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This page is devoted to all things Trella.

The author’s thoughts about Trella . . .

Of all the characters in my books, Trella always seems to elicit the most questions.  While most readers are willing to accept the facts about Eskkar’s fighting skills, agriculture, bronze tools and weapons, development of the horse as a fighting platform, even counting and rudimentary forms of writing (all of which are basically true, by the way), everyone seems to have a problem with Trella’s powerful intellect.

At first that reaction was quite a surprise for me. Perhaps because one of my childhood friends possessed such a powerful intellect, apparent at a very early age.  She started reading when she was just a little over two years old, and grew up to be even more impressive, with a powerful mind that absorbed everything and remembered everything.  Over my thirty years in the software industry, I also worked with several very high IQ people, and I came to appreciate the gap between the average person’s intellect and someone with such a high IQ.

In any population, IQ is always spread across an even Bell Curve.  That is, there is always a small percentage of individuals at both ends of the curve, roughly in balance of numbers.  That means for every one with an IQ of 40 or less, we should expect the same number of people with IQs over 160.  And given the right circumstances, such as plenty of nourishing food and emotional support, it’s seems very reasonable to me that a girl with that type of IQ could flourish and find an outlet for her special abilities. 

To my way of thinking, Trella is even more realistic and believable than Eskkar. I’ve always had a high regard for the intelligence of ancient people.  If you think of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and the other great Greek writers, it’s hard not to believe that men and women with powerful intellects flourished even in those early ages.

If you’ve never been around such a person, or watched them grasp a new and difficult concept with ease (while you’re still struggling to understand the basic concept), you’ve missed an impressive demonstration, albeit a humbling one.

So, the premise for Trella is that of a very high IQ girl (approximately 170+) with a near-perfect memory, raised in an affluent setting, and trained from her early, precocious childhood to be observant of people, their mannerisms, and their words.  Think of her as a Bronze Age Sherlock Holmes, with a mind capable of seeing all the little things that Dr. Watson always missed.

Follow the link to watch Trella in action against . . . Orak’s Priest.