Triumff

This book, a novel (and one NOT set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe!) by Dan Abnett, is an absolute riot. It's set in an alternate-history present where magic was rediscovered in the Elizabethan era, which led to the stagnation of society to never technologically progress past that age. And so we reach the year 2010, and famed swashbuckling adventurer Sir Rupert Triumff is returned proudly from his discoveries of an alien new continent on the opposite side of the world. However - once returned home to England, he almost immediately find himself thoroughly embroiled in a series of plots and schemes which he neither wants to be part of nor understands; involving evil necromancer churchmen, rival explorers, a series of actors and stagehands, his own loyal staff, a man with a cat's head, a foreign scientist, and a rural witch, to name but a few. This book is absolutely hilarious while also being a thoroughly compelling story - it reads like Guy Ritchie adapting a film script from a Terry Pratchett novel based on Blackadder... or something else entirely. This novel is so original, it's unlike any other fantasy story I've come across. I had read it before when I was about seventeen, but had forgotten how funny and exciting it was. A strong recommendation.