Review: All Things Huge and Hideous
G. Scott Huggins (and I don't know what the G stands for, but I want to think it's for Great. Great Scott! also, because he writes great stuff) has a new book out, All Things Huge and Hideous. If that sounds like it's a riff on the Herriot titles I grew up loving and reading to pieces, that's because it's a loving homage to the English Veterinarian's mostly-true memoirs. The stories of James DeGrande, on the other hand, are purely fantastic.
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Imagine a world where Sauron won, the hobbits stumbled just shy of the goal, and humans are most definitely not top of the heap. Now imagine that world as being full of folks just trying to make a living, and whose pets are the comforts of their dull, dreary, sometimes terrifyingly magical existences. You've got a glimpse of the setting Scott Huggins built for his veterinarian to try and keep a shop going in. He's aided and abetted by a young woman who got pitched out of with school for not having the right kind of physique, and... Let me put it this way. Although I devoured any and all animal books I could lay my hands on as a girl, from Herriot to Durrell to all the zoo vet books, I never really wanted to be a veterinarian myself. I grew up on a farm. I've had my arm up to the elbow inside a goat helping her have a kid. I know what vet work is like, and glamour is not involved, not that I ever wanted glam, but there's a limit to my desire to be bitten, trod upon, and pooped/pissed/spat upon. Huggins nails this aspect of veterinary work with the accuracy of a man married to a veterinarian, and there are points I was snickering out loud while reading because I knew all too well what he was talking about.
Honestly, this book is funny as all get out. You'll probably find yourself laughing while reading, because if you're like me, you'll appreciate the sarcasm of the main character, the deviousness he employs to get his work done when the owners of the pets are far more obstinate than their beasts, and most of all, the hilarious situations you start to get into when you treat basilisks, dragons, and dire wolves. It's all in a day's work for James DeGrande and the able Harriet.
There is, however, more to this story than mythical creature anecdotes, as much fun as that is on it's own. There's also the poignant thread drawn through it of the human vet's slavery to the Dark Lord, and how he hopes to buy his freedom and thus that of his assistant who has become closer than family to him. It might be a wild dream, but James indulges in it when he can. And when he can't, he just does his best not to fall under the direct scrutiny of his cruel and usually lax master. Does he succeed? Well, that would be a spoiler, wouldn't it? I'm fairly sure this is the first of a series, and I am excited to see what else is in store for the vet. Lions and tigers and bears, how tame! Dire wolves, necrorats, and chimera, of course!
(side note: links to books on this blog are often affiliate links to Amazon, because I get a tiny bit from them. It doesn't cost you anything, and it sometimes buys me coffee. I don't drink frou-frou coffee)