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Title: Mansions of the Gods
Series: Asterix #17
Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 53
Words: 3K
Caesar has the VERY clever idea of surrounding the Gaul’s village with luxury roman apartments and thus subsuming the Gauls culturally. He sends his best architect and a whole galley of slaves (former pirates) to cut down the forest and build the Mansions of the Gods.
Of course, the problem is that the Gauls can regrow trees overnight, beat the stuffing out of the roman soldiers AND give magic potion to the slaves. Not even this though is enough to overcome Caesar’s plans and a mansion is built and tenanted (even if it’s that or the circus maximus!). When Cacofonix the bard empties the building of regular tenants, the soldiers move in and then the Gaul’s attack en masse and destroy the building. The architect gives up and the gauls replant the forest over the ruins.
I thought the idea was quite a workable one (culturally subsuming a small group of hold outs) but it can take generations. The Amish are a good example. They have held out (and continue to do so) against modern civilization, but as a group they are slowly shrinking and are being forced to make changes simply to continue to exist.
Goscinny and Urderzo make this a quick, funny event and everything turns out ok for the Gauls this time, but my cynical adult self realizes that what was proposed here is what would eventually happen if this were real. Since it is NOT real however, I can laugh at Obelix accidentally planting a magic acorn in the middle of Asterix’s house and them all eating dinner 100 feet up in the air 😀
★★★✬☆
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
This is the first of your Asterix recaps where I don’t remember the book at all. The name sounds kind of familiar but that’s it. Sounds interesting though.
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I enjoyed it. My dad had the Asterix books and I always thought he had them all, but either I didn’t read them all or he didn’t own them all, because I’d never read this one.
Had you read them all at some point?
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I thought I had, but this one made me wonder. I might have missed it. But I sort of really vaguely think I might have read it. But they were all so long ago.
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So looooong ago. Like, last week? 😉
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Forty-plus years, alas.
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I don’t remember this one either but I must have read it.
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Think I’m in the same boat.
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Is that your condo?
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Snap, you caught me! I was hoping to sneak that in so nobody would notice 🙂
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You’re reminding me to order some more of these!
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I am really glad that I am going through these systematically. It is fun to see something holding up so well…
and now your grands can have good memories too…
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Hope so!
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Anybody who can regrow trees overnight needs to serve on my front lines, ready to respond whenever our local municipalities decide open, unspoiled area filled with trees gets uprooted to build more apartments. As soon as they get done clearing the land, ha-ha…the trees are back!
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I’d be ok w that!
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Hilarious stuff this
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They really did a good job of keeping up the quality of their work, that is for sure…
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Glad to hear this is once more another fun chapter in the series! Here’s hoping it’ll keep on being so. 😀
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These guys are keeping the quality pretty high overall. They seem determined to tell a good story in each book.
It does (kind of) make me want to explore what the original publishing schedule was…
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