Original!

Highfire: A Novel by Eoin Colfer     



Eoin Colfer once again pulls literary magic out of the box! His wicked sense of humor permeates this most unlikely story.
Put together one badass Dragon, last of his kind, formerly Wyvern, Lord Highfire, of the Highfire Eyrie, now just called Vern, and a bayou tatty, wise-ass Cajun kid with the handle Squib and you have one hugely amusing story of life in the bayou swamps around Louisiana. As Vern our former dragon Lord puts it, now he's "king of jack shit in Mudsville, Louisiana." Vern's living conditions are not the only thing that's changed. Now "Vern was mostly ketogenic, high fat, low carbs, apart from his beloved breakfast cereals...Unfortunately, it meant the beer had to go, but he got by on vodka. Absolut was his preferred brand. A little high on alcohol but easiest on the system." He also practices mindfulness as a way to cope with his down moods.
After a series of setbacks Vern takes on Squib as his general supplier. That's when things become so much more interesting. Squib's mother has caught the eye of the local rogue law enforcement Captain, and that means Squib is under observation as well. One thing of course leads to another.
(The banter between Vern and Squib reminds me a tad of that between Steven Brust's assassin Vlad Taltos, and his small dragon like companion, the jhereg Loiosh.)
With a Dragon lord, New Orleans drug lords, a crazy ex marine, rogue lawman with the handle Regence Hooke, the story reads like Peter Pan gone feral.
The one liners don't stop coming. The tone is self deprecating. The Dragon Lord has seen better days. His wardrobe is eye catchingly kitsch and includes a Flashdance T-shirt. Squib and his mother are delights.
What more can I say?  I was amused the whole way through! In fact I feel a further read  coming on to take in and fully appreciate Colfer's wonderful sense of the ridiculous.

A HarperCollins ARC via NetGalley

*****

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Things aren’t as they seem!

Women in war—Internment by the Japanese 1942-45.

The Three Muscateers—three widows, three sets of different circumstances