Having filed Sideboob early, I’ve spent most of the day going back through the Dave Hooper novels to prep for a Dave and Threshy Christmas special. Man, those things were… different. I can sort of see at this remove why Pan Mac freaked the fuck out. They are a long way from the Axis of Time books and even further from Felafel.
I was taken aback by how dense the lore of the UnderRealms was. And although they preceded the Great Derangement of our now never-ending culture war, I can see why whole classes of reader would have been alienated by Dave as a narrator. But also why others loved him. I’d forgotten he shagged Jennifer Aniston.
Still, I’d love to get the IP back. I reckon it could make a great indie series. And Threshy was a magnificent creation. Just gotta figure out how to do a Xmas story with him now.
Now the big fruit company has gotten on board with Monarch, perhaps they'd be interested in an UnderRealms series...
Dave was always distressingly stupid but he was believably distressingly stupid. I mean, I wanted him to die (and I still do), but really he's just operating at the absolute upper limit of his (mental) capabilities.