, more or less. Only that NITWIIT has magic tablecloths, flying carpets, people who can spell ‘ghoul�� properly (don’t ask), mermaids that clamber around in trees, pseudo-monkeys in white coats, a Department of Linear Happiness, truckloads of herring heads, a Department of Militant Atheism, caps of darkness, working models of gravitational seven-league boots, breeches of darkness, and self-playing psalteries. But no magic divan, I’m afraid. Anyway, moving on and stuff.

�� There’s a slightly unbalanced cat who suffers from memory loss, a condition that drives him slightly a little nuts sometimes. Also, he sings and tells the most fascinating stories. Well the parts he remembers, anyway.

‘And in the field, the fiaowld,�� he sang, ‘the pliaow runs of itself, and mmm-eh �� mmmiaow, and following that pliaow �� mmiaow �� Our Lord himself does walk �� or stalk?��

�� Hahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahaha. Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha �� I think this kinda sorta means this book made me laugh some. Not much though. Just a little bit and stuff.

�� Baba Yaga FTW! Okay, so my favorite grandma isn’t at her best here, what with her broomstick being in a museum and her flying mortar not getting repaired, but she’s still the coolest, most fun-loving gram ever, if you ask me.



See what I mean?

�� Evgeny read this book too many as many times as I’ve read Burn for Me. This should tell you something. Yes, it should.

�� There’s a pike that has rheumatism and speaks in a strong northern Russian accent. (Which I am told is a teensy little bit unusual for a pike.) So QED and stuff.

�� Merlin (yes, Merlin) is head of the Department of Predictions and Prophecies. And has lots of interesting stuff to say about his fight against Yankee imperialism back in the Middle Ages *waves at Mark Twain* Also, he has a miracle cure for radiculitis. I kid you not.

�� Scrumptiously Scrumptious Stuff (S³) galore: service personnel imps + flying-broom squadrons and the Hundred Years�� War + ifrits trained as flame-throwing anti-elephant pursuit battalions by King Solomon Himself and In The Flesh + printers that, um, you know, print stuff like ��I’m thinking. Please do not disturb�� + macrodemons called Entrance and Exit who play roulette + parrots that were cremated tomorrow and no longer exist but come back asking for sugar + cadavers whose total scientific value is “quite clearly zero�� + cumbersome copper aquavitometers =



Get it? Good.

�� Nefarious Last Words (NLW��): this book in a nutshell? Alice's in Wonderland meets Doorways in the Sand meets the Marx Brothers�� cabin. I rest in my case and stuff.

P.S. I have to say that my Evil Russian Translator of a Nemesis Andrew Bromfield managed not to mess the translation up this time did a pretty good job with this translation. Color me slightly discombobulated and stuff. So kudos to him and stuff.



[Pre-review nonsense]

So much original originality, so much hilarious hilarity.

So much delicious nonsense, so much scrumptious absurdity.

So much brilliant wit, so much scintillating cleverness.

How dare some puny humans compare this Slightly Very Wondrous Book (SVWB��) to Harry Potter and Discworld?! (I have nothing against Little Harry, but DISCWORLD?! *starts convulsing a little*) This is most outrageously outrageous indeed, and calls for immediate, ruthless retaliation, if you ask me.



�� Full review to come. Someday. When pigs have wings, chickens have teeth, and crayfish whistle on the mountain. Maybe.