Customer Reviews

The Apocalypse Troll

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I picked up "Apocalypse Troll" to see if I liked David Weber. That is, this was a test run before I jumped into his Honor series. The result: I have already picked up "On Basilisk Station".

"Apocalypse Troll" begins with a riveting battle which runs for the first 65 pages or so. You won't want to put the book down for a break during this period. The story then slows down for a while before building to the climax. The book is well paced and rarely boring. It is not deep and thought provoking, so don't expect "Dune". But it is fun.

The book begins in the far future, where an alien race in mortal combat with humans is on the brink of annihilation. In an effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, the aliens take a desperate gamble to jump back in time and destroy the human race well before they develop any technologies. It some aspects, this reminded me of Star Trek's "First Contact" movie.

Through the heroic efforts of Battle Division 92 from the future, and a U.S. Carrier group from our present day which finds itself in the middle of the battle, the initial attack is thwarted. However, one part of the alien's forces, nicknamed a "troll" by the humans of the future, survives and begins a plan to carry out his original mission, and maybe more.

But a human from the future named Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna, a fighter pilot with decades of experience but a young hard female body that sci fi writers love, also survives. Now Ludmilla, along with a veteran Navy SEAL from present day, must begin the plan to defeat this Troll before he can destroy mankind.

Not a deep novel, but fast and fun.

This is a remarkable book. The first 90+ pages are non-stop action. The most continuously exciting "opening" of any sci-fi book I've every read! The science is solid and detailed. The good guys and alien are deep and believeable. The battle scenes are specific and real. With this one book David Weber has replaced Arthur Clarke as my favorite sci-fi author. (Sorry, Artie.) I can't wait to start his other stories.

Another fairly solid book by Mr. Weber. The plot to this book is not original by any means, but for what its worth, it is a well written and entertaining little novel. I always like David Weber's ability to create a detailed universe and this novel is no exception. However, if you are looking for a more original plot, stick with his Honor Harrington series, because this book recycles plot elements seen in numerous other sci-fi books. So, if you are looking for a light read, this book should fit...if you're looking for something to stimulate the mind, skip to something else.

The novel starts out with battle scenes right out of a universe similar to that of the Honor Harrington novels and ends up in what seems to be present day earth. "Mutineer's Moon" was the first David Weber novel I read and "The Apocalyptic Troll" is really more similar to it. The main characters are a woman from the future with extraordinary capabilities and knowledge and an aging SEAL, from our time. There is battle and romance and I loved the ending, but I'm hoping for a sequel. This is David Weber. You know it going to be good. It is. David Weber wastes too much time on sleeping and eating. He should write more.

The author has done a great job of touching all my buttons with this one - the heartache of loss, the joy of discovery, and the pride in taking action. The plot starts slow, builds at just the right pace, and explodes in the climax. The climax is a bit predictable, but not in all ways! The characters are well developed, and by the end of the book I was feeling right along with them in their different situations. In addition, the humor is subtle in places and outright bonk-you-over the head in others.

I picked up The Apocalypse Troll at a used book stall for a school fundraiser, and didn't look too carefully at it. When I got home to peruse my purchases, I wasn't at all sure that I'd gotten something I'd normally find worth reading. The back blurb promises that our hero "has his hands full of an unconcious, critically wounded and impossibly human alien warrior who also happens to be a gorgeous female"; the inside cover starts "My People are as human as you are! (said the beautiful space alien)"--you get the picture. And, true, there are moments like this in the book, but it isn't primarily a sci-fi bodice ripper, thank heavens, nor done as clumsily as this. Mostly the book is a very entertaining sci-fi/military adventure. Although I'm no expert, the jargon seemed authentic and the story, given the standard dose of disbelief most sci-fi needs, quite credible.

The story is quite a bit like Star Trek: First Contact, except that Weber's version of the Borg, instead of being sluggish robots you can tiptoe around, are vicious, vigorous supercyborgs which literally wipe out or assimilate anything in their path. They make much better villans than Picard's nemeses; so much so that they actually make it back to Earth in the past and have to be hunted down by their only surviving opponent. It's a fun read, not particularly deep but not at all pretentious, either.

I found it hard to believe that the author of the last three "Honor Harrington" novels could finally pry himself loose long enough to write a readable, exciting story. This one starts with a jolt of adrenalin in the first few sentences and never lets up, right up to one of the most moving endings I have ever read. I've been through this one three times, and enjoyed it every time.

____________________________________________
As Apocalypse Troll opens, 25th-century humans have been at war
with the alien Kanga for centuries. The Kanga are on the ropes; in
desperation they send a battle group into Terra's past, to cut off the
foe at the roots. BatDiv 92, Terran Navy is soon in hot pursuit. The
two task forces virtually annihilate each other. Col. Ludmilla
Leonovna shoots down the last Kanga ship -- with some help from
the US Navy of 2007 -- but is herself shot down by the last cyborg
Troll's fighter. She falls to Earth, and into the arms of USN Capt.
Richard Aston:

"Take me to your leader", she said with a perfectly straight face.

The last Troll is at large, with 25th-century weapons and a
bioengineered compulsion to waste humans. Ludmilla must
convince 21st-century Earth of the terrible danger they face...

Ludmilla is demonstrating her
sidearm: < *BIG* flash-bang here >

"What the hell *is* that thing? What d'you call it?"

"I'm afraid we call it a 'blaster'," she said apologetically...

It's all good, clean fun and brother, do those pages turn -- this one
kept me up til 2 AM. Everything *works* here -- the people, the
aliens, the future technology, the battles, the romance .... I had a great
time, and so will you.

Apocalypse Troll is Weber's 18th published novel, but apparently was actually his first written, some ten years ago. This would have been a very impressive first novel -- I have no idea why it ended up as a "trunk" novel.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

Colonel Ludmilla "Milla" Leonovna looked only ninetten or twenty years old. In truth, she was over one hundred and twenty. The four hundred year war was nearing the end. However, to spy a Kanga force with three Trollheims siding her and attempting to fold space to cross quickly, and possibly time travel backwards, showed that this was some sort of desperate last move of the Kanga's to change the war.

"Trolls" are best described as androids with human brains. Kangas "farmed" human brains to stay supplied with Trolls. It was like fighting fire with fire. Now I must skip much or give away some pretty awesome stuff.

Milla and one troll are all that survives and find themselves in the twenty-first century. The Troll has always been the pawn of Kangas. Finding himself able to make his OWN decisions is unique for a Troll. Troll decides NOT to destroy Sol, and therefore complete his mission. That mission had been to destroy Sol (Earth). Then Kangas would win the war before it ever began. With only logic and hatred within himselfr, Troll decides to have revenge on all humans AND kangas. He would enslave all of Sol and be prepared when the first Kangas arrive so he could exterminate them.

A soon-to-be retired SEAL Captain rescues Milla when the Troll left, thinking she was dead. Now she and the captain must secretly prepare the world leaders to help seek out and destroy the Troll. However, if the Troll realises Milla still lives or even suspects it cannot complete its "new" mission, Troll will simply and logically destroy himself, which will take all of Sol with it!

There is so much more which I cannot tell for fear of spoiling it. This covers only the bare basics. David Weber's series of Honor Harrington and the series known as Wing Commander are the only two Sci-Fi series to even come close to being THIS great! DO NOT MISS THIS ONE! Own it in hardback if possible.

I am a huge fan of David Weber and have enjoyed just about everything he has published, particlarly his rewrite of the Hornblower series set at the end of the next millennium (the Honor Harrington books) and the "Mutineers Moon" trilogy (republished as "Ashes of Empire"). But "The Apocalypse Troll" is my personal favourite among all the books he has written to date.

It starts as a space opera. After centuries of war, humanity is in sight of victory against an implacable enemy, the "Kangas". A small force of human ships returning to base for a badly needed overhaul sights a Kanga battle squadron which has slipped past the blockade of their few remaining worlds and is accelerating hell for leather towards Earth.

The human ships give chase, confident at first that Home Fleet should be able to blow the enemy squadron to plasma with little difficulty - until they realise that the Kangas in their desperation are attempting a manouver which has never been tried before but if successful might enable them to wipe out the human race ...

Concentrates on action rather than character development, but Weber pays enough attention to the characters to make you care about them but not so much as to impede the pace of the story. On the way to the final desperate battle there are some good flashes of ironic humour - watch out for the near disaster at Moscow Zoo.

Significant elements of the story overlap with either some of Weber's other work and some other Sci-Fi stories such as "The Fifth Element" but I didn't feel that spoiled the book.

Part of the action takes place in a time and situation close to our own, to be precise in 2007 AD during a period of some international tension.

Bearing in mind that this was published in 1999, I suspect the US President in the book "Jared Armbruster" is based on John McCain rather than Dubya. (The inference is that Gore won in 2000 and Senator "Armbruster" from Arizona beat him in 2004.) Similarly the Russian President who has succeeded Yeltsin in the book is rather more of a reformer than Vladimir Putin, though he is even more circumscribed by events. However, the fact that the world in 2007 as predicted in the book does not quite match how things have turned out does not in any way affect the quality of the story.

This probably labels me as a hopeless romantic, but I found the very last scene at the end of the book to be one of the most touching and memorable moments in all of the hundreds of science fiction books I have read.