Bored of the Rings
The Harvard Lampoon
160 pages
published in 1969

Okay, I admit it, I only bought this because people kept reading out the funny bits on rec.arts.sf.written -how was I to know that those were the only funny bits? As you may have guessed, this is a Harvard Lampoon parody of The Lord of the Rings, but not a particularly funny one. Since the Harvard Lampoon gave birth to the National Lampoon which in turn caused a series of not very funny "comedies" with Chevvy Chase playing prominent roles, this shouldn't have been a surprise.

What a good parody does is holding up a funhouse mirror to the original, distorting its features while still being recognisable a takeoff of the original. A good parody should also stand on its own enough to be enjoyable without you having read the original. It should be more then just a string of jokes in a familiar setting.

Which is where Bored of the Rings fails. It parodies The Lord of the Rings by making every character in the book revulsive, cowardly and criminal and then faithfully duplicateds LotR's quest. Which may seem like a good idea, but the trouble with it is that the whole storyline of LotR then doesn't make sense anymore. Where's the motivation for Fritos to go on this big and dangerous quest if he's such a cowardly creep? Apart from that, most of the jokes just aren't funny. The best are the "teaser" chapter at the start of the book and the "NOT the book of the movie" inscirption on the front of the new edition.

In all, if you're looking for a good funny Lord of the Rings parody looks elsewhere. If your tastes run to fratboy humour not done very well, this is the book for you, but you're better off renting Revenge of the Nerds.