Item - Voyage of Terror

It's kind of a shame I didn't pick up more of the books in this series when I was younger, as I feel I would have enjoyed them, especially given I am British so the quirky humor and settings would likely appeal to me. Regardless this was the only book in the Grailquest series I owned. It's a bit of a departure from the usual Arthurian England setting in favor of an accidental time travel trip back to Greek Legends - which as a kid I was hugely into, so this was a great story.

You are Pip, a local hero in Camelot who has defeated several dangers before, though in reality you're actually yourself, just transplanted into Pip's body via magic... except this time there's been a bit of a mix up. After an initial introduction on a hijacked boat the rest of the book involves you teaming up with the Argonauts (remember them?) to seek both the Golden Fleece and a way for you to get back to Camelot (where a pesky Saxon Invasion is happening and Arthur has lost Excalibur, but more on that in the next book I never owned). This naturally leads to numerous adventures on islands with various unpleasant Greek monsters like Harpys and Sirens, plus the more odd stuff you can expect to pop up from time to time in this series (Long John Silver turns up at one point!) with all the dangers of being sent to the dreaded paragraph 14 (i.e. dead in Grailquest). Without knowing much about how the other books in the series compare, I quite enjoyed it; clearly the author relished having a new era to set the series in as a one-off story whilst still maintaining some of the usual mechanics like risking gaining health via sleep with the Dreamtime (which involves dreams which can actually kill you, yikes) and characters like the scatter brained Merlyn the Wizard. The adventure is nicely spaced out with the boat acting as a tutorial and then the wider quest seeing you visit islands as a means to get home. I could see myself trying out the other books, especially since I enjoyed the humor more than perhaps American audiences might!

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