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All the Windwracked Stars (Sci Fi Essential Books)
It аll ѕtаrtеd wіth Ragnarok, wіth thе Children οf thе Set alight аnd thе Tarnished ones battling tο thе death іn thе ice аnd thе dаrk. At thе еnd οf thе long battle, one Valkyrie survived, wounded, аnd one valraven – thе steeds οf thе valkyrie.Bесаυѕе thеу lived, Valdyrgard wаѕ nοt wholly rυіnеd. Bесаυѕе thе valraven wаѕ transformed іn thе last miracle offered tο a Outcome οf thе Set alight, Valdyrgard wаѕ changed tο a world everywhere key аnd technology worked hand іn hand.2500 years later, Muire іѕ іn th
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excellent book,
This is set in the same world of her tales ‘Ice’ & ‘The Devil You Don’t’ from her collection The Chains That You Refuse. In fact, ‘Ice’ seems to be an excerpt or something that expanded into the novel, & from side references in Windwracked Stars it looks like ‘The Devil You Don’t’ really happened too. But you don’t need to have read either tale to read the novel.
Muire is a waelcyrge, a valkyrie in the Norse sort of world of the book. Ragnarok happened. Unfortunately, she ran away. She comes back after the battle to find everything she has ever known dead, except for an nearly-dead valraven (two-headed gifted pegasus) and the empty place everywhere the body of Mingan the Wolf (sort of Loki & Fenris combined) had lain. The valraven convinces Muire to make a stab at living, at least as an emotional cripple, & in turn is reborn when Muire questions for a miracle.
Quick forwards a few thousand years to a post-apocalyptic harsh environment, the last city alive on Valdygard (the earth/planet). It’s protected from the wastes outside by the Technomancer, & Muire is living a silent life when she abruptly meets both the reincarnation of Strifbjorn, the einherjar (angel/Norse god) she had loved from afar, & the still-perilous ancient incarnation of Mingan, who vampyrically kills a man before disappearing. Muire has to deal with a shock to her emotional stability & the threat of her ancient enemy’s reappearance.
Elizabeth Bear seems to like Norse mythology, as it was also the background for A Companion to Wolves, co-written with Sarah Monette. This is a novel about surviving and about being reborn, & reminded me at various times of parts of Bujold’s A Civil Campaign (‘the distress with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they break the world into just two sorts of public: the dead, and the forsworn’), my favourite Fire Logic, by Laurie J Marks, & parts of Diane Duane. It also has gifted animal-public (including a catgirl with a whip) who serve the Technomancer, called moreaux in a nod to HG Wells. I was waiting the whole book for some kind of reference to C’Mell (which didn’t come). It was a really hard book to place down, & I liked it very much.
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|Slow at times, but nonetheless pretty excellent,
Poor Muire is the last of the waelcyrge (servants of Woden in Anglo-Saxon mythology), who saved her life at the end of Midgard by running away. Through the millennia, she has had to live with her failure, as she awaits the end of the other world, Valdygard. But, as things seem to wind down, surprises commence to appear. The Wolf has returned and is on the hunt, and it now appears that many, if not all, of the waelcyrge are being reincarnated. Something very weird is going on, and Muire must rise higher than her self-pity and self-doubt if she is to get to the bottom of things.
I must say that I found this to be an fascinating book. After the initial Ragnarok, the tale slows down considerably, and just kind of crawls along. Fortunately, during that time, the author introduces a number of very fascinating font and situations that really blossom as the tale picks up speed. I didn’t care much for Muire herself, but I did like just about everyone else in the tale – Cathoair the super-soldier/prostitute, Selene the cat woman, Cristokos the rat mage, Thjierry the Technomancer, and others.
So, I did find this to be a pretty excellent book, slow at times, but nonetheless pretty excellent. Overall, I give it a somewhat guarded recommendation.
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|Norse mythology and apocalyptic science fiction combined to make a dark dreamscape,
When the battle (Ragnarok) is over, only three immortals are left alive: Muire, the smallest waelcyrge, the valraven, Kasmir, a two-headed, winged war-mount, and the one whose betrayal damned them all. Collectively they live through the coming ages to play their roles in the very last days of the world.
I needed something really uncommon to read and All the Windwracked Stars was just what the doctor prearranged and more. Elizabeth Bear combines Norse mythology and apocalyptic science fiction to make a dark dreamscape, and also invents a very intriguing concept: angels whose god is either dead or has gone missing.
The desperately savage combat at the beginning of All the Windwracked Stars drew me aptly in and I soon found myself liking font that I normally would not. The prose is somewhat bizarre, and this tale has a rather weird flow which, at times, made it a small hard for me to stay on. Usually I’d find that a small irritating, but for the EDDA OF BURDENS series, this wistful style works perfectly because the font themselves are lost souls struggling to know their own destinies.
I was once a huge fan of Apocalyptic Sci-fi, so it was a refreshing thrill to lose myself in Elizabeth Bear’s failing world. The outcome of doomsday comes down to a handful of unique misfits in a truly original tale. I especially liked the conclusion and I was so gloomily fascinated that I at once downloaded the Kindle version of the next book, By the Mountain Bound.
I nearly never jump into the next book in a series lacking a break between, but By the Mountain Bound is the tale leading up to the battle of Ragnarok — the beginning of All the Windwracked Stars — and I just had to know the answers to some of the wonderfully provoking mysteries left unexplained in this book
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