Goblin Mafia Wars by DC Green

War cries echoed behind us. The goblin army!

I spun, but the heat haze from the lava lake drowned my distance vision and watered my eyes. But we could all hear the fang-grinding, the rasping of metal on rock, the crunching of weaponised bolts.

Specks sparkled as if the red-orange lava was creating fireworks. Nah, not fireworks. The specks enlarged – heading right at us!

‘Arrows!’ I yelped. Most burned up above the gaseous lake. Dozens more angled towards our position.

War cries echoed behind us. The goblin army!

I spun, but the heat haze from the lava lake drowned my distance vision and watered my eyes. But we could all hear the fang-grinding, the rasping of metal on rock, the crunching of weaponised bolts.

Specks sparkled as if the red-orange lava was creating fireworks. Nah, not fireworks. The specks enlarged – heading right at us!

‘Arrows!’ I yelped. Most burned up above the gaseous lake. Dozens more angled towards our position.

PT is a sixteen-year-old human and king of Monstro City. Well, sort of. He and the Dead Gang (his monster mates include a giant spider, a mummy, a goblin and a shapeshifting vampire) have completed their first quest and survived. (in ‘Monster School’). Now they are in Dead Zone trying to find their way out. If they can avoid being consumed by dead things. Then it’s off to find and protect dragon eggs. No big deal. All that’s at stake is the survival of the world. The misfit crew have to find a way to work together and repel all manner of enemies from goblins, ogres, zombies and even family. Each new chapter is accompanied by full page black and white monsters.

Goblin Mafia Wars is punny and funny, wild and raucous. Every friendship group encompasses a range of skills, appearances and passions, but nothing you’ve experienced will prepare you for this gang – but perhaps that’s what people think about your friendship group. The best ‘gangs’ include a range of skills and attributes. This is no quest for the queasy – PT and his mates will encounter danger after danger in their search for the dragon’s eggs. They’ll also encounter plenty of craziness. Goblin Mafia Warsis a rollicking read and will be enjoyed by upper-primary and early-secondary readers.

Goblin Mafia Wars, DC Green
Ford Street Publishing 2016 ISBN: 9781925272208

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s author and bookseller

www.clairesaxby.com

City of Monsters Book 1: Monster School by DC Green

My name is Thomas Regus. I’m a prisoner in two castles.

One was built by giant ants; one constructed of lies.

I had to escape both.

Yet my single option was such a long shot it almost made me chuckle.

Make Erica chatty!

Ogres, of course, are trained from birth – not for their chatty conversational skills, but to be the best bodyguards in the wold

THOOM!

Erica, the best of the best, kicked wide my iron-braced doors. But before the hinges could rebound, she tromped into my private dining room.

Right on time.

My name is Thomas Regus. I’m a prisoner in two castles.

One was built by giant ants; one constructed of lies.

I had to escape both.

Yet my single option was such a long shot it almost made me chuckle.

Make Erica chatty!

Ogres, of course, are trained from birth – not for their chatty conversational skills, but to be the best bodyguards in the wold

THOOM!

Erica, the best of the best, kicked wide my iron-braced doors. But before the hinges could rebound, she tromped into my private dining room.

Right on time.

Thomas lives a life of privilege, except when it comes to doing what he wants and learning what he wants. His tutor, Lord Boron, might as well have been called Lord Boring, so dull are his lessons. Apparently that’s just the lot of a prince who’s preparing to rule one day. Thomas breaks out of his castle prison and attends school, Monster School. Here he learns more in a day than he’s learned in months in the castle. And some of what he learns makes him suspect that Lord Boron may have been withholding information. Thomas makes friends with a rag-tag group of monsters, a cross-species collection of misfits. There’s Bruce, a giant spider, a vampire, a zombie, a mummy and a bush goblin. And then the adventures begin. Black and white illustrations throughout depict some truly monstrous characters.

DC Green has a truly frightening imagination. He has created grotesque characters and set them in a post-flood world where goblins are in charge, and humes (humans) are endangered. With unsubtle nods to the cost of ignoring climate change, he brings forth magical and horrific creatures and sets them all on the last remaining parcel of land. There they must, if not co-exist, then co-locate. Each species, and within species, each group seems to be working for themselves. Mistrust and active dislike is rife. Enter Thomas (aka swamp monster) and slowly some of the walls are lowered. Wrapped up in grossness and humour,Monster School, Book 1in a trilogy, is a story about acceptance, tolerance and how the little people can make a difference. Hilarious and disgusting, middle-school readers will love it!

 

Monster school

City of Monsters Book 1: Monster School, DC Green Ford Street Publishing 2013 ISBN: 9781925000078

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Erasmus James & the Grat Siege, by DC Green

My eyes tore open.
The dawn-smeared skyline tilted 90 degrees.
‘That’s not supposed to happen!’
I gawked at the 40 bodies around me, jolting from their sleep. Most were kids, their ages ranging from zit-piled 16-year-olds to wrinkly unborn babies in jars.
air whizzed past, thick with salt, watering our eyes.
Nicole, a bratty nine-year-old, shrieked, ‘We’re all gonna DIE!’
‘Don’t panic!’ I screamed (only mildly panicked).
My balding dad snored beside me, drool trailing from his chin onto the jar baby cradled in his lap. Beside him dozed Sanders, a chook so ancient she left her purse on Noah’s Ark.
Stupid hard-to-wake adults! I jabbed their ribs.
‘Good gravy!’ Dad blinked. ‘We’re plunging from the sky!’

Erasmus James is back in the final adventure of DC Green’s trilogy. Erasmus James & the Grat Siege opens with disaster and goes downhill from there. An initially hopeful landing, on what appears to be a new island in the world Uponia, turns nasty when it becomes clear that the Grats (Giant armoured rats) they are fleeing have followed them. The Grats, led by arch-villain Dice, are determined to destroy every non-Grat in existence on every ZAPP world imaginable. Erasmus, sometimes known as Raz, has a lot to deal with for a twelve-nearly-thirteen-year-old boy. He must convince the locals he’s on the side of good, bring together enemies more accustomed to eating one another and find a way to beat the mind-twisting Dice and her endless army.

In this world where computer games take children on adventures to foreign worlds with alien creatures, nothing can compare to the world inside the mind of main character and former king of the kids, Erasmus. It’s impossible to predict just what will happen next. It’s crazy fun wrapped up in mindgames. While Erasmus James & the Grat Siege can be read as a stand alone novel, readers will enjoy reading how Erasmus and his crew got into this much of a mess. The other titles in this series are: Erasmus James & the Galactic Zapp Machine and Erasmus James: King of Kid’s Paradise. Extraordinarily punny, Erasmus James & the Grat Siege will spin you around until you lose all sense of who you are and what you’re doing there. In a good way. You’ll get dizzy in this whirlwind universe of giant chooks, ninja stallions, a reclusive inventor king, a mind-invading Queen, and of course an ultra-confident, quick-thinking, mega-inventive almost-teenage boy.

Erasmus James & the Grat Siege DC Green
Barrel Books 2011
ISBN: 9780980348859

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author www.clairesaxby.com

Erasmus James, King of Kid’s Paradise, by DC Green

Yuck! Some crazy man just dabbed mascara on my cheek!!
‘Get back, you freak!’ I waved my arms. ‘Do I look like a girl? I’m Erasmus James, boy genius!’
‘You must wear pancake make-up.’ the man pouted. ‘Or your face will glow like a red-nosed reindeer under the studio lights.’
I pointed at the guest in the next chair. ‘Does that bloke have to wear make-up too?’
‘Yep. Tom Cruiser does.’
Tom Cruiser waved.
‘Okay,’ I grumbled. ‘But no lipstick.’
Make-up man dabbed. I coughed on powdery fumes and tried to think about anything except rates…

King of Kid’s Paradise is the sequel to Erasmus James and the Galactic Zapp Machine. In this instalment, twelve year-old Erasmus Jones is sure that his status as the most famous boy alive is going to help him with the school bullies. Wrong. The only thing that’s changed is that he’s more visible to bigger bullies. By the time Dad collects him after school, Erasmus is sure this is the worst day ever. But Dad has a surprise. He and Erasmus can zapp one more time while they have the only working galactic zapp machine. After Dad’s factory begins productions, thousands then millions will be able to explore their own ‘unique zapp universe, filled with worlds created from the same subconscious cauldron that generates dreams in bubbles of hope and fear.’ Erasmus and his father zapp to Kid’s Paradise, which is populated by kids aged between eleven and sixteen. Initially, Erasmus is happy to accept the wonder of Kid’s Paradise and the fact that they want him for their king. But eventually he discovers trouble in paradise.

King of Kid’s Paradise is a rip-snorter of an adventure – plenty of hot air and not a little snorting. It’s an empty-your-pockets, hold-on-to-your-seat roller-coaster journey through a pre-adolescent’s imaginings and into the world beyond his own. The first person narrative voice keeps the reader buckled in for the ride. There are puns for both young and older readers. The print is large and the chapters are short, an added inducement for readers challenged by longer novels. Recommended for mid- to upper-primary readers.

Erasmus James, King of Kid’s Paradise, DC Green
Barrel Books 2008
ISBN: 9780980348828

Erasmus James and the Galactic Zapp Machine, by DC Green

Wahoo! When I pulled that silver lever, it was like being sucked right into God’s cosmic vacuum cleaner. What a brain buzz! I spun through a sea of pulsing rainbow colour, past dimly remembered swirls of memory, right through the raw ingredients of the universe itself (or something else quite big). Just when I realised I could breathe without dying on my first flight with Zapp airlines, the in-flight show suddenly ended.

Erasmus James (Raz for short) can’t resist an adventure, so when his dad invents the Galactic ZAPP Machine, he just has to try it out. Before he has time to think twice, he has zapped across the galaxy to a strange planet. He is befriended by Franklin, a talking horse who takes him to meet the planet’s king. And that’s where Raz’s adventures really being. Soon, he is crossing the land on Franklin’s back, meeting huge talking chickens and getting into trouble with carnivorous horses.

Erasmus James and the Galactic Zapp Machine is an action-packed humorous adventure which will appeal to upper-primary aged readers (10 – 12). There are plenty of laugh out loud moments, intersperse with action and some gentle messages about family, friendship and even self-belief.

Plenty of fun.

Erasmus James and the Galactic Zapp Machine, by DC Green
Ibis Publishing, 2005