A review by chwaters
Bad Unicorn by Platte F. Clark

4.0

It's kind of hard to begin to describe what all happens here in Bad Unicorn. Middle school student Max Spencer has been in possession of a book called the "Codex of Infinite Knowability" for as long as he can remember. Little does he know that the mere fact that he can hold the book without getting shocked proves that he is, in fact, the descendent of a very powerful wizard from another universe. As it turns out, there are other universes, and in one of those universes, a carnivorous unicorn named Princess has developed an insatiable hunger for non-magical flesh (human, in particular) and conspires with her wizard to find a way to the Techrus (our world). A very powerful and evil wizard makes a deal with Princess: find they boy with the book and, in exchange, Princess is free to turn Texas into an all-you-can-eat human buffet. Things go pretty awry though. An ill-timed spell lands Max and his friends in the distant future, a time when all machines have become sentient (and Princess has converted to an immortal robot body, because why not?) and both humans and magic are extinct. Princess is on the hunt. Max is mostly clueless and lost. Someone had better figure something out before the squirrels take over.
Some books start out funny and lose steam after a few chapters. There are very few books that can remain consistently funny through and through. This, however, is one of them. It's extremely clever and occasionally a bit dark. It's a brilliant skewering of the entire middle-grade fantasy genre while exemplifying everything that's great about that genre. Bad Unicorn reads a bit Douglas Adams for a younger crowd. Older audiences won't be disappointed either. A ton of fun and a refreshing change of pace.