Reading: Nine Goblins, by T. Kingfisher

Nine Goblins is by Ursula Vernon, using the T. Kingfisher byline because it's not a children's book. It's a very funny story about nine goblin soldiers who, in mid-battle, charge toward a wizard, who escapes the battlefield by magic, taking some of them with him. Like most foot soldiers, they don't have a clear grasp of the war, and are just trying to stay alive, under a command structure in which intelligence is a disqualification for rank. Nesselka's company includes one soldier who was lost in battle and came back with an injury and a teddy bear, who he insists on speaking through; Nesselka has given up arguing, in part because the bear seems to have improved the goblin's intelligence.

The story of Sgt. Nesselka and her troops' attempts to figure out where they are, and get home, are interwoven with events in the life of the elf Sings-to-Trees, who really loves animals, even the ugly, bad-mannered ones, and is making a more than full-time occupation of treating their wounds and injuries.

I kept laughing out loud when I was reading this, and quoted bits to adrian_turtle when she asked, but ebooks don't work as well as paper for flipping through trying to find half- remembered funny bits.

(This quick review is prompted by Amazon, which just sent email asking me to review this book, then refused to let me because I haven't made enough credit card purchases. This is particularly annoying since I borrowed Nine Goblins from the library.)

hair

I colored my hair a couple of days ago (I used a coloring conditioner from Overtone, not a dye). It's now a very nice shade of purple, which I'm reasonably pleased by even though I was going for blue. The company that makes it labels this "extreme blue," and the stuff that came off on a white towel is very blue; my hair is mostly bright purple with some blue bit, and some white bits that I missed when I applied the color on Wednesday.

This purple is a lot more eye-catching than the short haircut in my natural white with bits of gray. Also, a few weeks' regrowth makes a significant difference to how I look, and this cut and color no longer remind me of my favorite aunt. I should think about what I want the next haircut to be. My current theory is I still don't want to have to use a blow-dryer, but am willing to experiment with a hairdo that requires the application of a hair-styling product.