Posted by Hello to all who still visit this page, and my apologies for posting just once since April – my country is on fire and my brain is fixated on the news and nothing else has been able to break my attention, but I’m finally coming around and I’m reading again!
ESME’S THOUGHTS
I thought this would be easy to do since I’ve read all the finalists but then, as I got down to it, trying to justify why I like one finalist over the rest and ranking them is actually… really difficult.
This is one of my favorite books, period — not just in the context of SPFBO. If you couldn’t tell by my name, or if you’re new here, my favorite author of all time is Terry Pratchett. It’s not even close; he’s just up there on top of the hill of authors that I’ve read, comfortable in his superiority. I am always looking for an author who comes close to his level of wit, humor, biting satire, social commentary, and living, breathing world and characters. I’ve got to say, Pike comes super close.
This is a world based around banking and finances and how they’re tied to looting dungeons, killing mobs, and going on quests. The entire economy has been based around killing the “evil” races of the world, the goblins, orcs, trolls, kobolds, etc. However, recently, it’s become an option for a goblin to go get his “papers” and be dubbed a non-combatant and therefore removed from the heroes’ lists of mobs to kill. These downtrodden races can now go get a shitty job, and get shitty wages, and live out their shitty lives being looked down upon, spat upon, shunned from the high life, but at least they won’t be killed and looted – in theory. There’s a lot of commentary on “them” vs “us” and how racism underpins the growth of society, and how even if you think you’re not racist, that you’re a good person, you can still have blind spots when it comes to what others have to go through. Lived experience is full of blind spots, and you can only clear them up if you talk to other people with an open mind. There’s a lot of self-reflection in this book, and it pairs nicely with the absurdity and comedy. It’s the mix that Terry Pratchett got exactly right to make his books hit so hard, a balance of light and dark, so the ridiculousness of the comedy
This has caused an economic collapse as more and more of these evil races apply to be citizens and are taken off the kill list. There’s less loot to go around, there are too many heroes, and not enough mobs to kill. Things are getting dire, and that’s where the main character comes in – he’s a retired “hero” who ran away from a battle and got cast out of society. He’s a dwarf, he’s fairly rough around the edges, but he has a heart and a conscience, and I found him instantly likable. He’s been blackmailed into joining a suicidal quest with a number of other outcasts who have been forced into going on this quest to find some lost ancient marbles, lol. There’s a big found family aspect here, and so if that’s something you enjoy, you could get a kick out of this one. There’s a pretty large cast of side characters, and I felt like they were pretty well fleshed out. There are some other not-so-light topics that were dealt with here as well, including things like addiction, which added to the balancing of light and dark throughout the book.
The world-building here is expansive; it’s way too expansive to try and get into since this review is already running long. I think one of my favorite bits is how immortality is dealt with regarding the elves. Elves live forever unless they suffer some serious bodily harm… but this doesn’t translate to eternal memories. Elves tend to cycle through personalities, and their past goes further and further behind them. It can lead to identity crisis-type moments as memories turn into vague feelings and entire personalities are lost to time. There are certain subsets of elves who adhere to the “old” ways, in which they rinse and repeat their lives over and over again, getting married over and over again to the same person every few decades and never allowing themselves to change so that they always know who they are. I really enjoyed the “evil” races, particularly the Kobolds and the Orcs and the miscommunications between races that can occur through assuming the other party would be aware of the social norms of their culture. For instance, the Orcs wear beads in their hair, and the color and order of the beads mean different things. Surely, humans will know that wearing orange over blue beads means we come in peace! Why are they running away? We’re trying to sell them premium axes!!!
I’d highly recommend reading this series. I re-read it to produce a new review, and I ended up going on to the second book instead of reading Small Miracles like I was supposed to. At present, this book remains at the top of our pile 🙂
I also highly recommend the audiobooks, they were a fantastic way to bring this to life.
KRISTEN’S THOUGHTS
There was definitely some influence here from some of my favorite fantasy books, or I suppose, some of the first fantasy I ever read. The first that I noticed was a passing reference to a small statuette that summons an ethereal Puma, bringing to mind one Drizzt Do’urden, drow warrior, generally good dude, and holder of one statuette that summons one giant ethereal panther named Guenhwyvar (and I remember how to spell it off the top of my head, hooray!). The quest our heroes go on is to find some elven marbles/stones; there’s a few references to Lord of the Rings and other such things. I dig it! I love passing references, or just even little nods to some of my favorite things in fantasy books. I’m silly that way.
This was a very well written book, and the prose and plot line flowed very, very well. There were twists and turns that left me flabbergasted because I never saw them coming. There were several times that I giggled out loud, and I love books that can do that.
The narrator, Doug Tisdale Jr. was absolutely amazing at telling this story. He has a very good tone for comedic fantasy. His voice for Grom was believable and not over-the-top, but my favorite was his voice of Gorm’s goblin squire, Gleebek. I think that I liked this book even more than I would have had I not listened to it.