A Phule and His Money by Robert Asprin with Peter J. Heck

Read this at my grandmother's and on the plane ride home.  Plus some to/from LA.

The Phule books aren't quite as fun as Asprin's early Myth books were.  There's certainly plenty of fun stuff in them, but the large number of characters tends to dilute them a bit.  I really liked the first Phule's Company book, but the rest seem to have struggled to find something for all these characters to do.  They introduced some new characters in this book, overloading that facet even more.  All of these new legionaires are not human, and are super-fast and agile.  The humans are pathetic next to them.  Somehow, that kind of grates.  Not quite sure why.

Also, if you don't read the books in order, or if it has been years since you read the previous title, then it's a little tough to catch up to the opening setting.  There are a lot of references back to earlier escapades, most of which I don't remember.   This book is split nearly evenly between two locations.  The Vegas-like station which is where I guess they left off in the previous book.  And a planet that is renowned for its amusement parks and roller coasters, but is in the midst of a recession and a civil war.

I seem to have a sense that the various characters' escapades meshed together better in the previous books than they do in this one.  Each seems nearly disconnected from all of the others.  Somehow the book didn't flow from one scene to the next very well.

Asprin did manage to retain a sense of Phule's ability to find innovative solutions to his company's morale and to address his assignment.

On Mighty's Total Book Value Scale, Half Price.  Split into two locations, both seemed a bit light.

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