Heroic Adventures of Junker's and Vailiant

Heroic Adventures of Junker's and Vailiant

Prince Vailiant cannot tell his children apart regardless of age or sex. His best friend Junker's runs a brothel he inherited and considers a sound investment. Their wizard Wyrd is permanently stuck in his astral body after highwaymen robbed and murdered his physical one while he was meditating in another dimension. Together they are, by general consensus, the greatest heroes of their age.

In five stories spanning medieval Europe, the high seas, the Americas, and at least one parallel universe, these three manage to rescue a princess nobody particularly wanted, defeat an evil knight via a St. Martin's Day theological technicality, get abducted by aliens who turn out to want advice on how to become king, sail to the Aztec empire and beat Quetzalcoatl at three-card monte, befriend a tribe of dogheads by throwing sticks for them, and prevent the end of the world using a sesame bun.

Along the way there is a Tartar who keeps raw meat under his saddle, a warrior priestess whose knees give out at inopportune moments, a chair who becomes a distinguished Viking military advisor, a philosophical tapir, a legal expert pony, an enchanted princess who turns out to weigh 440 pounds, and a Florentine vampire who objects to the garlic stereotype on cultural grounds.

Readers who like their absurdism with actual jokes in it, Pratchett, Adams, that general neighbourhood, will feel at home.