A dauntless young hero. An army of brutal monsters. An impossible quest. Journey to the mountain...
Troll Mountain is a 2014 Australian novel by Matthew Reilly, originally released in three parts. In a fantasy world where humans are under the thumb of oppressive trolls, an inventor named Raf braves their mountains to steal a cure for his dying sister.
Troll Mounain contains examples of:
- After the End: Strongly hinted to be the setting, as what is on the surface a standard medieval fantasy world also has a few relics from previous societies, plus scurvy exists in it exactly the same as in ours.
- Bifurcated Weapon: Raf has an ax with a dagger in the handle.
- Chessmaster Sidekick: Ko accompanies Raf for most of his adventure. While Raf is quite clever in his own right, Ko is the one to educate him on troll customs and how to look past generalizations, and comes up with a Trojan Prisoner ploy to bring a bunch of explosives into the mountain and rescue Raf after his young friend is captured.
- Deconstruction: For the frequent portrayal of fantasy monsters as Always Chaotic Evil. The trolls do have a lot of violent, evil members, including their leadership, but there are also plenty of smart ones who get shouted down by the others. And the ones who attack humans are actually insane from near-starvation after being exiled.
- Lighter and Softer: Troll Mountain is Reilly's first book explicitly written for families to read together.
