All the Windwracked Stars

A breathtaking prose-poem of the far future by the can-do-anything author Elizabeth Bear references without necessarily paying gushing hommage to, Cordwainer Smith's tales of the Underpeople (here there's a cat-woman named Selene, not C'Mell). And there are also some Jack Vanceian elements (cf the opening paragraphs of chapter 17 at page 238)--as well as the magic-tech and techological magic of Joan D. Vinge's "Snow Queen" trilogy. Anyway, it's based on old Norse myth, and features the tale of the semi-immortal waelcyrge (valkrie)-historian Muire, her companion the valraven Kasimir (a two-headed winged horse), and Cathoair (a male prostitute and beerhall prizefighter) and the villianous(?) Grey Wolf, who wants to destroy what's left of the dying earth in order to reboot it. It's played out at the end of time in which only one city is left standing--and that due to the efforts of the Technomancer. Ms. Bear mixes the mythic and the mechancial with incredible skill. (At one point Muire gets a smart phone message that one her companions is in trouble and dashes off to the rescue wielding a sword. And in context, it makes sense!) The tale is so clever that one weak section, in which (oh no!) a character who has fled to safely just HAS to leave that safety to attend to business, just might have been tossed in there deliberately as a riff. I'm not sure. Whatever, the writing is breathtaking. Don't speedread, please.

The angels and tainted met in battle at the end of the world and destroyed one another. One angel ran from battle, afraid. One refused to fight after promising both sides. And one mount, badly wounded, survived. The three move on to another age of the world but it too is coming to an end. The angel who refused seeks to hurry the end while the other two battle him. Still, among angels and humans, alliances may shift and what appears to be good may, in fact, serve evil and destruction. Author Elizabeth Bear creates an interesting blend of fantasy and mythology. The angel Muire, who fled battle due to fear, makes a sympathetic character, constantly disappointed with herself for her cowardice, yet refusing to die and making a continued contribution to the development of the human (post angelic) world. Strong writing and intriguing characters sustained my interest in Muire's struggles with herself and with the shifting alliances of good and evil. Bear wrapped the story up in an action-packed battle and delivered a satisfying conclusion.

Elizabeth Bear is an audacious, difficult, and ultimately rewarding author. There are good reasons why she won a Campbell award, and a Hugo award. She's ambitious, writes characters who are all-too-human, and is very willing to take standard pieces of the F/SF genre, and rework them, remix myth and Story into it, and come out with books and stories that bite. All the Windwracked Stars is the latest in that tradition. Informed and infused by Norse mythology, the novel begins with, paradoxically, a Ragnarok. We meet Muire, last of the Valkyrie, and Kasimir, the Valraven steed that bonds to her in the denouement of that final battle. Muire the Historian, to her shame, does not die as the rest of the Children of the Light do, and so lives on and on to see civilization, this time a human one, arise again on Valdyrgard. As you might expect, with a novel based so heavily on Norse stories, and given Bear's writing proclivities and style, the novel carries us headlong toward the inevitable fall of this human civilization. It is between these two falls of civilizations that the meat of the novel and the Story take place. Muire still has her Valkyrie obligations, and it is in the unfolding of those obligations that Muire encounters an old enemy, and discovers the real reason why Eiledon, the last city, has managed to survive until the end under its implacable, mysterious ruler, the Technomancer. Norse Myth and Mythology. Strange technology and a Last City set in blasted landscape. Complex characters muddling along as best they can. Muire seeks a chance at redemption, a strong and potent theme in the novel, reflected across the range of characters. And while it might not be a crackerjack straightforward plot, Bear hauntingly and memorably creates Valdyrgard and Eiledon and its denizens. I've said in other reviews that Bear's work is probably not for everyone, or every SF reader. However, given that she is at the cutting edge of the newest generation of SF writers, if you want to see why the "young turks" of SF are doing with the genre, Bear is a strong choice for you to find that out. In an publishing age where Fantasy is ascendant over its technologically inclined brother, its refreshing, encouraging, and joyful to find a writer who does write fantasy (e.g. The Promethean age novels), but who is also willing to write darned good science fiction, with no apologies. And more importantly than just being willing to write science fiction, but to be very good at it. Barq's Root Beer has a tagline: "Barq's Got Bite!". I would say, however, having read a number of her novels, and especially after reading this one, that "Bear's Got Bite!".

Muire is a waelcyrge (Valkyrie) who survives the Last Day (Ragnarok) and the deaths of her sisters and brothers fighting sdadown (shadow wolves). Her world has ended. The smallest of her sisters, a poet and historian, Muire survived, to her shame, by running away. She is alone among the ten thousand fallen, of the Shadow and the Light. The only other survivor she sees is one of the waelcyrge steeds, Kasimir, a valraven (two-headed, horned, winged), who is dying. With her last wish she saves him, turning him into a burning creature of metal. Unknown to her, another survives, The Grey Wolf. After lifetimes and ages come and go, at yet another apocalypse, the Last Days of the last city of Eiledon, he will hunt again, and Muire and Kasimir--and the reincarnated souls of the dead waelcyrge-- will meet again and hunt the hunter. Civilization has risen and is now falling. There is high-tech and magic and a new dark age. In the high reaches of a floating island in the center of the city, is a university. It is where the Technomancer Thjierry Thorvaldsdottir strives to save the last city at any cost, along with her unman (non-human) servitors, cat fighters and rat mages. In the shadows under the floating island, in dark taverns and alleyways, live poor trumen or nearmen (mutated, no longer purely human), such as Cathoair, who fights in contest and prostitutes for money. Muire and the Grey Wolf and others converge. Can the last city be saved? Should it be saved? There are strange turns and unexpected switches. Deadly fights and soul-stealing kisses. A post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic tale featuring an alternate Ragnarok seems a natural. Aside from the terminology and names, the society isn't particularly Norse-like, however. But then, nothing is typical or expected. A strange and fascinating look at sacrifice and redemption, death and transition, and the essence of life and living that are true no matter who you are and where in time or place.

This is set in the same world of her stories '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' actually happened too. But you don't need to have read either story 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 almost-dead valraven (two-headed intelligent pegasus) and the empty place where 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 asks for a miracle. Fast forward a few thousand years to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the last city alive on Valdygard (the earth/planet). It's protected from the wastes outside by the Technomancer, & Muire is living a quiet life when she suddenly meets both the reincarnation of Strifbjorn, the einherjar (angel/Norse god) she had loved from afar, & the still-dangerous old 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 old 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 trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn'), my favourite Fire Logic, by Laurie J Marks, & parts of Diane Duane. It also has intelligent animal-people (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 put down, & I liked it very much.