Goliath: An Unauthorized Autobiography

By: Beatrix Penrose

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

He arrived first. He consumed the intelligence documents. He won the battle. History will reflect this accurately — because he is writing it.

Oakhaven Farm was a blighted, deed-free ruin when Alaric the Farmer-Paladin arrived to save it. At least, that is the version of events the System's notifications describe, and the System has been wrong about almost everything from the beginning.

The correct version — the one being set down here, by the estate's Pre-Eminent Strategic Advisor — begins considerably earlier. It begins with a thorough three-week reconnaissance of seventeen candidate properties. It includes a targeted intelligence operation upon a legally significant document (which was subsequently processed via the only secure method available to a field operative without hands). It involves forty-seven formally filed complaints, a professional working relationship with a stone golem who expresses solidarity through weight distribution, an apprentice who named a rake Gerald, and a boot that has been retained as evidence of the highest possible significance.

His name is Goliath. He will not be explaining that further.

Goliath: An Unauthorized Autobiography is a companion novel to Smite the Soil (Book 1 of The Smite the Soil Universe), retelling the founding of Oakhaven Estate from the perspective of its most indispensable resident. Featuring System notifications, squire training logs, a comprehensive headbutt taxonomy, and a running record of every misattributed credit in agricultural history.

He did not tame the land. He permitted it to be tamed. In his vicinity. While supervising.