"You can't eat just one!" is not a taste guarantee. As its name implies, the goblin addiction entails a goblin, death goes in there somewhere, one dose, and you are hooked for life bound to a physiological contract with no loopholes. Within five days you get your next fix or you die, its perpetuation is guaranteed by way of the excruciating physical and mental pain involved on the fifth day; an agonizingly slow decline into death during withdrawal the three goblin eaters would do anything to avoid. (For inquiring minds, they taste like a cross between an American Bald Eagle and a baby fur seal.)

What should be a simple morning takes a turn when Coach observes a group of boys procuring said goblin and deals some on-the-spot justice, a chain of appalling events darkening the tale as their true nature is revealed and Coach's questioned. Three goblin eaters get away, and he begins a journey to capture/exterminate them.

Please join me in a saga of heightened meanderings, a Pandora Box spewing concepts of my design, Alice's looking glass replaced with a prism allowing multiple views into a unique style of story-telling, each chapter a cliff-hanger told from a different standpoint, the goblin eaters', the goblins', and Coach's, a 360° chronicle told in surround-read. It is an exploration of sorts into the workings of a world whose premise entails addiction, karma, tyranny, prejudice, race relations, friendship, faith, and just a sprinkle of magic, not necessarily in that order.

The underbelly of society is hard to see from the top, it must be approached from the bottom, a dungeon cell under Watusi ground zero giving Coach a close look when he is captured along with the goblin eaters, found guilty, and used as a guinea pig by the hybrid goblins.

If you wind something too far in one direction, it gains excess value, humor a variable added to defray harshness. The goblins are a nation of happy-go-lucky, short green beings living in Watusi. They are like minions without the manic energy. They aren't stupid but undereducated, naïve, and innocent. Humor is applied sporadically and mostly with the regular goblins as that is their way.

Reality is our usual mode of operation instilling normalcy, complacency, and creating a humdrum existence. A well-told story allows us to separate from reality as we sink into our imaginations until fully submerged. We don't question creatures hanging from the ceiling that scream when they smell smoke, meteors traversing the sky with regularity, and trolls operating the troll bridges.

It's a place where Kafclack is the goblin leader and whose focus is making war against the Unctionites. His Number One, Jeercrip, can see a challenge coming stemming from Kafclack's extreme disregard for life, a challenge he may not survive.

Plukfluf, a mild-mannered R&D janitor, takes two drugs giving him super strength and intelligence. He begins a quest to Unction to see how the other half live and is joined in a very platonic relationship by Widget, a hybrid goblin ostracized by Kafclack, a rude awakening awaiting them in Unction.

Jobo, the goblin god, is in doing damage control on the goblin eaters but is sidetracked when a hybrid scientist, Walopt, tests his strength serum. He creates a world where he is God, whose total power corrupts him totally. The heavens are torn asunder as he and Jobo do battle over ideals.

Coach and Plukfluf, each heading into trouble but in opposite directions, visit Jo Bell's trading post on the border of goblin and Unctionite country drawing her into the story, a savvy player we're not sure about. Coach is our guide and moral barometer, who with just a basic knowledge of the addiction condemns the boys upon witnessing their viciousness, but by the story's end sees something in the goblin eaters that might be worth saving.

Maybe!

Joe Paul