Nine Goblins - T Kingfisher

An oddity this one. An early T Kingfisher that was self-published back in 2013 and has had a new release now with Titan, it's more or less novella length at 148 pages and a self-proclaimed (accurately) homage to Terry Pratchett and James Herriot - the mash-up no one knew they needed. 

Herriot would probably have been deeply confused by it all (or not, I wonder if he was a Tolkien fan?) Pratchett, I'm sure would have been delighted. This was also T Kingfisher's first book aimed at an adult audience, whilst primarily publishing for children, and that may add to the general oddness of it.

I liked this little book, it's funny and warm, with a twist at the end that gives it a serious edge, especially at a time of global uncertainty, but it's also unevenly paced and took me an extraordinarily long time to read. The first half tells two back stories quite slowly in a way that makes it hard to guess where things are going, and then a lot happens very quickly. 

I'm not sure how much I took to Sings-To-Trees who is the Herriot inspired elf stuck with tending a range of creatures as ungrateful as they are mythical. He's fine, but he doesn't have a patch on the goblins in all their disgusting glory, and like Pratchett this also falls somewhere between writing for adults and writing for children. 

I know that both are technically adult books, but once upon a time, Pratchett was what a certain sort of younger teenager read (teenagers like me) when they hit 13 or 14, had grown out of children's books, and YA didn't exist as a category the way we know it now. Nine Goblins is funny and politically aware/angry in the same way that Pratchett was. They're not exactly jokes that a reader grows out of, but much like the music I loved in my teens, it's fun if something turns up on the radio from time to time but I no longer listen to it on repeat. 

Altogether a solid 3 star book - an enjoyable way to spend a lazy afternoon, an indication of the exciting writer that Kingfisher has become, and an obvious recommendation for fans of Pratchett or Douglas Adams but not a keeper for me.