On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 1:41:02 PM UTC-4, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
> I am surprised by the lack of any comment as WMC? sparked plenty of
> chat, even with -[S]- tags.
>
> From the "Look Inside" feature of an nefarious e-seller* it is clear
> that there is plenty of real story so what do people think?
>
> *due to an imminent birthday I am on book buying embargo!
>
> --
> Reader in Invisible Writings
> Something to Ponder on!
For what it's worth, I thought it was pretty darned adorable and amusing, personally. I've read it through at least a couple of times. It very much felt like a book that could be written by a Miss Felicity Beedle. It's got a slightly different approach than Where's My Cow?. Definitely more plot and interesting facts, fewer pictures, but still aimed squarely at looking like a children's book.
Without being spoiler-y, this was part of my Amazon review.
"The best way I can describe the book is to call it something of an "in-context joke" that ties in with the events of the latest Discworld novel from the Watch/Vimes series, Snuff. In the Discworld universe, Young Sam is a huge fan of Miss Felicity Beedle's children's books, which tend to focus on the sorts of things that really interest and amuse young readers, like bodily functions. The World of Poo is written completely in "in-universe" style, part seemingly prim, proper and slightly twee Victorian children's author plus a healthy dash of Ankh Morpork matter-of-factness with illustrations to match. Where the previous tie-in, Where's My Cow?, gave a few winks to the fact that it was a Roundworld book based on a book mentioned in a Discworld book, The World of Poo never breaks character. A number of familiar places and familiar character names do pop up in the course of the story.
The tongue remains firmly planted within cheek from start to finish and the tone balances nicely between innocent, wide-eyed parody and informative, gleefully gross children's book."
All that to say, I figure if you enjoy Discworld and/or ever read and enjoyed a "disgusting science/biology" book as a kid and you aren't ashamed to get a good chortle out of one as an adult, you'll likely get plenty of grins. For anyone worried it's all puns, it's not, and there's enough plot and characters to keep things moving along. It's more "earnest young hero scientifically inquires into the science behind X subject and meets people who assist him in his endeavors", to my way of thinking. The illustrations were a treat, too, but I'm given to being fond of children's books with nice illustrations.
It's... well, it's pretty much the book you probably imagined when it was described in Snuff. It's presented as though it were yanked off of Young Sam's bookshelf, right down to the little touches like the "author signature" inside the front cover. I hesitate to discuss it in much more detail, because to me half the fun of reading it was seeing who Geoffrey met along the way and the places he visited, and how the characters come across filtered through a Miss Felicity Beedle attempting to show how they would come across filtered through a young boy. All in all, for a book completely about poo, it's surprisingly tasteful.
Stacie