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.
