IGX

Not sure if this book has been discussed here before. I tried searching the archives. I can't believe it hasn't, if it indeed hasn't.

The concept started as a clever website, which you might have browsed through:

http://www.realultimatepower.net/

This website has been the source of much hommage. The website is clever. It is funny. It is juvenile.

One day, I was walking through a bookstore and I saw what I thought would be a book version of the website:

REAL Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book by "Robert Hamburger".

The book did contain a lot of the gags and humor from the website. I was laughing hysterically within two minutes of picking it up. I decided to buy it.

What I found after further reading is that is was much darker and more interesting than I could have imagined. While it works with the oft quoted material from the website, it is a dark picture of a lonely, disaffected young boy.

The writing is brilliant. I would say to avoid the website, until you read the book, as it might ruin some of the jokes, but the book holds it own as it has a coherent narrative of Robert's struggles with budding adolescence and an absent family. All told via adolescent fantasies of hippos, ninja, and pirates.

I was living with three women at the time, when I first purchased the book. I had thought for sure you had to have been a boy obsessed with martial arts and action movies to understand the book. One afternoon when arriving home, I found the women I lived with reading sections aloud howling with laughter. They also mentioned how sad the book really was.
As usual, I was wrong.

I have bought five copies since, as everyone *has* to loan to someone else once they read it.

Get this book. You will love it. I promise. It was made for IGx. Dick around on the website once you read the text.

Jason

p. s. A lot of pop culture references the website and this book. It must required reading for television writes now or something.

Ninja book...yeah, yeah...whatever.

Were you fucking said women? Curious minds want to know.