The Goblin Corps

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In fact, I was hoping that the epilogue would answer the question and continue with the semi-overarching philosophical question that permeates the book because we are following the traditional 'bad guys.The trees had begun to thin considerably as they moved south, and the Brimstone Mountains, though miles away, completely dominated the horizon.

Marmell takes the most blatant fantasy tropes, the stuff any fan dreads will be used as proof of how `lame' or `childish' fantasy is - you know the type: orcs, goblins, trolls, wizards and haughty Dark Lords - and reminds us how fun they can be. Egal, ob Ork, Troll, Kobold oder Schrecklicher; ob man gerade metzelt, plündert oder stiehlt – will man überleben, lässt man alles stehen und liegen und tut, was der alte Knacker befiehlt. There are almost no details about the goblins backgrounds, no information on their families, no information on their tribes – except the kobold and the ogre which are recruited from their tribe, so we get a couple pages there – and no discussion of past exploits or adventures they had prior to being tapped to join the demon squad.Upon his great marble throne the Charnel King sat, slumped forward, weighted down by the impossibly heavy matters pressing upon his decomposed shoulders. Like Abercrombie, Marmell puts his own twist on fantasy tropes, and like Martin he is unforgiving with the lives of his characters, but though his narrative decisions resemble these two's somewhat, at the end of the day it's difficult to peg his writing down as similar to either of them.

FORMAT/INFO: The Goblin Corps is 552 pages long divided over a Prologue, eleven numbered/titled chapters, and an Epilogue. Still, after uncounted centuries of survival, the Dark Lord isn’t about to go down without a fight, particularly in battle against a mortal! Some, more conscientious than their brethren—or perhaps simply more retentive—sat with their backs to any convenient tree, polishing their weapons with spit and old, stained rags.

Beneath that mocking laugh, Havarren heard clearly an undertone of fury at the hubris of a mortal who would dare stand against the Dark Lord himself. It’s a somewhat overused cliché readily found in most adventure fiction; as the villainous mastermind’s plans crumble thanks to his minions’ ineptitude, he’ll utter the well-worn phrase, “Why am I surrounded by idiots?

An Abercrombian take on well-worn fantasy tropes with more than a tad of humor, this is a novel singly meant to entertain. So while none of the goblins ever emerged as anything but drab, two-dimensional caricatures of monsters-turned-player-characters, King Morthûl really stands out out in my mind at the end of the book - and he was centerstage in the novel only a tiny fraction of the time. The ancient garments draping his body fell in folds around him, delighted to be free from the confines of the marble corners.The impenetrable walls, adorned with an uncountable array of skulls from dozens of races, seemed to shift in the fluctuating light—and perhaps they did, guided by the fickle moods of their lord and master. Da schleppt man sich über hunderte Seiten einer dünnen und ziellosen Handlung, um am Ende herauszufinden, dass alles für die Katz war.