Write Around the World, the online journal at FindAWritingGroup.com 

  (Jig artwork by Daniel Harris )
The Jig’s up 

The time for secrecy is over.  We can now confirm that today’s mystery guest, codenamed ‘Jug’, is in fact Jig Dragonslayer, star of Jim C. Hines’ popular Goblin series.   Jig kindly stopped by the FAWG offices to answer a few questions.

FAWG: So, Jig, thanks for stopping by.  What have you been doing with yourself lately?
Jig: Trying to keep the orcs from killing the goblins.  Which would be easier if Trok’s hunting party hadn’t mistaken an orc for a wild boar yesterday.  When the orcs showed up at the lair that night, Trok tried to defend himself by saying it’s hard to tell the difference between an orc’s face and a boar’s backside.  Things went downhill from there.

Jig: Have you read what he’s done to me?  I’ve been stabbed, shot, tied up, chased all over the mountain by everything from dragons to pixies . . . flaming dung on a stick, you’re right I’m upset!  Did you know that he once set my hair on fire because he thought it would be funny?  Why couldn’t I have ended up with an author who writes romance? 

And while I’m down here fixing nose-picking injuries, Hines is sitting in his warm, safe, comfy house, cashing in his royalty checks.

Jig: He tries, but he has no idea how to write from a goblin point of view.  In Goblin War, he wanted to write about goblin romance.  When I read the first draft, it was like I was reading about little blue humans!  I finally set him straight on how goblin relationships work.  He decided to just leave that out of the book.

Jig: He plays with his computer a lot.  Blogging and e-mailing and updating Facebook and Livejournal . . . how can you humans spend so much time staring at a magic box?  If we had those things, we’d give them to the hobgoblins.  Then when we attacked, the hobgoblins would be too busy “tweeting” to fight back, and we’d kill them all.

When he’s not staring at his computer like a drooling zombie, he goes to conventions and pretends to be some big, important author.

Jig: He had a guest spot in a short story a while back.  “Mightier than the Sword,” in Gamer Fantastic.  I guess he got to set someone on fire.  He was acting pretty smug when he got back, the way he always does when he beats something fifty times his size.  His ego is almost as big as a human’s these days.

Jig: "Keep your enemies close, but your friends closer. That way your friends are between you and your enemies."

—Goblin Proverb

Jig: Family is a human concept.  We don’t worry about parents or siblings, and as for kids, they’re raised together in the nursery by armed and armored nursery workers who do their best to make sure most of the kids survive.  Kind of like your schools, really.  As for my own motto, “Why me?” is pretty appropriate, with “Oh, dung!” a close second.

Jig: Jim’s putting together an idea for a new series, so it doesn’t sound like he’s going to try to put me through a fourth adventure any time soon.  I’ve told him that if he does, I’ll bite his face off.

Jig: Nobody human.  You’re too tall, your ears are all wrong, and you have the most useless teeth.  Maybe one of those muppet things.  They’ve done muppet goblins before, right?  David Bowie could be the voice of Straum the dragon.  Ooh — if we do a movie, can we add a scene where Smudge kills Shrek?  I hate that ogre.

Jig: Dinner.  Remember that orc Trok killed?  Golaka the chef has been barbequing him since yesterday.  The orc, not Trok.  Though if Trok keeps starting fights, he’ll end up on a spit too.  Anyway, the orc should be finishing up soon, and I want to make sure I get one of the hands.  Palm meat is the best!

Jig: ...?  Humans are so weird.


Jig Dragonslayer has starred in three novels by Jim C. Hines:

   


If you'd like to read more about his adventures, just follow the links to Jim Hines' website http://www.jimchines.com.