Majordomo is a humorous fantasy novella, written by Tim Carter; a trope twisted story, which takes many classic elements and uses them to create a compelling and fun novella, inverting the roles between the bad ones and the good ones. A kobold running a necromancer's estate, a group of do-gooders that pretend to burglar and murder their occupants and an excellent character development to bring a novella that was so different from most I've read.

Born with a club foot and a father that wouldn't accept this flaw, Jack soon found how difficult life could be for a kobold; but his luck changed when a famous necromancer offered him a work. With his hard work and his ethic, he eventually became the majordomo and the one that runs the subterranean estate; and Carter plays excellently to interchange the roles between evil and good, putting us in the position to cheer our kobold and the necromancer when a group of adventurers came to loot and murder at the estate.

Particularly, it is heartwarming to see how Jack is not only a hard working and honest character, but how he almost considers the necromancer as a father figure; he's suffering, watching how his master is slowly devoured by dementia, becoming a shadow of what he was. He also has to take care of the estate and those that work with him, and we can see how all those creatures that usually play the antagonist roles in fantasy become those that we cheer for, all through the eyes of Jack. And vice versa, those that would have been the heroes are, in reality, the baddies. 

The way the story describes the role of the majordomo remembers me of videogames like Dungeon Keeper, while the humour and that social critic that is centered around making the disabled ones, those that wouldn't be the chosen ones our main characters, in a way that remembers to Pratchett's Discworld. Despite it is a relatively short story, it has space to be cozy and dark at the same time (remember, we are the villains, right?); and the pacing is quite on point, making reading this an authentic delight.

Majordomo is an excellent presentation letter, a different fantasy novella, perfect if you are looking for something fun but with a ton of heart. Definitely I need to keep an eye on Tim Carter, because he promises to be a name to watch!