Well, that was amusing. Kinda predictable humor, given the premise, but very funny nonetheless. If it weren't for the humor, it would really drag, but most of the point of this book is the humor.

No, it's not very deep. Formulaic fantasy, so much so that it even makes fun of itself and its genre (the protagonist realizes what he's supposed to do from his knowledge of fantasy literature, with some martial arts movies thrown in).

What depth the book does have is about growing out of being a self-absorbed teenager. (I grew out of being a teenager chronologically a long time ago, but still struggle with the self-absorbed part.) The moral lessons, hackneyed though they are, don't come across as preachy, even though they are pounded in, because of the humor. At least that's the way it felt to me.

A very quick read, and pretty cheap as an e-book, so why not? At $0.99, it's probably less than the amortized cost of your tablet and the electricity you used and the food your brain consumed while reading it.

This is not at all like anything else Jack Campbell wrote, at least that I've read. His other stories (The Lost Fleet, Pillars of Reality) have occasional moments of character-based humor, but here character-based humor is the only thing there is. ( )