Iznogoud Vol. 2: The Caliph's Vacation

So you have read all the Asterix books ? Time for Iznogoud's brand of Gallic humour.A family of nomads living in tents in the desert sand can't wait to get to the beach for a change of pace, so that they can live in tents and play in the sand.Iznogoud is a horrid little man whose greatest ambition is to "become the Caliph instead of the Caliph" - to do away with the current incumbent and become the ruler of Baghdad. Unfortunately his intelligence does not match his ambition and every attempt is a colossal failure.For a long time these books were only available in French, but thankfully they have recently been reprinted in English for the delight of a new generation of readers.

Iznogoud, the wicked Grand Vizier, is plotting again! Good, clean fun!

very funny

Like other reviewers for the Iznogoud books, I was thrilled to see they're back in print. They are as fun to read as Goscinny's better known series Asterix, but deals with the Middle East of 1001 Nights rather than the Roman Empire.However, the translation is markedly different from the editions published 20 or 30 years ago that older English speaking readers will be familiar with. The first book I picked up - A Carrot for Iznogoud - had only a few changes, mostly names (noticable, but not too bad) but The Caliph's Vacation was completely changed, and not for the better.A large part of the humour in Iznogoud books derives from the puns and wordplay, and the original translator deserved credit for recreating that in English. Unfortunately, this new translation completely removes that so the dialogue now seems obvious and pointless - without the wordplay, there's little reason for the characters to say what they do.I haven't flipped through The Day of Misrule yet so hopefully it's closer to A Carrot for Iznogoud and is essentially the same as the books I recall....as for this one, 5 stars marked down to 3.

funny book, I liked it thank you