Well, now that the topic has come up again and I've been reminded that I was intrigued by these books before, I've taken the plunge and ordered the first two. I read the opening of the first one on Amazon and very quickly found myself laughing — it does read like a very good send-up of fantasy sagas, a la The Princess Bride or indeed, as @silverlily just said, Terry Pratchett — so I'm going to give it a try.

Mind you, I am still slowly ploughing my way through The Silmarillion, simultaneously with a rather academic but interesting tome on the evidence for the Gospels being based directly on eyewitness testimony rather than "oral tradition" — Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckman — plus I have several other books on my must-read list, so it may be a while before I get to these!! But they do sound like they'll be worth giving a go.

@courtenay Hooray! Do let me know how you like them when you get around to it. 🙂

@silverlily Amazon tells me the two books are arriving today, so I hope to make a start on them ASAP!   (I ordered the first two together partly because it sounds like I'll need to read at least those two in order to get a proper impression of where the overall story is going — so I'm determined to do that much — and partly because that got me free postage for an Amazon order over £10, so it's cheaper than buying them separately. )

@courtenay Oh excellent! Also smart thinking. 

I really need to return to that world myself--it's been a hot minute for me--but I have a deep reading list this year.

[Edit]

I *really* need to finish the series, one of my close friends is getting deeply into it and if I don't watch out she'll spoil the whole thing for me!

We love these books. My son is NOT a reader and we need to get him reading. We have gone through this series twice now. And we love the show on Angel Studios. Highly recommend 

@fledge1 Now that's some recommendation! I hope they'll be the springboard for your son to go on to discover and enjoy other books (including Narnia if he hasn't already!). There's always hope on that score — an older friend of mine was telling me recently how he really struggled with reading as a child and just had almost no interest in it until he was 11, when one of his teachers finally found him some books that he really liked and that got him hooked. He's been a voracious reader (including multiple re-reads of LOTR and The Silmarillion!) for the more than 50 years since then!!  

@courtenay Thanks! yes it has helped him get into it a bit more. He is a slow reader and behind so we try to get him to read as much as possible. He LOVES being read to. So we will do I read a page and he read a page. He wants to read them again, and we did go through the Narnia books and might again now that he is a little older. 

Posted by: @silverlily

I *really* need to finish the series, one of my close friends is getting deeply into it and if I don't watch out she'll spoil the whole thing for me!

Ooer, yeah, that's a good incentive!! I loathe spoilers — I know some people don't mind them, and when I was little I did sometimes read the last page just to make absolutely sure there'd be a happy ending, but I don't do that any more. I've never forgotten the time when Mum and I were reading The Railway Children together (I would have been 9 or 10) and Mum couldn't resist blurting out what happened to the children's father, well before the terrible secret is revealed.   It was still a great read — and the ending still makes me cry (with happiness) anyway — but that did ruin the part that should have been especially heart-wrenching...

I haven't started the Wingfeather books yet, but hope to do that some time within the next couple of months, and I haven't run across any spoilers at all so far (apart from the very little that gets let on in the blurbs), so here's hoping it stays that way...  

@courtenay Spoilers aren't always a deal killer for me, but some things I *really want* to see how they develop naturally! And it's not so much that she's trying to spoil it, as that she keeps blurting out favorite quotes on social media??

Big news: Billy Boyd will be voicing The Overseer in Season Two of the Wingfeather animated movie series!!! Interesting that while he has that rather sweet and endearing voice (and accent), and seems to be a genuinely nice person, Billy will be playing the very cruel, nefarious character who runs the Fork Factory in the film.  

@jo Indeed! It will be very interesting, when I can get around to it, to find out how Boyd handles a villain role...