ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DUNGEON: A REVIEW

Greg Costikyan is mostly known among tabletop gamers and collectors as a fine game designer which has under his belt great titles such as Star Wars The Roleplaying Game (D6 version) RPG, Paranoia RPG, Web & Starship (a sci fi boardgame for three players) and Pax Britannica (a historical boardgame during the age of colonial empire building). He has however a small career as fiction author with four books published so far (and now out of print), two of them forming a 'duology' paroding Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy RPGs in general: Another Day, Another Dungeon (the object of this review) and One Quest, Hold the Dragons. The first book was first published in 1990 and perhaps attempted to capitalize on the popularity of game related novels, especially the ones from TSR, buth with a different approach: satire. 

Another Day, Another Dungeon is not a novel but a collection of two separate (but linked) tales, "Another Dungeon" (the first one) and "Another Day" (the second one, far longer) using the same group of characters as protagonists. The book is set in the city of Uri Durfal, capitol of the Great Duchy of Athelstan 'ruled' by Grand Duke Mortimer ("the world's greatest mycologist"), were we find a bizarre group of adventurers put together by Timeus d'Asperge, a Fire Wizards that decides to have a go at adventuring exploring the dreaded Caverns of Cytorax (this is the plot of "Another Dungeon"). Not having an adventuring group, he contracts a specialist firm to put together one (including the owners of said firm) but being the Caverns apparently an extremely dangerous place the members of the group are not best and brightest in the field of adventuring (just have a look at the back cover image). Anyway, after avoiding tourist traps such as duty free shops near the dungeon entrance and hiring a 'friendly' lizardman tourist guide (Lenny), they enter the Caverns. Of course, this being a dungeon, there are levels, traps, monsters, secret doors,  'incidents' with spells, there is treasure, betrayal... Despite all of this, the adventurers manage to reach the exit of the Caverns to confront an even bigger danger: Customs (all the loot is taxed in the name of Grand Duke Mortimer) and Paperwork, an enemy to be confronted with Money, Guile and Corruption. The characters win this confrontation too and so they end not just rich in coins and jewels but bring to the city an amazing magical statue, an artefact worth of entire kingdoms and of course a big source of trouble.... In the second novel, "Another Day", a lot of factions attempt to get (some of them are so desperate to be ready to pay for it) the statue which is magically linked to the last Human emperor of the past, including an envoy of the Evil Empire which has stirred and attacked some human realms (not yet the Grand Duchy) and of course does not want any united Human resistance. The adventurers need to understand exactly what the statue is, how it was created, the way to use it and so thwarting the schemes of the envoy which has access to the highest echelons of power in Athelstan. At the end of the novel some of the secrets of the statue are discovered, the evil plot is defeated with the envoy of the Evil Empire fleeing, but the adventurers need to go in the Evil Empire itself and try to fathom what happened there a long, long time ago during some king of awesome magic ritual.

The plot of the first novel is quite simple, while the one (considerably longer) of the second tale is far more interesting, but the main interest of Another Day, Another Dungeon is the humour: the book is a parody of Dungeons & Dragons and gamers will surely recognize a lot of elements of the game, warped and distorted in a funny way. This is, mind you, not a Terry Pratchett style novel - it does not contain social satire or social commentary - it's simply but refreshingly a fun book to read in some hours. Albeit it's out of print since decades, is easy to find on line at very reasonable prices - we strongly suggest picking up a copy.