The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge (M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin)

The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge
M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, illustratons by Eugene Yelchin
Candlewick
Fiction, YA? Fantasy/Humor
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: The elf Brangwain Spurge was named for a weed, and his schoolmates and colleagues have never let him forget it. Like the weed, they consider him useless at best and a target at worst... until the Elf King needs an "ambassador" to take a special gift to the goblin kingdom, an overture of peace after their most recent war (and, not incidentally, do some light spying on the side), and historian Spurge's name comes up. This, at last, is his opportunity to prove himself, and become the first elf to set foot in the goblin capital city in ages. Unfortunately for him, his mission is really a ruse: the gift he's bringing has been bespelled, turning it into a bomb meant to assassinate King Ghohg the "Evil One" (and take out a good chunk of the capital city of Tenebrion, beyond the Bonecruel Mountains)... hopefully eliminating the expendable historian in the blast. All Spurge is told is that he's supposed to report back to the royal elfin secret police in the Order of the Clean Hand via magical messages, especially if he gets a chance to study the inner workings of the goblins' mysterious Well of Lightning that powers their magic.
In Tenebrion, the goblin archivist Werfel is beside himself with excitement. He, of all people, has been chosen to host and escort an elfin historian! This will surely be a landmark visit, a chance to establish true diplomatic ties and show the elves that, contrary to what they think, goblins have a rich and complex culture. Surely an educated man like this fellow Brangwain Spurge will be above the prejudices that have driven so much hatred and bloodshed, and together they can begin clearing away the centuries of lies and misunderstandings between their kingdoms. But the visit gets off on the wrong foot from the moment of the ambassador's disastrous arrival, and Spurge proves singularly uninterested in everything Werfel tries to share: the cuisine, the theater, the music, the art, not even the city's excellent history museums with the shed skins of goblin luminaries of ages past. (The elf even seems repulsed by how goblins save and treasure their old skins, the essence of a goblin's history. And he claims to be a historian!) If he messes up this most important mission, the goblin secret police will have him imprisoned, and King Ghohg will no doubt order his execution.
Little do either man know just what their seemingly ill-fated meeting will lead to, a snowballing cascade of mishaps and misunderstandings and betrayals that may end with both of their nations toppled and themselves killed very, very dead.

REVIEW: A humorous skewering of an age-old fantasy trope that asks pointed questions about where history ends and propaganda begins and whether truth can ever really be known once everyone has put their own spin on facts, this seemed like a fun, short story, if one clearly skewed heavily toward the silly end of the scale. Unfortunately, like Werfel's first encounter with Spurge, my encounter with The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge got off on the wrong foot when I chose the wrong medium - an audiobook - to explore what is actually a heavily illustrated short novel... one where entire illustrated chapters tell at least half of the story (a half that, focusing on Spurge's experiences and perceptions, conflicts greatly with the text, which is largely from Werfel's vantage point), and where the promised "bonus" PDF link with said illustrations was nowhere to be found until I did some serious digging around online for other sources.
Since my experience was mostly via Werfel's tale, with a few missives from an elf in the Order of the Clean Hand (who was a former school bully of unpopular Spurge), I came into the story predisposed to side with the goblins. The archivist's excitement at meeting an elfin colleague and hopes for world-changing success are almost immediately dashed as Spurge turns out to be a singularly unlikable and utterly undiplomatic jerk who is determined to offend and belittle and reject everyone and everything Werfel introduces him to. He never even tries being neutral or even simply polite. The image-based messages Spurge sends back to the Order of the Clean Hand reflect his perceptions of the goblins and their city as grotesquely monstrous entities, which doesn't exactly help present him as remotely sympathetic (even though I didn't actually see said images or messages until long after I'd listened to the audiobook at work). I got very annoyed by how Werfel kept going out of his way to extend the elf credit where none was due, risking his own reputation and honor and even life to defend a man determined to ruin his life and any proper chance for peaceful, diplomatic ties... except when he didn't and was merely in over his head, whiplash moments that never really tracked even in a plot as inherently silly as this. Further and further Werfel and his beloved bat-winged and betentacled pet get pulled into deeper and deeper trouble while Spurge cluelessly (or maliciously? It's hard to believe even the silliest elf can't recognize some of the lines he's deliberately stepping over... I was half-expecting him to wipe his rear with his host's old skins, and he wouldn't have even pretended it was a faux pas) makes everything worse for the both of them. It's only much, much later that things get so intolerably bad for them that Spurge finally, belatedly begins to get the slenderest microfiber of a clue and return some of the loyalty Werfel has been demonstrating all along, eventually stepping up to the challenges of the problems he helped create (and/or was too dumbly blinded by his own race's propaganda-littered idea of history to begin to see as it developed). Along the way, the authors work in some sharp observations and commentary on how prejudices and injustices are intentionally perpetuated by a handful of power holders, which the majority pay for in their own blood and lives whenever things boil over. Things eventually come to a reasonably satisfactory ending.
While there are many points to appreciate in this tale, and elements that came close to raising the rating, ultimately my too-long frustration with Spurge (and also with Werfel for bending himself into a goblin pretzel trying to excuse the elf's rude and moronic misbehavior and deliberate disparaging of all things goblin - and I'm well aware that's a goodly portion of the point of the book, though there comes a time when a point becomes less a point and more a skull-crushing sledgehammer) held things down.

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