For Whom the Bell Trolls, edited by John L. Monk and Lindy Moone

Release date: April 1, 2015

Subgenre: Fantasy anthology, funny fantasy

About For Whom the Bell Trolls: 

Funny, touching, suspenseful—sometimes romantic, titillating and shocking—there’s something for all adult readers in this unique illustrated anthology from 23 authors. Arranged from light to meaty fare, the antrollogy’s “menu” offers up fanciful and farcical stories, family-oriented tales, romance, mystery, high peak adventure, even magically surreal literary stories—starring all sorts of trolls, from the all-too-real Internet variety to the mythical mountain and bridge-dwelling trolls of legend. Readers will laugh nervously at Humphrey the half-breed’s unfortunate beginnings, and bite their nails on behalf of Fergus Underbridge, hard-boiled troll detective. They’ll cheer a not-so-ordinary troll-fighting girl and want to hug—or slap—a woman lost in her own neighborhood. And whatever should be done about the boy with the head of a dragon...?

Proceeds from this anthology will be donated to Equality Now.

Excerpt from "Troll Dating" by Cora Buhlert:

Isnogrod the troll had been so excited the first time he read about this newfangled Internet thing. He'd spied the article in a faded copy of a magazine someone had dumped on the side of the road that went past his cave, here in the underpopulated heart of Iceland. Though "went past" probably wasn't the right term, since the distance between Isnogrod's cave and the road was still a good two kilometres.

"Get connected to the global community," the article had promised. "Talk to people all over the world. Every piece of information you could ever need and every product you could ever want available at your fingertips."

It sounded like a fairytale, more fantastic than the legends of old. And yet it was real, all of it.

So Isnogrod investigated. He read every news article about the Internet that he could get his hands on, which was rather difficult. Newspaper delivery to his cave was spotty at best and the people who were supposed to deliver the paper kept running away when they saw him. Even if he only said, "Hello. Nice weather, isn't it?" Centuries of bad propaganda about trolls had certainly left their mark.

Still, the more he read about this Internet thing, the better it sounded. Apparently, all the newspapers were on the Internet now, so spotty delivery wouldn't be a problem anymore. You could even listen to music and watch films online, which was wonderful since radio and TV reception was bad in Isnogrod's cave. And the one time he'd gone to the cinema, all the other patrons had run away screaming. The film, something called The Avengers, had been really fun though. Okay, so they got the details about Loki and Thor all wrong – after all, every troll knew that Thor was the villain and Loki the hero. But that Hulk guy was wonderful and his pain so relatable. And wasn't it great that he could shapeshift into a human? Now that would be really convenient. 

Talking of convenience, ordering online would make shopping so much easier. The manager of the supermarket in the nearest town, some forty kilometres away, inevitably called the police whenever Isnogrod showed up for his monthly grocery haul in the vintage BMW sidecar motorcycle he had liberated from a junkyard. And for some reason, the cashiers refused to accept gold nuggets and precious stones at the check-out.

And then there was something called social media, which apparently allowed you to make friends all over the world and talk to them. But the best thing of all was that – so article after article claimed – the Internet was full of trolls! Of course, the articles all used the word "infested," but that was just centuries of bad propaganda talking again.

Whatever words they used, the fact remained. The Internet was full of trolls. There were hundreds, even thousand of trolls online, more than Isnogrod would ever have dreamed possible, considering how rapidly the numbers of his race were dwindling in a world that simply wasn't made for them.

But the best thing, the most absolutely wonderfully amazing thing of all about the Internet, was that it was not just full of trolls, it was full of lady trolls. And in this world of plummeting troll population, female trolls were rarer than gold and diamonds and platinum, and more precious, too.

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