Different (hollow leg)
Different is a cycle of four fantasy novels by the German author couple Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein , which were published between June and October 2004 .
action
The dead City
The sixteen-year-old son of a businessman, Anders Beron, leads a normal life until one day he and his friend and bodyguard Jannik crash in an airplane and end up in a burnt, deserted city. When he is fleeing from soldiers dressed in NBC protective suits who hunt them down out of a shark-shaped helicopter, Jannik is shot and falls from a roof. Anders assumes that he is dead, flees and comes across the strange cat girl Katt. She saves him and brings him to her clan who live in some of the bombed houses.
There are no people there, only other animal people of all kinds, although they are not very numerous. The leader of the clan is called Bull, he is half bull, half human and reluctant to accept Anders. Slowly he gets to know the rules of animal people better and better and comes closer and closer to Katt. In the end, Anders tries to help the beastmen with laws and technology, without asking whether they want or need the “achievements of civilization” at all. The animal people are also very skeptical about the matter, as it "has always been like this" and this law cannot be broken. But why do you not know exactly yourself.
Ultimately, the urge to come back home and into your familiar surroundings grows ever greater, so that Anders ignores all warnings and sets out with Katt to flee over the mountains and thus create the impossible . Their escape ends abruptly at a wall that emits strange infrasound signals. When Katt and Anders go into a cave, they unexpectedly meet an elder - the enemies of the beastmen.
In the dark land
Katt and Anders cannot escape and fall into the hands of Elder Culain, who takes them with him to the legendary fortress of Tiernan. The Elder, who are described as some kind of elves , welcomed them kindly but determined never to let them go. Anders soon realizes that he finds his new hosts hardly less strange than the wild beastmen. He is particularly offended by the fact that the Elder behave as a “ master race ” and call the other inhabitants of this world only slaves or animals. He and Katt get closer and closer and the two begin a passionate relationship.
When trying to escape, Anders stabs an elder with a sword in the chest and has to pay dearly for it: according to the custom of the elderly, he is locked in an ice dungeon in the mountains, where he has to stay for seven months. He only survived "Oberon's punishment" because the men in the black ABC suits took him out of prison and saved his life.
The throne of Tiernan
Different is brought to the Torburg , the most important outpost of Tiernan. As soon as he has recovered halfway from the privations of the icy dungeon, alarming news reaches the fortress: A huge army of trolls , goblins and other monsters is rolling towards Tiernan and will soon reach the Torburg. The Elder armies are preparing for battle, and Anders also wants to oppose the army. However, he soon realizes that the hordes of the enemy are led by his bodyguard, believed to be dead, who was rescued by the monsters and sees himself on the side of the good, because Jannik is of the opinion that only through the fall of Tiernan and the Elder freedom can be given to other peoples.
A terrible battle breaks out in which innumerable people are killed. Anders escapes the carnage and meets a friendly troll named Boris in the underground. Together they want to cross the dangerous plane of death in order to discover the secret of the dark land. In the end, the two of them run into men in ABC suits flying helicopters again and are captured by them. When trying to escape, Anders falls several hundred meters from the helicopter. It is now clear that the men do not want to do anything to Anders, but should only bring him to his father. His father is responsible for the creation of this world. He is Oberon , the God of Elder and Anders, therefore, Oberon's son.
The God of Elder
Boris saved Anders, and the two move on to finally discover the secret of the Elder God Oberon and this fabulous world. Anders flees with Boris to the city of the beastmen to find Katt again. At first this succeeds without any problems, but a short time later Elder Tamar is standing in town with his father's helicopters and wants to take him prisoner. Anders knows, however, that Tamar intends to usurp power in Tiernan and wipe out the other races. Anders flees again, this time to Jannik. They make a plan to overthrow the Elder, and Anders returns to Tiernan. However, the plan is exposed and he and Jannik are captured. Their recent escape leads them to an old bunker under Tiernan, in which genetic engineering experiments were carried out. These had gotten out of control, which resulted in this world with its mythical creatures .
At the end of the escape, however, they fall into the hands of the men in the ABC suits and Anders father. After Jannik shot Ottmar Beron, Anders father, he explains everything: Anders has to find out that he is actually the son of the God the Elder: His father, the big entrepreneur Ottmar Beron, is in truth Oberon, an immortal a long forgotten epoch that created the valley for the beings created in experiments, since there is no place for them in the normal world. Jannik is also a son of Oberon and Anders is the older half-brother, so both are half-brothers. Both mothers died in childbirth. Jannik and Anders are infected with the genetically engineered virus that turns alders into animal people, which is why they have to stay in the dark land forever.
You decide to take a place in this strange world, Jannik with the Trolls, Anders with the Elder and Beasts. Soon Katt will be pregnant and the borders will be torn down so that the peoples can finally live openly and in peace with one another, and Boris declares in his typical linguistic simplicity that everything is now "good".
background
Like many Hohlbein works, this series has already been translated into several languages, including Portuguese .
Cover design
The dust jackets of the bound original edition have four elaborate covers by the artist Peter Gric, which show the key situations of the respective novel and at the same time can be laid together to form a large panorama picture. The spines of the book also fit together differently on the shelf for the horizontal lettering .
A limited edition of 120 euros , bound in white leather, was also published in a slipcase by anders .
expenditure
- Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein: differently Volume 1. The dead city of Ueberreuter, July 2004 ISBN 3800050730
- Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein: differently Volume 2. In the dark country Ueberreuter, August 2004 ISBN 3800050870
- Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein: differently Volume 3. The Throne of Tiernan Ueberreuter, September 2004 ISBN 3800050889
- Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein: differently Volume 4. Der Gott der Elder Ueberreuter, October 2004 ISBN 3800050897