Billy, our
hero, is an outsider, a kid who has NEVER felt he fit in anywhere and who
certainly doesn’t expect that his high school experience is going to be any
different. Billy is, a familiar enough character, but Wolfe nails him, bringing
him to vivid life on the page. But pretty Filipina Lexi—who really isn’t very
good at minding her own business—and bullying jock Kurt are also three-dimensional
and believable people. These characters are grounded—no, rooted—in reality and
we believe they act in a way that has context. (There’s a lovely, magical
moment when Billy meets all the freckle-faced, redheaded men who came before
him and takes courage from the encounter.
The magical
creatures in this world, from Hob on down, also act out of recognizable motives
and desires and dreams. This is not a book where a character is just evil “because”
or “the chosen one” because that’s what’s needed to tell the story.
From the
opening pages of this book, when a goblin is musing on the inevitable fate of
those who are known by titles such as, “The Dark Lady,” or “The Emperor of
Night,” readers will know they’re in for a rare treat—a book that honors the
tropes of fantasy but with an edge of intelligent humor that never lapses into
the sometimes unfortunate hijinks found in works by Douglas Adams and Terry
Pratchett.
It’s clear
the author has a deep love for the genre and has put time and effort into
creating the world of his story. His thoughtful epilogue about goblin naming
traditions shows just how “deep” this world goes. (This is, huzzah, the first
in a trilogy, so there are two more books we can look forward to with
anticipation.)
This is a
wonderful read and destined, I think, to become a classic.
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