Trollhunters
by Guillermo Del Toro and Daniel Kraus
Disney Press, 2015
320 Pages
For Kids 12-18+
Imagine a book written by both the guy who brought us Pacific Rim and the guy who wrote Rotters and Scowler, two of the most spine-chilling books I’ve ever experienced. This book is a blockbuster. I was at part two before I realized how long I had been reading. These guys know how to tell a story. Its not gut-wrenchingly terrifying like Scowler was, but it’s got its moments.
Back in the 70s, (The prehistoric era, right? When all your dad’s comic books came from?) two brothers, Jim and Jack, are caught in the middle of an epidemic of child disappearances. Sure enough, the older brother gets snagged by something horrible. This affects his small companion greatly for the rest of his life, and when Jim has grown and has his own kids, and has lost his wife from his extreme paranoia about things that go bump in the night, his own son meets something horrible that lives in the sewers.
Jim Sturges (Jr.) finds himself torn from his crappy world of school bullies, landing in a Troll Market (exceedingly similar to the Goblin Market that appeared in the movie Hellboy II –ahem–,) pursued by the largest troll of all, whose name is: Arrgh!!! (and who reminds me of the gorilla kaiju Leatherback just a little, as well).
I haven’t had such a fun romp in troll-land since Bruce Coville’s Always October. I indulged in the weird overlap of bloodbath and sophomoric humor.
In this world, trolls are descended from Ymir the frost giant… and they eat children. To combat this, a bloodline of Trollhunters was born into the human race. But alas, like the Jedi, they are almost extinct as we face one of the greatest challenges of our time.
When Jim encounters his Uncle Jack, still the age he was when he disappeared, he is invited (more like shanghaied,) to become a Trollhunter himself. He has the blood.
“How lucky you are,” Blinky said. ”You are about to witness possibly the most vile ritual in all of trolldom.”
The nullhullers’ squat bodies began to hitch and jiggle. Thick drool poured from their agape mouths, followed by a brown lard. A symphony of choking sound emitted from their bodies as a plump, translucent sac began to emerge from each gaping throat…
Jim and his best friend Tobias Dershowitz (yes, “Tubbs”, and awfully reminiscent of the neighbor kid from Monster House,) discover a new exhibit at the museum when they cut through on the way home from school. Funny, it’s the same bridge that was depicted in a mural down in the Troll world.
Infatuated with Claire Fontaine, a girl with a british accent and combat boots, Jim tries out for a part in the school’s play called Shakespeare on the 50-Yard Line, and (conveniently for the climax of the book,) which will present Romeo and Juliet on the football field during half-time. He aces tryouts and she becomes his Juliet… until bully and sports-star extraordinaire Steve Jorgensen-Warner needs to boost his grades through extra-curricular participation.
Harapkharad Lives!
Jack and his two troll companions take Jim and Tubbs to the underworld to fight Gunmar the Black. Jack defeated Gunmar once before during the original Milk Carton Epidemic, (a trend of disappearances now starting again,) but now Gunmar’s back and more powerful than ever, with the number of living Trollhunters down to… well, only the two of them. And that bridge that is by now one stone from completion? It is The Killaheed Bridge, the ancestral source of Gunmar and the Gumm-gumm trolls’ power. (Gunmar is the leader of the Gumm-gumms, savage human-eating trolls from Scotland who have no interest in living underground and have set their sights on conquering the world of men.)
They train the new kid to fight, to cut out the trolls’ “softies” and gallbladder (or else they come back). We learn more about Johanna Arrgh!!! and how she got a stone embedded in her skull during battle, and about Blinky, Troll Historian, (who reminds me of Pleakly from Lilo & Stitch).
Our first conquest that evening was with a quartet of wormbeards: Hulking, bulbous creatures whose objectives were to whisper demoralizing insults to children while they slept so that the children would be compelled to run away from home, sad little sojourns that always ended while passing beneath a bridge.
Arrgh!!! had torn out Gunmar’s eye during the first battle, but it soon became a cursed object known as The Eye of Malevolence. It helps them see where Gunmar is. …But The Drift is two-directional…
One night, while Jim and his paramour are studying for a math test (yeah, right,) Claire is kidnapped from right under his nose. That night, Jim Sr., who has buried himself in a world of security systems, door locks, lawn mowing, & pocket protectors, finally crosses paths with his long-lost brother Jack and has a meltdown, as would be expected. After all, during most of his son’s Trollhunter training he had been kept asleep with a fetus schmooffinger in his stomach.
The Battle of the Fallen Leaves
Children recently kidnapped have been buried to their knees near Gunmar’s throne. Gunmar, a giant troll now fed with a streaming trough of animal guts, is awaiting his imminent rise to power when the grinder will be filled with the meat of children once again. A bloodbath, I tell you. Oh, one of the missing kids is Claire. Be ready. Not everyone makes it out alive.
The hardcover edition has color illustration plates, a really nice inclusion of well-done artwork. I found no plot inconsistencies, and the storyline travelled along at full-speed. If you can deal with the idea of Arrgh!!! chowing down on some of Tubb’s grandma’s cats and a fairly high page count, this is a no-holds-barred adventure dealt for reluctant readers and challengers of the darkness!
You are food.
Related Posts:
The Monster Variations
Rotters
Scowler
Trollhunters