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Goblin Breeder #4
Goblin Breeder 4: Goblin Defender: This One is Still Mostly Slice of Life
Book 4 of the best-selling Goblin Breeder series!
Life may feel like paradise, but war looms in the shadows.
I have met every challenge head-on and emerged victorious, but now I must face the realization that helping to repopulate the goblin race will take a lot more work than I originally thought. Amidst my efforts to advance technology, build a house for my family, and prepare the city of Gillamoor for war, I must find the time to father as many children as physically possible. The future of the goblins depends on it.
To make matters worse, I must travel to Holmar and continue my work there while trying to negotiate peace with the war-hungry orcs, who only respect the strongest of warriors. After that, we must travel north into the mountains to confront a horrifying evil so I can retrieve Eldrick's sword, the last tool needed before my final fight with the sorcerer Vogrim.
Life may feel like paradise, but war looms in the shadows.
I have met every challenge head-on and emerged victorious, but now I must face the realization that helping to repopulate the goblin race will take a lot more work than I originally thought. Amidst my efforts to advance technology, build a house for my family, and prepare the city of Gillamoor for war, I must find the time to father as many children as physically possible. The future of the goblins depends on it.
To make matters worse, I must travel to Holmar and continue my work there while trying to negotiate peace with the war-hungry orcs, who only respect the strongest of warriors. After that, we must travel north into the mountains to confront a horrifying evil so I can retrieve Eldrick's sword, the last tool needed before my final fight with the sorcerer Vogrim.
581 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 19, 2024
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49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 21, 2024
The Adventure Continues and the Stakes are Rising
Andrew Jones from Florida was summoned to a new world to save the Goblins from extinction at the hands of the evil sorcerer Vogrim and has now well and truly established himself as their saviour. There is only one more item left to retrieve before they can take on Vogrim: a magical sword hidden in the far northwest that’s guarded by another, even more monstrous creature.
But that’s much later in the book. First, our hero has to build a house for himself and his four future wives – Lossia is now the cover girl for book four – all of whom are now pregnant, on top of training and improving the city’s armed forces, inventing better suspension for wagons, managing diplomatic and trade relations with the Elves – the Goblins’ hated former slave masters – and spending each night impregnating as many Goblin women as possible. There’s a lot on the MC’s plate, and this explains why the fourth book is the longest yet. Unfortunately, it’s also the most poorly written.
It’s Worse Than Just Typos
Book four represents a significant drop in writing quality compared to the previous three books. The other books had typos and the same formatting error in which paragraphs are stuck together without a line to separate them, and these are also present in abundance in the fourth book. The typos and formatting mistakes were always irksome but tolerable, but now they actually make the reading experience qualitatively worse, and it’s only the enduring charm of the story and my investment in the characters that stopped me from giving the book two stars instead of three.
It’s not just the confusion of homophones like “canter” and “cantor” or forgetting to add a word here or there. The magical housebuilding scenes make abundantly clear that the author doesn’t know the difference between “raise” and “rise” or between “lift” and “rise”, making for unintentionally comical lines in which the logs, stones, and other inanimate building materials “raise” or “lift” some unspecified other objects into the air. In fact, all four books so far have proven that the author doesn’t know the difference between “lay” and “lie” or their respective past tense forms “laid” and “lay”. For example: “I lay bricks for a living, and I lie down for a nap” versus “I laid bricks all day and then lay down for a nap”.
Another pathetically common typo, which I didn’t notice in the other three books, is that the author frequently misspells the names of his own fictional characters and places. The city’s wainwright (wagon-maker) is introduced as “Fennal” with an “a” but is then referred to as “Fennel” with an “e” for the rest of the book. The city of Gillamoor, where most of the series takes place, also gets misspelt a couple of times.
Then there’s the case of chapter 13. One of the numerous women whom the MC sleeps with is introduced as “Nalia” but is then referred to as “Kalia” for several paragraphs before reverting to “Nalia”, then “Kalia”, then “Nalia” again. I reread the chapter carefully to make sure this wasn’t a threesome; it’s not, this is the same minor character who apparently has two different names because the author couldn’t be bothered to pick a name and stick with it.
The fourth book reads like a second draft that was hastily uploaded, and the end of chapter 39 makes clear that this was the case. As Andrew and Cirro approach her hometown, the city of Holmar, Cirro explains that the city only has a hundred archers to deter Orc raids. There’s a pause in the dialogue before Andrew turns to Cirro and asks her about the thousand archers of Holmar, and Cirro explains that the city actually only has two hundred archers. This isn’t the first time that characters contradict themselves on how many archers Holmar has, and whether it’s a thousand or a hundred matters far less than the fact that the author did do at least one partial rewrite but apparently didn’t have it in him to do a proofread.
All of that is just the technical writing quality; the storytelling quality also takes a nosedive late in the book as soon as our hero crosses the river to talk to the Orcs.
The Subplot with the Orcs is Terrible
Way back in book one, the MC had the idea to build a railroad between the various Goblin cities, but to do that they would need not just locomotive technology (magic will fix that) but copious amounts of steel. As of book four, the Elves to the east have begun trading magical items in exchange for the Goblins’ delicious wine which the MC plans to use to build a self-powered locomotive for the Goblins, raising questions about why these trading caravans would be permitted to sell valuable magical items to their former slaves, but never mind.
However, only the Orcs to the west manufacture enough steel to build a railroad, so Andrew sets out on a one-man diplomatic mission to persuade the Orcs to a) stop launching raids against the Goblin city of Holmar and b) sell the Goblins their steel. Once this is done, he, Ulenor, and Nerras will go north to retrieve a magical sword to be paired with the shield, the final item they need to take on the evil sorcerer Vogrim. I wrote in my review of the third book that the author might have bitten off more than he could chew with his writing of the Elves as part of the worldbuilding, and given his handling of the Orcs, I’m convinced of it.
Orc Subplot Summary
Orc Subplot Full of Holes the Author Can’t Fill
The Orc subplot isn’t unnecessary. The MC wants to build a railroad and the Orcs have the raw materials necessary to do so, and the story also has to tie up various loose ends before the final showdown with Vogrim; but it’s so incompetently executed that I was tempted to give the story two stars instead of three. It raises countless problems which the author barely makes an effort to solve, and the half-baked solutions only raise even more problems:
The Orc subplot is such a ramshackle construction, and the “resolution” so full of plot holes and logical flaws, that it ought to collapse as soon as the MC has returned to Goblin territory. I have a suspicion that it won’t because that would be inconvenient to the plot of the fifth and final book and would complicate the supply of Orc steel to build that railroad.
Conclusion
The charm at the core of this series remains, complemented by an interesting cast of secondary characters, and (mostly) solid worldbuilding, and this is why I didn’t lower my score to two stars. Frankly, the Orc subplot alone warrants one star; the fact that it would have required a lot of work to fix is no excuse, and it absolutely doesn’t excuse the poor quality of the writing. Judging by the bestseller scores and the number of other reviews, this series has sold incredibly well, well enough for the author to afford to hire a professional editor or proofreader to fix all the typos and other problems. It’s certainly sold well enough for the author to take the trouble to properly read and edit his own work before selling it to us.
I’ve stuck with this series throughout, and I’m looking forward to reading the fifth and final instalment, although not with as much anticipation as I otherwise would like.
Goblin Breeder 4: Goblin Defender: This One is Still Mostly Slice of Life
Andrew Jones from Florida was summoned to a new world to save the Goblins from extinction at the hands of the evil sorcerer Vogrim and has now well and truly established himself as their saviour. There is only one more item left to retrieve before they can take on Vogrim: a magical sword hidden in the far northwest that’s guarded by another, even more monstrous creature.
But that’s much later in the book. First, our hero has to build a house for himself and his four future wives – Lossia is now the cover girl for book four – all of whom are now pregnant, on top of training and improving the city’s armed forces, inventing better suspension for wagons, managing diplomatic and trade relations with the Elves – the Goblins’ hated former slave masters – and spending each night impregnating as many Goblin women as possible. There’s a lot on the MC’s plate, and this explains why the fourth book is the longest yet. Unfortunately, it’s also the most poorly written.
It’s Worse Than Just Typos
Book four represents a significant drop in writing quality compared to the previous three books. The other books had typos and the same formatting error in which paragraphs are stuck together without a line to separate them, and these are also present in abundance in the fourth book. The typos and formatting mistakes were always irksome but tolerable, but now they actually make the reading experience qualitatively worse, and it’s only the enduring charm of the story and my investment in the characters that stopped me from giving the book two stars instead of three.
It’s not just the confusion of homophones like “canter” and “cantor” or forgetting to add a word here or there. The magical housebuilding scenes make abundantly clear that the author doesn’t know the difference between “raise” and “rise” or between “lift” and “rise”, making for unintentionally comical lines in which the logs, stones, and other inanimate building materials “raise” or “lift” some unspecified other objects into the air. In fact, all four books so far have proven that the author doesn’t know the difference between “lay” and “lie” or their respective past tense forms “laid” and “lay”. For example: “I lay bricks for a living, and I lie down for a nap” versus “I laid bricks all day and then lay down for a nap”.
Another pathetically common typo, which I didn’t notice in the other three books, is that the author frequently misspells the names of his own fictional characters and places. The city’s wainwright (wagon-maker) is introduced as “Fennal” with an “a” but is then referred to as “Fennel” with an “e” for the rest of the book. The city of Gillamoor, where most of the series takes place, also gets misspelt a couple of times.
Then there’s the case of chapter 13. One of the numerous women whom the MC sleeps with is introduced as “Nalia” but is then referred to as “Kalia” for several paragraphs before reverting to “Nalia”, then “Kalia”, then “Nalia” again. I reread the chapter carefully to make sure this wasn’t a threesome; it’s not, this is the same minor character who apparently has two different names because the author couldn’t be bothered to pick a name and stick with it.
The fourth book reads like a second draft that was hastily uploaded, and the end of chapter 39 makes clear that this was the case. As Andrew and Cirro approach her hometown, the city of Holmar, Cirro explains that the city only has a hundred archers to deter Orc raids. There’s a pause in the dialogue before Andrew turns to Cirro and asks her about the thousand archers of Holmar, and Cirro explains that the city actually only has two hundred archers. This isn’t the first time that characters contradict themselves on how many archers Holmar has, and whether it’s a thousand or a hundred matters far less than the fact that the author did do at least one partial rewrite but apparently didn’t have it in him to do a proofread.
All of that is just the technical writing quality; the storytelling quality also takes a nosedive late in the book as soon as our hero crosses the river to talk to the Orcs.
The Subplot with the Orcs is Terrible
Way back in book one, the MC had the idea to build a railroad between the various Goblin cities, but to do that they would need not just locomotive technology (magic will fix that) but copious amounts of steel. As of book four, the Elves to the east have begun trading magical items in exchange for the Goblins’ delicious wine which the MC plans to use to build a self-powered locomotive for the Goblins, raising questions about why these trading caravans would be permitted to sell valuable magical items to their former slaves, but never mind.
However, only the Orcs to the west manufacture enough steel to build a railroad, so Andrew sets out on a one-man diplomatic mission to persuade the Orcs to a) stop launching raids against the Goblin city of Holmar and b) sell the Goblins their steel. Once this is done, he, Ulenor, and Nerras will go north to retrieve a magical sword to be paired with the shield, the final item they need to take on the evil sorcerer Vogrim. I wrote in my review of the third book that the author might have bitten off more than he could chew with his writing of the Elves as part of the worldbuilding, and given his handling of the Orcs, I’m convinced of it.
Orc Subplot Summary
Orc Subplot Full of Holes the Author Can’t Fill
The Orc subplot isn’t unnecessary. The MC wants to build a railroad and the Orcs have the raw materials necessary to do so, and the story also has to tie up various loose ends before the final showdown with Vogrim; but it’s so incompetently executed that I was tempted to give the story two stars instead of three. It raises countless problems which the author barely makes an effort to solve, and the half-baked solutions only raise even more problems:
The Orc subplot is such a ramshackle construction, and the “resolution” so full of plot holes and logical flaws, that it ought to collapse as soon as the MC has returned to Goblin territory. I have a suspicion that it won’t because that would be inconvenient to the plot of the fifth and final book and would complicate the supply of Orc steel to build that railroad.
Conclusion
The charm at the core of this series remains, complemented by an interesting cast of secondary characters, and (mostly) solid worldbuilding, and this is why I didn’t lower my score to two stars. Frankly, the Orc subplot alone warrants one star; the fact that it would have required a lot of work to fix is no excuse, and it absolutely doesn’t excuse the poor quality of the writing. Judging by the bestseller scores and the number of other reviews, this series has sold incredibly well, well enough for the author to afford to hire a professional editor or proofreader to fix all the typos and other problems. It’s certainly sold well enough for the author to take the trouble to properly read and edit his own work before selling it to us.
I’ve stuck with this series throughout, and I’m looking forward to reading the fifth and final instalment, although not with as much anticipation as I otherwise would like.
Goblin Breeder 4: Goblin Defender: This One is Still Mostly Slice of Life
February 23, 2024
Andrew's final leg of his journey to save his new world has begun .
Andrew the world savior for the goblins to end up defeating a thousand years old sorcery minotuar . On world domination by defeating all races but one human stands in his way Andrew from another world earth transported to this new world . Andrew's trials leading up to this major battle all or nothing he must win for his own life is in stake as well .recommend reading excellent series
Andrew the world savior for the goblins to end up defeating a thousand years old sorcery minotuar . On world domination by defeating all races but one human stands in his way Andrew from another world earth transported to this new world . Andrew's trials leading up to this major battle all or nothing he must win for his own life is in stake as well .recommend reading excellent series
August 27, 2025
There is a great blending of the world building aspects mixed with the smut and fantasy in this installment. Andrew works hard to try and bring elements of the human world into goblin society and this helps to make the series more than just about having sex with as many goblin beauties as possible. The final fight at the end really was shocking.
February 28, 2024
A wonderful series!!!!
A wonderful series to read!!! The author has managed to wrap a heart warming and even funny story into a grand adventure seamlessly!!!! I can hardly wait on the next story in this series!!!
A wonderful series to read!!! The author has managed to wrap a heart warming and even funny story into a grand adventure seamlessly!!!! I can hardly wait on the next story in this series!!!
March 8, 2024
Absolutely brilliant writing
A stunning portrayal of good versus evil. The heroes are strong, relatable, and genuine. The bonds formed are sincere and life altering. Wonderful series and I will hate to see it end when it does.
A stunning portrayal of good versus evil. The heroes are strong, relatable, and genuine. The bonds formed are sincere and life altering. Wonderful series and I will hate to see it end when it does.
May 30, 2024
Dammit Micky! You got me good!
I’m not going to lie, this one tapped my heart hard! You brought serious game Micky! My hats off to you. Well done!
I’m not going to lie, this one tapped my heart hard! You brought serious game Micky! My hats off to you. Well done!
June 5, 2024
About the same!
As the series has been written by now, what I say is not important. I have nothing to add to my earlier comments, so enjoy.
As the series has been written by now, what I say is not important. I have nothing to add to my earlier comments, so enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews