Book #107

Goblin War
by Jim C. Hines


I made a bit of a mistake in picking this one, I think; I love the goblin books, and it seemed like the right genre choice after reading Leary's caustic non-fiction memoir/social commentary, but I wasn't really in the mood for this book right at this time. It made me shy away from reading it, so it took longer than it should have, and I didn't really pay as much attention to this one as I did to the first two.

That being said, this was a great book, especially the ending. This one wrapped up Jig's story beautifully; since most of the fantasy and paranormal series I read don't actually have an ending, getting to the finish line here was a very nice change, particularly since I liked the finish line. I liked everything leading up to it, as well, of course, just as I have with all three of Hines's books about Jig's adventures.

This one starts off with the goblins leaving the lair because their mountain, sealed off in the first book and then unsealed in the second, is under attack by humans. The goblins lose, of course, since that is what goblins do, and a few dozen are taken as slaves to work on shoring up the defenses of a nearby human town -- a town that is soon to come under assault from a massive army of monsters, everything from goblins to kobolds to orcs, led by an orc named Billa the Bloody. Jig and two of his companions escape, and go to seek out this monster who has managed to unite such disparate and troublesome races into a single group; when they find that the rumors are true, and all of these monsters are really working together to fight off the humans, Jig and his friends eagerly sign up -- at last, Jig thinks, there is a chance for the goblins to be free of the humans, to escape the neverending flow of adventurers and treasure seekers who keep troming into the lair and killing as many goblins as they can find. Maybe if Billa can win this war, all of the goblins can live in peace.

We also get to hear the backstory of Tymalous Shadowstar, Jig's patron deity; scenes from his downfall are woven into Jig's story, and make for excellent little vignettes all by themselves as well as showing more about the god of peace who became the patron of goblins. The two stories come together when it turns out that Billa the Bloody is, like Jig, the champion of one of the Forgotten Gods, but this god has different plans for the monsters, and Jig and Tymalous have to decide whether they are with Billa and her master, or against them.

As I said, it all works out in the end -- though like the previous books, because these characters are goblins and their ilk, no character is safe here; all of them are expendable, and some of them are expended. But the book was great fun to read, and I look forward to Jim Hines's next series.