I enjoyed his reasoning for things and his reactions, and especially that he lacked any oaths to swear upon when greatly incensed, as he himself laments upon at least two occasions. Garth's own humanization, or perhaps fleshing out as a character would be more apropos, as he returned with the Basilisk in tow was gratifying. The opening introduction to Garth may not have been the strongest, but as he made his way into Skelleth I found myself growing to like the overman, and that persisted and grew by the time that we were fully inside of Shang's city hunting after the Basilisk. I mostly picked this up because the back of the cover jacket sounded intriguing, and when I flipped to the front of the jacket I found the imagery - particularly the large panther-like mount - appealing. I know most adult hands seem big to a growing boy, but Mantle's hands were HUGE and felt like baseball leather, no joke. *I also regret not having spent a few more minutes talking to Mr. Novel aside, however, I give two thumbs up and five stars to Watt-Evans for being the class act that he was and apparently still is. I still think Garth the Overman was a fairly cool departure from the standard fantasy fare at the time and on the cutting edge of the anti-hero movement of the mid to latter '80s, and it was actually quite a mature read for a boy of my age at the time. Now that I'm in my forties, I can honestly say it was probably a three-star read. My signed copy of "The Lure of the Basilisk" had long since vanished, but if you had asked me to rate this book when I was 11, it would have certainly received five stars. If Watt-Evans were to read this today, he might get a kick out of the fact that Mickey Mantle was also at the same book fair promoting his autobiography and although I shook Mantle's hand and probably muttered something like "nice to meet you, sir" it was Watt-Evans who was the highlight of my day. I still recollect what a nice guy he was and how I was so pumped to have met my first REAL author, bragging to my geek friends (who shared my love of All-Things-Tolkien and Marvel superheroes) and showing off his autograph. He signed and gave me a copy of "The Lure of the Basilisk" and I went home and read it cover to cover in a just a few days. He spent several minutes talking to me and providing encouragement that stoked the creative fire building within a boy of 11. I was in grade school when I met Lawrence Watt-Evans at a book fair at the public library in Frankfort, KY, around 1982.
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