'After fleeing the authorities in the Imperial city of Altdorf, Felix Jaeger swears a drunken oath to dour dwarf Gotrek Gurnisson to record his death saga. In the cold light of day, Felix's worst fears are confirmed as he learns that Gotrek is a Trollslayer - a dwarf doomed to seek out a heroic death in battle to atone for an unknown personal disgrace. Their travels throw them into a string of extraordinary adventures as Felix tries to survive his companion's destiny.'
Trollslayer by William King is the first entry in the popular Gotrek & Felix series, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
This book reminds a little of The Witcher series, in that it's a sprawling fantasy epic, where the first book is actually a series of short stories rather than a novel. The stories here were originally penned separate to each other, not really intending to be collected together into a book; Gotrek was even supposed to die at the end of the first story before King fell too much in love with the character to kill him off.
The fact that Trollslayer is a collection of smaller stories than a full novel also means that it's a lot easier to get into, especially if you're not familiar with the Warhammer universe, or not used to reading fantasy fiction. Each one reveals a little more about the lead characters, and helps readers to understand their motivations, especially in the case of Felix.
Probably one of the best stories in the book for Felix is 'Wolf Riders', which sees the reluctant human hero and his Dwarf companion join the von Diehl caravan, a large group from a former noble house, as well as their servants and families, who have been forced from their homeland. The caravan is making its way to the Border Lands to set up a new home for themselves, and Gotre and Felix decide to go along as they're heading that way too. Over the course of weeks together the heroes help to defend the caravan from a number of threats, including Goblin Wolf Riders.
It's also during this time that Felix finds himself falling in love with Kirsten, an assistant to the groups sorceress. Felix develops such strong feelings for the girl that he's willing to break his blood oath to Gotrek in order to stay with her. I won't say what happens, but the fact that Felix clearly continues on with the mad Dwarf indicates that things don't go well for the young couple. Not only is this something of a tragic story, but it seems to help define Felix's character fairly early on, and it might even be something that reinforces staying with Gotrek in the future; after-all, he may fear awful things happening again if he tries to give up on his oath.
'Blood and Darkness' is the longest story in the collection, and reads more like a novella than a short story. It sees the duo come across the remains of a town that has been completely destroyed by an army of beast men, leaving a single child as the sole survivor. The two of them take the girl in and try to get to the next town before the roving band of mutants can attack there too.
What makes this story stand out compared to some of the others is that it spends a lot of time with the villains too, giving over portions of the narrative to Justine, a chaos warrior leading the beast men. This is one of the few times that focus is given to a character other than Gotrek and Felix, and the only time a villain is given the spotlight for extended periods. This would go on to be something that would happen more as the series goes on and begins to feature Grey Seer Thanquol. It's also the first appearance of a character that would go on to return several books later and after many years in the story.
The final story in the book, 'Ulric's Children' is a great story that hardly features Gotrek at all, having him become separated from Felix for the vast majority of it. Instead, we have to follow Felix as he's put into a very scary situation, in a story that plays out more like a horror tale than anything else. It's a chilling story, and leaves the book on a very dark note.
Trollslayer is a really good introduction to both Gotrek and Felix, and the world of Warhammer Fantasy itself. It gives both characters a chance to shine, and lets readers know early on that despite Gotrek being the one to run headlong into danger Felix is no less a capable and valiant hero, even if he hasn't realised that himself yet. The only problem with the book is that it'll leave you wanting to start reading the next one in the series straight away.
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