Review by Frank Plowright

Hercules is generally considered a musclebound brute, not tiny, but then the gods of Olympus are usually believed to be massive and all-powerful. Except this is Tiny Olympus, where tiny gods live, and what’s important is being cool and being tiny. Especially being tiny. And on that score Tiny Hercules is a legend, so much so that he’s made Tiny Zeus jealous, and that’s never a good idea. The result is Hercules being banished to the Land of the Titans, which is better known to us as Earth.

On arrival in Chutney-On-Toast he’s still tiny and still exceptionally strong, and after an initial misunderstanding, it seems he’s going to be a great help to Jeff Wilkins in preventing the town being demolished for redevelopment. Except that’s not the way things work out at first.

It’s Nich Angell’s visuals providing the star turn here, lively, personality-rich and with a good line in background jokes, such as Tiny Poseidon, god of the sea, always being seen in a bath. The endless chase is well choreographed and Hercules himself is an unstoppable bundle of enthusiastic energy.

Writer Jon Lock’s opening concept is sound, but the execution is weak, too dependent on postponing any plot with a chase sequence occupying just under a third of the book. Hercules chasing Jeff’s cat in the belief that it’s a lion is complicated by Tiny Zeus manifesting as a swan and attempting to get to the cat first. It’s a sequence that might work well as fast-moving animation, but her doesn’t have enough in the way of distractions to justify the length. Moments are funny, such as Chutney-On-Toast’s residents utterly polite, compliant and understanding about the demolition of their town, while the epilogue proves Lock can tell a compact, funny story. However, the hope must be that young readers don’t look too greatly past the artwork.

Tiny Hercules returns in Golden Cabbage Chaos.