New Book Alert: The Hunt For The Troll by Mark Richardson; Witty Engaging Cyber Search For A Mysterious Tech Savvy Creature

 

New Book Alert: The Hunt For The Troll by Mark Richardson; Witty Engaging Cyber Search For A Mysterious Tech Savvy Creature

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Mark Richardson's novel, The Hunt For The Troll is a witty engaging search for a troll in both terms: someone who deliberately provokes and disrupts others online and also takes the form of the monstrous figure from folklore (and has some very strange abilities beyond cyberspace implying that there could be something paranormal in the presentation).

The Narrator's first encounter with the Troll isn't through the Internet. It's in his sleep. He sees the Troll surrounded by a vast stream of binary code. The Troll informs his new friend that this conversation is taking place inside his mental processor on a cloud in the Internet. The Troll then tells the Narrator that "It's time to change the world."

The Troll is also seen in cyberspace and many people would like to see him apprehended so they solicit The Narrator to find and identity him.

The Narrator could be a second cousin to Corvus Okada from The Hysteria of Bodalis and Graham Weathered from Orange City. He is a tech genius with a big mouth and a sardonic sense of humor that gets him through his difficulties. He was a software programming prodigy when he got the attention of the Captain, a hacker with an idea for a start up company. The company did not exactly go the way of Facebook or Google, more like MySpace. It folded, leaving The Narrator and The Captain to go their separate ways. The Narrator ended up in Italy where he "became an expert in loafing."

When even loafing got boring, The Narrator returned to the United States, where he eventually accepted a job as a sweeper for an online gaming company called Centre Terrain. (Any similarities to any fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien is completely intentional, he assures us. "The company's founders had hired a marketing team to come up with a deliberately catchy name, but after weeks of deliberation and dozens of focus groups, Centre Terrain was the best name that they came up with." )

The Narrator's job is to assume the form of Roma, a human warrior with "a physique that brought to mind Thor though Roma was darker and more brooding." Roma goes through the game and searches for problems or glitches in the system.

 It's an exciting fantasy world that The Narrator plugs himself into which is probably why while we learn much about him, we don't know his name. He feels like he's a nothing guy, one of several programmers. He doesn't have an identity beyond the one that he creates in Centre Terrain, the avatar in a world that isn't his. He isn't too far off from The Troll, a person hiding behind an online persona to give him a god-like presence.

Speaking of The Troll, since he and The Narrator have developed a connection there are many people that would like to use him to find The Troll. Many like The Narrator's boss Whitfield and Larry Gosling, a tech giant nicknamed The Architect, recruit The Narrator to hunt down the Troll. A big problem is that no one knows who the Troll is.

He doesn't leave a trace and many of his background information is purposely contradictory. 

The Narrator is able to put some clues together and profiles the Troll as someone who may have been an outcast, socially awkward, and a genius but not much of an opportunity to show it except through this mysterious avatar version of himself. Not unlike The Narrator himself.

 

That is probably why The Troll contacts The Narrator through the Internet and in his sleep. He sees a kindred spirit, someone who understands him. Together, they can create a new world that would allow them to come our from their alternate selves and be counted and accepted.

Mark Richardson presents an engaging hunt for a mythological creature but ends up becoming a hunt for one's purpose and identity. This is definitely a book that would please even the most disruptive of trolls.

Weekly Reader: The Hysteria of Bodalis by Marcos Antonio Hernandez; The Game Between Fantasy and Reality Gets Real

Weekly Reader: The Hysteria of Bodalis by Marcos Antonio Hernandez; The Game Between Fantasy and Reality Gets Real

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: There are many who when they are caught up in a fantasy, have trouble separating it from reality. They close the book, the movie's credits roll, the binge watching marathon is over, or the super boss is defeated in the final level of the game. A small piece of that person still remains in that fantasy world and the characters and setting stay with them for minutes, hours, and days. 

That has happened to me after reading many a book, especially several in a row. Many passages and situations stay with me to the point I feel that parts of my mind remain inside each book that I read.

But what happens when it's the other way around? What if the rest of the world can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality? What if they insist that aliens have destroyed the city in which you live and all you see is a typical run of the mill day? What if they reveal plot points in what you believe is only a movie, book, show, or game but they treat it like it's happening? Here's the conundrum, if you see what you think is reality and everyone else sees what you think is fantasy, how do you know for sure that what you're seeing is real?

Those are the questions faced by Corvus Okada, protagonist of Marcos Antonio Hernandez's novel, The Hysteria of Bodalis, an intense science fiction thriller with an intriguing premise of how blurry the difference between the real world and the fantasy world can be.

Corvus lives two lives. By day, he is a sales associate for Decant, a coffee franchise and goes to conventions to study technology and how it can be used for Decant. By night, he is an avid star gamer making high scores in such games as Ronin and Invader Assault. In fact in the computerized world of Invader Assault, he is a legend. He is the hero who destroyed the invading mother ship and saved the world-in the game, of course.

That is until he goes on a business trip to Phoenix. After observing a demonstration of lifelike androids that are connected to a cloud and have human characteristics, Corvus is assaulted by a strange old man who accuses Corvus of ruining Jesus Christ's return when he blew up the ship. The ship from the game, Invader Assault. 

This strange altercation results in Corvus accidentally killing the man.

That would be an isolated incident, except others recognize him as the man who saved the world from an alien invasion. Their opinions alternate between admiring Corvus as a hero and despising him for interfering with Christian prophecy. 

What makes this book is Corvus himself. Corvus Okada is hardly the heroic type in real life. As shown with the old man, he has a violent temper. He also has a smarmy sarcastic attitude which he shows in front of his colleague Brienna when she questions his interest in gaming. He isn't exactly a prince of charity and kindness, such as when he refuses to give up a bus seat for a woman who might be pregnant. Not exactly the hero of myth, legend, and video game,but he is a fun, sardonic lead in over his head.

Because of his personality, it is almost amusing at first when Corvus is mistaken for the real-life hero of Invader Assault. He is understandably confused and thinks that the first few people are too involved in the game or just crazy. However, the more people that believe Invader Assault is real, the more terrified Corvus becomes. He suspects that the people who believe the game is real are androids with corrupted simulators. 

Corvus' fear increases when friends and colleagues start to believe that he really did blow up a ship. In a pair of spine tingling chapters, Corvus' father goes from supporting his son to becoming involved in the Invader Assault world as well (even though he never played the game himself). 

The tension mounts as a resistence group blackmails Corvus into taking part in a suicide mission to blow up a second ship that has returned for revenge. Corvus' paranoia grows as he starts to question reality itself. Why can they see the burned buildings and the ships overhead but he can't? Why can't he access the game or see the news reports about him that others can? Has he gotten it wrong, is he the android and they are reality? 

It's somewhat ironic that I am reading this at the same time as The Unexpected Leader by Joel Sadhanad. Both involve employees of big chain coffee franchises and the existence of artificial intelligence and how lifelike it can be. However, they offer different links in the chain. The characters of The Unexpected Leader are wary of the human cost, but ultimately excited about the prospect of what AI can do. That is the beginning. 

Hysteria of Bodalis could be the end result. It is a world that has been so intrinsically involved in simulated games, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing that it is hard to tell what reality even is or for that matter, what or who makes reality. How can Corvus blow up a ship if he can't see it and doesn't believe that it is there? What is the cost to his humanity if he accepts that Invader Assault is real?

The Hysteria of Bodalis is the kind of science fiction that surrounds thought provoking questions around a gripping suspenseful plot and a fascinating lead character. From first page to last, it doesn't give definite answers to those questions but provides a hell of a ride for the Reader to experience them.