Richie's Picks: THE GOBLIN WOOD by Hilari Bell, HarperCollins/EOS, April 2003, ISBN 0-06-051371-3

"...As I returned across the fields I'd known
I recognized the walls that I once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid..."
--Sting

Tobin, though innocent, has pled guilty to treason, sacrificing his own honor and future in order to protect the life of his little brother. Disinherited and disgraced, Tobin is offered an opportunity for regaining his good name and, at the same time, saving the people of the Realm:

" 'If I bring down their leader, what will the goblins do?'
" 'If they were human, they'd probably thank you. But goblins are completely mercenary--they never do anything except for payment, or to avoid punishment. Once her hold over them is broken, they'll probably just run off...'
"Tobin drew a deep breath, his gaze wandering over the map, chest, stone, and charm. 'Isn't there any other way?'
"Master Lazur shook his head. 'The barbarians are coming. We have no place to go except north. They have no place to come except here. There is nothing in this world I would not sacrifice to get the Bright Realm behind the goblin wall in time. How high do you weigh the life of a sorceress, one who has killed again and again, against the survival of this whole realm?'
"Tobin's finger traced the river curve that marked his home. He couldn't imagine living in the woodlands, but he'd seen the barbarian armies for himself. Master Lazer was silent, letting him figure it out. Tobin didn't like it, but surely the priest was right. How many knights, men Tobin knew and respected, had already died? If it would end the war, save the whole realm, then the life of one sorceress was a cheap price to pay."

But we know that "sorceress" whom he's being asked to "eliminate" is the young hedgewitch Makenna. She has pursued a relentless outlaw lifestyle since the priests enacted new rules of intolerance that destroyed a long-standing coexistence with the goblins and resulted in the slaughter of Makenna's mother.

What will Tobin, a principled young man, do when he learns what we know about Makenna? How will he reconcile his training that the goblins are merely vermin with the reality of meeting, talking, and seeing the real qualities that goblins possess? Why was Tobin's brother plotting against the Hierarch, the leadership of the Realm? And who is right and who is wrong when climactic changes trigger a widespread crisis, forcing a desperate and starving people to encroach upon the lands of a neighboring civilization?

THE GOBLIN WOOD begs comparison to analogous intercultural/international situations in the real world. It is also a captivating story of scheming and blundering, spells and slapstick, powers and paybacks.

" 'And you're human, whatever else you are.'
" 'Insults,' she snapped, 'will get you nowhere.' "

In addition to the human characters, Hilari Bell does a stellar job of creating the various groups of goblins--the bookeries, the stoners, the charmers, the trackers, and so on. She similarly succeeds at drawing individual goblins. As a whole, these goblins all possess just enough "humanity" to allow us to readily identify with them, while, at the same time, they are different in sufficient ways to prevent them from ever being human.

But why, Tobin ponders, do the goblins follow the girl?

"Was it possible the girl really was a common hedgewitch? If it was, then how had she defeated all the forces that had been sent against her? A small force could defeat a stronger one, but only if the leader of the small force was a very good tactician. To defeat stronger forces again and again, the leader had to be not merely a good tactician, but a truly great one. A general, in fact. Tobin scowled. A seventeen-year-old peasant girl? He couldn't believe it. But he found it no easier to believe that she was a mighty sorceress."

The crown jewel of the story is Makenna, a young woman whose heart is torn between recalling the lessons of tolerance and charity her mother taught by example, and her fierce urge to protect the goblins and seek revenge upon those responsible for her mother's demise. Not an especially quick learner, nor a character whose actions we always agree with, her complexities and contradictions compel us to think, and are prime reasons why THE GOBLIN WOOD is a superb fantasy tale that deserves to be read and discussed.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com ( )

The pure fantasy of the book alone (along with the hint of romance) carries this to high rating. Nice ending too. ( )

The story starts off dark: a hedgewitch's mother is executed for performing magic, and she gets her revenge on the town by flooding it. She flees to avoid the church's ban on magic, and runs into goblins. She learns how to trade with them, and takes up their cause as her own, leading them against humans, freeing them from traps, and avenging their deaths. She occasionally struggles with how her mother would feel about what she's doing, but she becomes a gifted general in her war.
A knight is dispatched to spy on her and try to overthrow her via a magic stone from the church, and their conflict forms the bulk of the novel.
There's a strong theme of learning not to hate and fear people you don't know, as well as compassion versus revenge, but it's generally a dark book. I enjoyed it, and immediately checked for a sequel, as it has a bit of an open ending. ( )

$6.99