I have been a fan of Matthew Reilly for quite some time now, indeed I had the privilege of attending one of his book launches once and found the man himself to be incredibly welcoming and friendly, and when you follow a author you are often taken on a journey as the writer in question develops and grows and occasionally will step out of their comfort zone and attempt something different. While I have enjoyed each and everyone of his novels they mostly follow the same formula, which is usually an action packed movie in book form featuring tough but likeable characters. The last two projects, The Tournament and Troll Mountain have been like a breath of fresh air.
I'll save my opinion of The Tournament for another day and solely concentrate on the first episode of Troll Mountain for this review. It's a departure for three important reasons. Firstly it's being released in a serialised format, secondly like Hover Car Racer it's being released as an ebook with presumably a paper back edition to be released at a later date and thirdly it's a fantasy story that reads like a cross between The Hobbit and The Dark Tower series. The story is set in undetermined time and features a tribe of humans who live in fear of the trolls of troll mountain. The humans and trolls are dying from a terrible illness, but there are rumours that the trolls have found the cure in the form of a fabulous elixir.A young man named Raf is spurred into action when his sister Kira succumbs to the disease and the tribe refuse to help him and decides to journey alone to Troll Mountain and steal the elixir for himself and so begins his seemingly impossible quest through dangerous swamps, haunting forests filled with wolves, hobgoblins and of course rogue trolls.
Being the first volume in the series a lot of time is spent setting up the locations, characters and of course the quest to Troll mountain in which our main character sets out to find the elixir to save his sister which is of course the perfect way to hook the reader. As a teaser for the rest of the series it works a treat and certainly whets the appetite for future installments. Personally based on the strength of this first episode I can't wait to see how the rest of the journey unfolds.
Jez Cartner
Sunday 13/04/2014
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