Some people escape the drudgery of their lives by going on holiday, some by watching television, some read and some commit crime. The advantage of reading as a means of escape is obvious: it is cheap, portable, immersive and generally legal. The advantage of New Fable as escapism is even more apparent: it removes the reader from society altogether. No further from the drudgery of life can one be than when immersed into a world of characters that don’t even resemble the ones responsible for the drudgery. This is, of course, the attraction of fantasy genres. But New Fable is even more attractive in this respect. Rather than a wholly imagined world requiring significant author talent to suspend the reader’s disbelief, New Fable requires far less talent and relies instead on stupid behaviour and implausible plot. That it involves animals behaving with the more eccentric behaviours of people in a world equally as ridiculous means that suspension of disbelief is not so much essential, as insulting to the reader should it even be attempted. Rather than the reader becoming immersed in a beautifully constructed, well imagined world conjured by a talented author, New Fable leaves the reader wondering why they’re reading rubbish about cats and dogs having food fights in hotel kitchens in the first place. As a consequence, when the reader throws the book away and returns to their drudgery of life, they realise it’s not so bad after all.
A far better outcome all round.