A review by whpltab
Trench: A Fantasy Novel of Epic Inconsequence by Ethan Childress

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

5.0

The war of races has been raging for over a thousand years. The soldiers on the fringe have all but given up, and spend each day surviving rather than fighting. The conditions are horrible, the food sucks, and in particular Miller, a human and weak mage, and Treesinger, an elf, and a master shot, are given the worst of the crop of new recruits. As usual, they bet on who will be “The One” among their new recruits, and as usual, Treesinger loses. The recruits meet Captain Bozeman, and Treesinger lets the recruits in on the prank he’s been playing on Miller for a while now. 

Trench is a mostly lighthearted book about the life of those who live on the fringe, and about the war that’s been raging for a thousand years. We learn about what the sodiers have done to cope with being sent to the fringe, and how they make the most out of what they’ve been given. We learn the reasons that everyone has been sent to the fringe, typically because they couldn’t be dealt with anymore, and were sent there to die.

Each character has some sort of backstory or reason they were sent to the fringe, and they are all incredibly interesting and funny to read about. What I loved about this book was that even though it was so lighthearted and funny, it had serious moments in it, and in a way dealt with some real world problems. The cast of characters were diverse and incredibly interesting, and they all have a chance in the spotlight. It is an incredible book for someone who wants to read epic fantasy novels without having to memorize multiple characters' names, and an incredibly complex plot.