The Goblin's Gift

The Goblin’s Gift by Conrad Mason, Tales of Fayt #2

Joseph Grubb is the newest member of the Demon's Watch. He and his fellow watchmen protect Port Fayt, where humans live in peace alongside trolls, elves and fairies. And now the town needs them more than ever, because the almighty League of the Light has sent an armada to wipe it off the map.

Fayt's only hope is to persuade the magical merfolk to fight with them. But the merfolk won't go to war. Not unless their princess is returned to them from the clutches of the most dangerous nine-year-old in the Ebony Ocean.

It's up to Joseph and his friend Tabitha to rescue the mermaid princess... But a secret from Joseph's past is about to change everything.

Last month I read the first book in the Tales of the Fyat, The Demon’s Watch. Here Conrad Mason introduced quite the energetic children’s story chockfull of elements that will undoubtedly appeal to their tastes, pirates accompanied by swashbuckling swordfights, an interesting world full of magical creatures going from shapeshifters to goblins to humans, and in the midst of it all were two brilliant protagonists, Joseph Grubb the half-goblin and Tabitha Mandiville. The ending of The Demon’s Watch was left with a great promise for its sequel. I didn’t want to mention it in my review of The Demon’s Watch but here it is: The white sails in the distance! The brief mentioning of the League of Light and how dangerous they were really got me curious for The Goblin’s Gift.

The Goblin’s Gift dives directly into the action. Starting with a scouting trip carried out by several members of The Demon’s Watch, to assess the threat of the League of Light. The League of Light, led by the Duke of Garran hails from the Old World. They have set their minds upon only one thing, to remove all the demonspawn from the world. How they put it, bring light to the darkness. The Duke of Garran has set his mind on Port Fayt, where humans and the other humanoids that are considered demonspawn like the trolls, ogres and goblins live. With the threat of the League of Light only one alliance can make Port Fayt victorious. An alliance with the merfolk. To forge this alliance Joseph and Tabitha have to stave of many dangers and perils along the way.

I really liked how Conrad Mason directly threw me in the action. Conrad Mason doesn’t write his stories in a difficult manner; he writes them to the point, easy to get into but even harder to get out off. In the first book there was time invested into showing the workings of Port Fayt and the different characters. So there wasn’t really that much time required to recap several things and take this story further. There are however still new introductions in the book and the first were the merfolk, well actually we got to see them in the first book as well, when they were fighting in the shark pits but not how their society was build-up and what they could do. Investing some time in showing this paid of directly. The second introduction was The League of Light, like I mentioned they were briefly discussed in the first book but now you clearly see how devoted they are to their cause. By both the Duke of Garran as well by Major Turnbull, what made these two new introduction even better was that there were also paragraphs that shifted the point-of-view to their perspective and Conrad Mason also spent some time exploring their histories, giving just that little extra to the storyline.

As for a bit of good vs. bad. The perspectives in The Tales of the Fayt are, for me, quite different from what you normally see. Normally you associate light with the good side, but there are hardly any difficulties between the humans and the demonspawn in Port Fayt. It’s the hatred of The League of Light that drives them to want to rid the world of the demonspawn. As I see it the working together of the proposed demonspawn and humans couldn’t turn out better as shown in Port Fayt. I will definitely continue to root for Captain Newton and his Demon’s Watch as well as the inhabitants for Port Fayt.

I said in my review of The Demon’s Watch that is was pleased with how Conrad Mason portrayed both Tabitha and Joseph, making two great protagonists. From the start of The Goblin’s Gift, both Tabitha and Joseph do take the reins of the storyline into their hands. Tabitha this time around is again her eager, and probably too eager self, she desperately wants to seek acknowledgement and above all action. In her drive for this she sometimes goes too far… making bad comments and choices, thinking only of herself. In the beginning of it all it felt like Tabitha would turn into a selfish little girl with a narrow vision of only herself being the best. I was so hoping that it wouldn’t turn out to be and luckily Conrad Mason introduces these learning moments for her character, just as in the first book. I really liked how this was shown in the overall development of Tabitha’s character, she comes to terms that always wanting it your way and even hurting people isn’t they way to go. Where Tabitha’s character is quite dominant, Joseph’s character still has that part innocence in him. And even though he now is a member of The Demon’s Watch he still lacks the confidence to really take action, in the beginning that it. Partly by Tabitha’s dominance and snide remarks, Joseph just had enough of Tabitha and maybe it wasn’t the wisest decisions of Joseph to go his own way it is also for him filled with learning moments. I was again pleased with how Conrad Mason portrayed these characters. Adults and even the children will undoubtedly understand the hidden messages within the story of The Goblin’s Gift.

The Goblin’s Gift is even more action packed that its predecessor The Demon’s Watch, featuring sea battles, sword fighting, cannons, muskets and magic. It builds seamlessly on the world that was created in The Demon’s Watch and takes the story of The Tales of Fayt that much further by showing what else is possible in this fantastic world. Conrad Mason manages to keep the story interesting by introducing even more of the world like: The League of Light and the merfolk. I am eager to find out what other hidden treasures await in the rest of the series. What makes this story even that much better are the hidden messages that Conrad Mason introduces as the learning moments with his characters. The Goblin’s Gift has several important developments storywise for the members of the Demon’s Watch and especially for Joseph. There are now many more things waiting to be explored. The enlargement of the storyline can only deliver many more adventures for Joseph and his friends.