Goblins & Greatcoats

Soh Kam Yung reviewed Goblins & Greatcoats by Travis Baldree

A fun book about a different kind of investigator.

3 stars

A fun short story about a goblin, Zyll, who enters an inn and discovers a murder scene. The people at the inn believe she is there to investigate the murder and discover who is the murderer. That she does, showing an eye for detail, both mundane and magical, while pocketing various eating utensils from the inn.

The twist comes at the end when the murderer is revealed, and Zyll is shown to be not the person they expect her to be.

enne📚 reviewed Goblins & Greatcoats by Travis Baldree

3 stars

Goblins and Greatcoats was a cute short story murder mystery. I'd imagine it's tough to do a mystery in a limited space. Mechanically, there's barely enough space to even name the suspects, let alone drop enough clues for the reader--so, the thrust of the story is largely unexpected reveals from an expert investigator.

This is a pretty minor detail, but one thing that rubbed me a little bit the wrong way was the playing up of Zyll's foreignness as an additional bit of humor and strangeness about her. Other characters talk with informal contractions, but only Zyll's language is explicitly marked by the narrator. It's done in a way that is hard for me not to read as English as a second language by way of eastern Europe or Russia. To be blunt, it feels awkward at best to have that in a fantasy world that (as far as I …

Goblins and Greatcoats was a cute short story murder mystery. I'd imagine it's tough to do a mystery in a limited space. Mechanically, there's barely enough space to even name the suspects, let alone drop enough clues for the reader--so, the thrust of the story is largely unexpected reveals from an expert investigator.

This is a pretty minor detail, but one thing that rubbed me a little bit the wrong way was the playing up of Zyll's foreignness as an additional bit of humor and strangeness about her. Other characters talk with informal contractions, but only Zyll's language is explicitly marked by the narrator. It's done in a way that is hard for me not to read as English as a second language by way of eastern Europe or Russia. To be blunt, it feels awkward at best to have that in a fantasy world that (as far as I can remember) hasn't really explored linguistics in any way, and so it feels like a missed opportunity for better worldbuilding.

Paperback Dragons

rated it

Jul 6

Goblins & Greatcoats

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