Wild Diplomacy: A Light-Hearted Fantasy Adventure (Stories from The Three Kingdoms) by D.G. Redd ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Fantasy Novellette. Foress is a gnoll. She has long incisors, blood red eyes, piebald fur and tail, and an operatic singing voice. Other than that, she resembles the dogs humans keep as pets, but she’s not like them at all. She has thumbs, and she’s also an experienced diplomat and mediator between forest people such as orcs, kobolds, and goblins. She’s determined to open diplomatic relations with city-folk, but then she’s caught in a human trap and taken to the Queen for the bounty. Can Foress establish a mutual base of respect without city-folk resorting to their usual treatment of forest tribes? Author Redd created a wonderfully diverse world for Foress. He writes her as a true believer in good, no matter the circumstance. Redd’s novelette reminds us to try kindness and respect first. In the end, this is a First Contact novelette. Humans may kill gnolls, and gnolls may eat humans, but neither species really knows anything about the other. I found it delightfully uplifting, and it’s 5 stars from me🌵📚💁🏼‍♀️ Thank you to LibraryThing and D.G. Redd for this ecopy. ( )

I received a copy through LibraryThings Early Reviewers. I think it is aptly described in the title as “a light-hearted fantasy adventure”. I have not read the other books in the series, which would probably have given me more familiarity with the places mentioned and typical interactions between the various sentient races, but I think it works as a stand-alone short story. It was a fun read and now I am curious about the other books in the series.

Foress is a patient, determined diplomat of the gnomes who has dealt with other races and now intends to establish relations with humans. Heading through the forest to the human settlement, she encounters two humans. Although she knows the human language, she initially does not pronounce it well enough for them to realize she is speaking, so she tries to get meanings across in other ways. Also, she is familiar with the cultures of other beings, but not human culture, so she tries to interpret what she experiences with the humans in comparison with those. I enjoyed reading Foress’s perspectives on the humans. ( )