Sunday, August 14, 2016

Book Review: Badass--Ultimate Deathmatch


If you dislike pulp/comic book style prose, over-the-top anachronistic descriptions and constant references to causing injury to male genitalia, then Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch is not for you.

This mass-mayhem version follows the same template as the first Badass book I reviewed, but involves includes everything from lone stands by solitary heroes (or villains, depending on your point of view) to major battles and all-out wars.  (I skipped over book #2, Badass: The Birth of a Legend, about gods and myths).

The common theme in all these tales is that the heroes are outnumbered, but decide to fight rather than choose discretion-is-the-better-part-of-valor option.  Not every badass lived to a ripe old age, but they earned everlasting renown for their exploits.

While highly entertaining, Badass:  Ultimate Deathmatch suffers from over-generalizations to outright inaccuracies.  Despite this shortcoming, I still learned about obscure battles and badasses throughout history and even within my lifetime.

Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch enjoys a 4.2-star rating on Amazon.com.  Out of nearly 200 readers, 27 thought the book sucked (1-2 stars), 13 thought it was okay (3-stars), 24--including me--thought it was good (4-stars), while a whopping 132 felt it was badass awesome (5-stars).

I'd consider Badass:  Ultimate Deathmatch awesome too, if the outright inaccuracies were minimized.

The website, Badass of the Week can still be found on-line.

(Full cover art for Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch)

2 comments:

DeanM said...

Although I cannot officially condone the authors profuse use of profanity - I really enjoy his writing style. It is highly engaging, humorous yet factually descriptive. Besides I had a college professor (history) who said a properly placed expletive can really get the point across, or words to that effect :)

Ted Henkle said...

I try to limit the use of profanity in my own writings, but like you, if it fits another author's style, I don't mind reading it, and even enjoy it.
The author's more recent books are the "Guts & Glory" series, which I'm sure are written in a similar manner.