2/5 stars
Synopsis
Warning! This section contains spoilers, if you would like to avoid these spoilers, jump to the review below.
The farmers in the town of Westfall discovered that there was a nest of trolls nearby, so they went and slaughtered the trolls. One of the farmers, Gordy, discovered that there was a baby troll. He couldn’t bring himself to let it be killed, so he took it in and raised it as his own.
Seventeen years later, Westfall was attacked. So the villagers sent the troll to the nearest city to get help. The people in the other town didn’t listen to the troll, and attacked him instead.
Through a series of unfortunate events, the troll was sold into slavery. After several months of being a slave in a salt mine, the troll gets the opportunity to escape, and so he takes it.
After escaping, the troll stumbled upon the most powerful man in the region and saved his life.
The baron’s family members unexpectedly stopped by his house, and started bugging the troll. The niece taunted the troll and led him away, and when that happened she tried to have him “take her.” Her brother found them and was disgusted, the troll protested, and the sister lied saying the troll was taking advantage of her. There was a fight, and the nephew died. The troll ran, knowing he could never face the baron again.
The troll ran into a wizard and protected him, so the wizard made him his apprentice. The wizard was killed.
The troll ran away into the forest and a blizzard came. He sheltered in a cave and lost track of time, becoming slightly feral. But then he discovered that there was a bridge nearby, with travelers on it, and literally became a troll under a bridge.
He was eventually picked up by a mercenary. The troll then helped the mercenary and became her apprentice. After working with the mercenary for a year and a half, the king requested the troll and mercenary come before him. After meeting the king, the troll discovered that his mother was alive and had been searching for him for a long time.
The king gave him an assignment. The assignment was to sneak into the camp of the villain and kill him.
There was a big fight at the end, and it ended with the villain defeated but not dead, and the artifact that he was using destroyed.
The troll captured the villain instead of killing him, and was taking him back to the king when they ran into knights the king sent to intercept them. The knights were there to kill the troll because the king was going back on his deal (that the troll would live freely). The book then jumped to the troll handing the villain to the king and forcing the king to keep his word.
Review
Everyone always assumed the worst of the troll. That he was a pet, a monster, a creature. It was a little tedious when every single time he talked to someone he was verbally and physically attacked. I can understand it in the beginning of the book. But by the 40% mark, it was revealed that most of the people in the region had heard about the troll. Why did they still assume the worst? They knew that he had lived with humans his entire life and nothing untoward had happened to them.
The troll was cowardly in the beginning of the book. He was a weak character, constantly screaming and whining and crying for his ma. He got stronger as a character by the 80% mark, but by then it was way too late. I felt like the author tried to make him a jack of all trades. However, I don’t think that really contributed to his character.
One annoying thing about the book was that the troll’s name changed constantly. Whenever he met someone new, they changed his name. His name was Kwadjo. But other people then changed it to Spike, Vincent, Little Goat, Vance. Why did he go along with that? Why did he not fight to keep the name his beloved parents gave him? I felt like his easy acceptance of his name being changed further reinforced that he was a weak character.
The troll had no initiative in the book. He was continually acted upon, and he didn’t ever try to forge his own destiny. Even towards the end, when he needed to go kill the villain, he didn’t really choose it for himself. The king told him to do it.
The end fight was tedious. The characters were fighting, but they were also talking and exchanging insults. In a real, intense fight, one of the last things on your mind would be to throw a snarky insult to your opponent. Taunts and insults in fight scenes generally don’t work. They bog the scene down with useless chatter. Some authors can do it well, because they use it sparingly. However, this author had too much dialogue in the middle of the fight scene. That amount of dialogue did not help the scene at all. Also, the main character was talking to his opponent when both of them were blinded by smoke. The main character’s opponent didn’t know where he was and was trying to find him. I don’t understand why Kwadjo was talking to the person he was fighting. It just gave away his position. It didn’t make sense to me why he would give away his position like that. I would have understood if he talked and then immediately moved positions in order to lure his opponent into a vulnerable position, but he didn’t do that.
I thought this book had an interesting idea, but I don’t think the author executed it as well as he could have. The biggest problem I had with the story was that the main character had absolutely no motivation. He just allowed himself to be pushed around every which way.
Fireheart Books 