I made the mistake of reading this third book in the series second (I don't know if it matters yet), but it is another fun solid fantasy parody, and I very much enjoy it.

This time, our intrepid John Justin Mallory (after becoming a permanent resident of the other fantasy New York) has to find a missing Dragon - the top seed in a Dragon Show (think dog show). Still fun, and I still highly recommend it. I think it may even be better than Stalking the Unicorn. ( )

I made the mistake of reading this third book in the series second (I don't know if it matters yet), but it is another fun solid fantasy parody, and I very much enjoy it.

This time, our intrepid John Justin Mallory (after becoming a permanent resident of the other fantasy New York) has to find a missing Dragon - the top seed in a Dragon Show (think dog show). Still fun, and I still highly recommend it. I think it may even be better than Stalking the Unicorn. ( )

The Fable of Tonight series is a great spoof on the hard-boiled noir detective. I laughed all the way through the entire series. I could easily enjoy another trio. ( )

An amusing enough book, and a decent enough mystery, but it annoyed from page 1 to the end. People in a fantasy universe still have to behave in a reasonable way for their universe. To pick on one chapter, in chapter 11, a store owner tries to sell a customer who wants one pound of hamburger 80,000 pounds of diplodocus. Why? No rational reason; apparently it was supposed to be funny. John Justin Mallory (the detective) then goes and threatens the shop owner for information, despite the fact he's supposed to be a contact and you reward contacts for bringing you information. At least you do if you want them to work for you again.

In fact, and this really stuck in my craw, John Justin Mallory threatens everyone he comes across, to the point of invading businesses with a cover charge by force. There's no persuasion or flattery; the one time it really fails, he calls on the Grundy as a threat. However realistic it may be in the setting, and I have a hard time believing that any cheap PI and his cat-girl could get away with it, it's sort of disturbing, especially as the book presents him as hero.

To top this off, the ending is anti-climatic; Mallory has to show Fluffy in the ring, and spends 15 pages in doing it without drama. An appendix full of random in-world stuff is tacked on, giving Resnick a chance to make cheap shots at Democrats and Obama in particular (and really what the hell?), finishing off with a four page bio that makes him out to be the greatest science-fiction author of all time. ( )

This is the third volume in Mike Resnick’s "A Fable of Tonight" series. Private detective John Justin Mallory is hired to find a prize winning toy dragon named Fluffy before the Eastminster Dragon Club show. Besides his partner Winnifred and his cat-person Felina, he is joined by an amorous talking cell phone, a martial artist goblin, a zombie named Dead End Dugan, and an eating machine by the name of Gently Gently Dawkins. They spend 24 hours combing Manhattan for Fluffy, visiting dive bars, haunted hotels, a wax museum where the figures are animated, and an emporium that specializes in strange and unusual items.

This is a clever, funny and sometimes irreverent story. The novel is mostly dialog and easy to read. Malory’s character is a regular guy stuck in an irregular Manhattan. The main focus of the story is all of the outrageous things that people in this fairytale metropolis find ordinary. ( )