Summary:
A plucky underdog. A powerful necromancer. And the idiot heroes bent on killing them.
Kobolds are supposed to run away—it’s what they’re best at. But Jack? Born with a club foot, he’s had to adapt. Resilient and clever, he clawed his way to respectability as majordomo of a premiere subterranean estate. He even found a father figure in the famed necromancer who owns the place.
Life was perfect… until a superband of overpowered do-gooders arrived bent on burglary and murder. These mercilessly righteous warriors of light cannot be beaten, or at least that’s how it looks on paper.
Jack must choose between survival and the people he loves… unless he can somehow defy the stats and find an unconventional solution.
Review:
*I read this novella as part the judging group The Secret Scribes for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS) finals phase. The following review is strictly my personal thoughts as each novella will be reviewed by multiple judges to be as objective as possible.*
Majordomo is a novella that starts off giving you one story before it pivots into something you least expect, one that will tug at your heartstrings and make you weep like a baby because of Daddy issues (ok, truthfully, I didn’t weep, but I did feel some emotions, and my own Daddy issues are pretty standard fare for someone my age. But damn were they some strong Daddy issues that make you feel!)
The basic plot is thus: Jack is a club-footed kobold who runs a famous necromancer’s bunker/tower/home, and said necromancer is famed to horde lots of treasure, so would-be heroes constantly invade, leaving Jack to hire lots of unsavory stereotypical villain races to defend the bunker/tower/home in a very Home Alone style from these murderhobos. Got it? Good.
The main thing to say about Majordomo is that it is a comedy. Yeah there are a couple of screwball things, and yeah a lot of deus ex machina happens, and sure we get some unintentionally intentionally funny things happen or occur, but a lot of the humor is just within the prose itself. The prose is spectacular and you get lost in Jack’s voice (it’s in 1st Person POV) because he is just a funny narrator. He’s already got the short straw in life with his disability and being a kobold, but he’s got a disposition that you just kinda have to root for. And he is snarky and witty (although I will say I do wish there was more worldbuilding done via dialogue instead of Jack’s thoughts, but that’s just me). Just an all-around great protagonist.
But if you think Carter is a one-note musician, you’d be dead wrong, and that’s truly where Majordomo shines. Through the necromancer, Nepherous, Jack has found himself a father-figure to replace the one who wanted to drown him as a babe due to kobold culture sacrificing the weak. You don’t meet Nepherous until about halfway through, and that’s when the tone of the story shifts, it goes away from true comedy (but the comedic beats remain until the ending) to more dramedy, before finally settling on heart-wrenching family drama. I won’t spoil the dynamic, but it is safe to say that Jack and Nepherous’ relationship is foundational to the success of this story and to Jack as a successful protagonist. And then to top it all off, Carter throws in a hint of romance!
The cast is pretty classic DnD tropings. You’ve got orcs, ogres, giant spiders, undead skeletons, goblins, etc. You’ve got thieves, paladins (Nepherous’ mortal enemies), mages, archers, etc. A lot of the characters you meet have fun heroic names as well as the hirelings being inadequate. The undead ghoul Feno was a really neat character. Myna, the gnome and love interest for Jack, was also a fun foil, if a bit underutilized.
At 103 pages in print, this novella is paced well and has quite a lot of action, as there are a number of attacks on the necromancer’s home. It’s also quite dark, very murderhappy. As earlier mentioned, the prose is spectacular, regularly chuckle aloud funny, and descriptive. There were a handful of times when the modern language (like murderhobo or reneged on a deal) that did take me out of the story for a moment.
For a debut, not to mention a novella aka shorter scope to work with, Majordomo is a tremendous story that hits everything a reader could want. It’s very clear that this story deserves all the accolades it receives and showcases a great writer to watch in Tim Carter.
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