Goblin Quest

Goblin Quest
by Jim C. Hines
Recommended Ages: 13+

Jig is a cowardly, weak-eyed little goblin who has never been outside his cave. Even by goblin standards, he doesn't have a lot going for him. As fighters go, goblins seem designed to die at the drop of an adventurer's mailed helmet, and their chances aren't much better with the hobgoblins who live deeper down, or the lizard fish with their poisonous spines, or whatever lives beyond them – a necromancer, some say. Maybe even a dragon. All Jig has on his side are a few more wits, a bit of luck, an independent streak and a pet fire spider.

One day, Jig cowers while his entire squad of goblin guards is wiped out by a party of treasure seekers. They're searching for the Rod of Creation, an object of inconceivable power that was hidden somewhere in Jig's underworld by the wizard-god that created it, because the prince feels like proving himself to his royal parents and surviving older brothers (adventurers all). It's the kind of MacGuffin that radiates plot twists the way cobalt-60 emits gamma rays. The invaders take Jig hostage and force him to act as their guide. "Act" is the right word for it, too, because the places this group wants to go are beyond the point past which no goblin has ever returned, so he's basically faking it. So off they go: a prince with a chip on his shoulder, his wizard brother whose magical exertions threaten to break his mind, their dwarf tutor whose deity gives him healing powers, and a young elf thief they have dragooned into their service. And Jig.

I won't drag this synopsis out any further. It's quite literally a "dungeons and dragons" story, only told from the point of view of the sort of non-player character that tends to perish wholesale. As Jig actually proves, increasingly, to be a real player, tensions only grow with the other members of the party. He spends the entire journey expecting, with good reason, to be killed sooner or later, and hoping it happens quickly. I think I can say, without spoiling anything you couldn't guess from the start, that it's the kind of ensemble whose members can't all survive. It's enough to make a goblin get religion – which Jig does, choosing a god well suited to the loser of all losers. But does he lose? Read it and see for yourself.

The trick is pretending it isn't a spoiler when I note that this is but the first book in a trilogy that continues with Goblin Hero and Goblin War. Michigan-based author Jim C. Hines is also the author of the "Princess" quartet (The Stepsister Scheme etc.), which Fantastic Fiction describes as a mash-up of Grimm's Fairy Tales and Charlie's Angels; the "Magic Ex Libris" series (Libromancer etc.), at least four novels featuring a librarian-turned-magician; the "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse" trilogy (Terminal Alliance etc.), and several other novels and short story collections, including Goblin Tales.