Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #383911 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'The finely crafted adventures of two very differrent characters.' - SFX 'A very gripping tale.' - Starlog

About the Author
William King was born in Stranraer, Scotland, in 1959. His short stories have appeared in 'The Year's best SF', 'Zenith', 'White Dwarf', and 'Interzone'. He is also the author of seven Gotek & Felix novels: 'Trollslayer', 'Skavenslayer', 'Daemonslayer', 'Dragonslayer', 'Beastslayer', Vampireslayer' and 'Giantslayer', four volumes chronicling the adventures of the Space Marine warrior, Ragnar: 'Space Wolf', 'Ragnar's Claw', 'Grey Hunter' and 'Wolfblade', as well as the Warhammer 40,000 novel 'Farseer'. He has travelled extensively throughout Europe and Asia, but currently lives in Prague.

Customer Reviews

Seven adventures of Gotrek and Felix in one book.
Trollslayer is actually seven adventures during the travels of Gotrek & Felix. Slayer Gotrek Gurnisson is a dwarf on a death quest. He roams the land searching for the mightiest of evils to fight and slay until he is finally rewarded with a glorious death that will long be remembered and talked about for generations to come. Felix Jaegor is sworn to accompany the Slayer, however long it takes, even though it could end in his own death. Should he survive, it will be Felix's job to record and report the heroic dwarf's many battles, as well as how Gotrek fell in combat. Here are the adventures within this book:

Geheimnisnacht: Daemon cultists are making sacrifices and summoning dark powers.

Wolf Riders: The pair are en route to Karak Eight Peaks, beyond the Empire's southernmost borders, to hunt for treasure guarded by a large troll. They meet up with a caravan and get hired as mercenaries. But the people seem to be having a long run of ill luck.

The Dark Beneath the World: The pair reach Karak Eight Peaks and enter the mines in search of the gold and to kill the troll guarding it. While there, the pair set out to free spirits of dwarfish ancestors.

The Mark of Slaanesh: Gotrek gets a head wound and has amnesia. Felix is on his own as he sets out to find an ingredient an alchemist needs to create a cure. Of course, the ingredient needed will not be easy to obtain.

Blood & Darkness: The pair go after a sorcerer of Chaos, his mutants, and female Chaos Warrior bent on killing a little girl.

Mutant Master: Felix is reunited with a student he knew during his time in Altdorf. The man is now nothing as he once was.

Ulric's Children: Sorcerer Voorman is using forbidden magic to transform (transmute) himself into something wicked.

**** Gotrek and Felix deal with zombie-like creatures, mutants, cultists, orcs, magicians, trolls, goblins, ogre, and much more during these adventures. Readers follow only the two main characters; there are no secondary characters. As always, author William King keeps a small bit of ironic humor in each adventure. This reads much like an anthology, except each tale starts off where the one before it ends. Very interesting reading, to say the least. ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Didn't like the style
My brother bought this book and really enjoyed it (he thought it was great). However, although the plot is okay, I didn't like the style - I found several grammatical errors (for example "the dwarf's smile grew more wider" which I am sure you realise is a tautology, and "the wolf-man through back his head and howled"). For warhammer fans like my brother I'm sure it makes a brilliant book, but if you aren't greatly interested in the doings of Gotrek and Felix I wouldn't bother buying it.

Enjoyable but repetitive
Trollslayer is the first book in the Gotrek and Felix saga by Willaim King, pairing up human Felix Jaeger and Gotrek Gurnisson the dwarf, in seven short stories.

On the whole the book is enjoyable, although I got the feeling in the first few stories that anyone getting too near to the companions - either on friendly or emotional terms - seemed to come to some despicable or violent end. However like all good fairy tales, light triumphs over darkness, and all the chaos-tainted, warp-spawned wizards, daemons, orcs and desperados all came to justice at the hands of our heroes.
A lot of the stories end abruptly, and your left wondering on occasions how the author is going to end the story in the remaining few pages left in the chapter. But the way King leaves some of the stories open, actually adds to the enjoyment of the plot, leaving the reader to picture the one-eyed, orange mohicaned vengeance that Gotrek is physically going to take with those that have shown him ill-will.

There were however two distinct features of this book that I felt spoilt it a little for me. The book is divided up into seven chapters, each a story within itself, but the way each chapter is written it is as if the author wrote each short story for insertion into a periodical. Each chapter relentlessly recounts the story of the meeting of the two main characters, Gotrek and Felix. Being slightly ignorant of the work of Willaim King prior to reading this book this may well be the case, but the book could well have been edited to remove this and readers I think will get a little frustrated at this.
The second problem with the book - and clearly not the fault of the author - is that a lot of words in the book are missing. The copy I have of this book is the fourth printing, and whether the type setters or printers got lazy, dropped a few words on the printers floor towards the end of this book, or even themselves were tainted by the influence of chaos, I found myself second guessing the missing words. OK so it was only simple words like `that', `when' or `why', but it got slightly annoying.

The book contains violence, humour and good interaction between the main characters, and I will definitely try to get hold of the rest of the series. 4 out of 5.