I thought the first book in the series provided us readers with an interesting world and excellent characters. While this book was set in the same place, I could not decide what the story was about. Was the story trying to be a silly version of Stephan Donaldson's not-hero, or was it suppose to be a Sprague de Campe-like light comedy about a dimension hopping hero that used a magical shoe scale? The wonderful world created in the first book was shredded apart by Mr. Stackpole's insistance on applying a friend's story to his own. It doesn't fit, it doesn't work, and it was painful to read.