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Published Sep 2018
544 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Subverting convention, award-winning creators M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin pair up for an anarchic, outlandish, and deeply political saga of warring elf and goblin kingdoms.
Uptight elfin historian Brangwain Spurge is on a mission: survive being catapulted across the mountains into goblin territory, deliver a priceless peace offering to their mysterious dark lord, and spy on the goblin kingdom — from which no elf has returned alive in more than a hundred years. Brangwain's host, the goblin archivist Werfel, is delighted to show Brangwain around. They should be the best of friends, but a series of extraordinary double crosses, blunders, and cultural misunderstandings throws these two bumbling scholars into the middle of an international crisis that may spell death for them — and war for their nations.
Witty mixed media illustrations show Brangwain's furtive missives back to the elf kingdom, while Werfel's determinedly unbiased narrative tells an entirely different story. A hilarious and biting social commentary that could only come from the likes of National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson and Newbery Honoree Eugene Yelchin, this tale is rife with thrilling action and visual humor ... and a comic disparity that suggests the ultimate victor in a war is perhaps not who won the battles, but who gets to write the history.
"Starred Review. Told in narrative and illustrated pages - Werfel's experiences and Spurge's visual dispatches back home - the story...blends the absurd and the timely to explore commonality, long-standing conflict, and who gets to write a world's history." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Biting and hysterical, Brangwain and Werfel's adventure is one for the history books." - Booklist
"Starred Review. Monty Python teams up with Maxwell Smart for a wrestling match with Tolkien - splendid." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. With the look and feel of medieval lithographs, [the illustrations] include touches of humor, whimsy, irony, and menace; as such, they are well suited to both the acerbic wit and the affecting tenderness of Anderson's prose. The result is a fantasy that couldn't feel more real, obliquely referencing a political climate marked by a lack of civility, underhanded diplomacy, fake news, widespread bigotry and prejudice, and the dehumanization of marginalized people." - The Horn Book
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