I don’t track my reading by diversity the way some do, though I am curious what the stats would be. I definitely have a few auto buy authors that are also men, like John Scalzi, but my reading heavily skews towards women … YA fantasy and romance will do that. Still I ended up picking up some fantasy novels by men last year, and figured it was time to finally read a few of them, starting with this first book in a now completed series.
The novels follows three POV characters, and I don’t know why, but somehow I managed to miss the fact that thrall was a Norse word for slave until I was reading Varg’s chapter. I thought it meant like, ghost or something? Like I knew the world enthralled so I guess I was definitely associating it with something that is subjugated but was thinking magical creature. So new knowledge, always good.
The novel is set in a Norse inspired world where the gods died in a battle between each other about 200 years ago, and their death rained ruin and destruction on the world. As a result, people do not remember the gods or humans descended from the gods fondly. Immediately after the fall of the gods, their offspring were hunted and killed but in the years since, people have figured out a way to control them and have made slaves of them instead, to be used as witches or guards, depending on the powers of their immortal ancestors. And while people hate the gods, there is a large market for god touched items and the bones of gods as sources of magic and power.
First off, I enjoyed the novel and will read the next one but I also think it could have been a bit condensed/gotten to the point a bit more quickly. Also, turns out I am not used to Norse inspired names because some of them seemed way too similar. The three POV characters are not very well balanced, with Orka being the most interesting and engaging character by far. Varg started off strong but he is too focused on his mission to take the time to appreciate his new position and understand that he just needs to be a little patient. Elvar … well, I liked where her story ended and think she will have an interesting character arc going forward but these were the parts of the story I enjoyed the least.
Orka and her husband, Thorkel, have land far removed from the settlement or town but are still part of the community with ties to the local war lord. It is very obvious that Orka and Thorkel have a violent past and are now just trying to be normal, raise a family and keep to themselves. They have a vaesen (or magical creature) that guards their boundaries and let their son adopt another vaesen, so it is clear early on that they are different than their community and more tolerant of the old ways in a land that has turned from them. They get a bit more involved in local politics than they want when the local jarl/leader’s nephew doesn’t respond adequately to a murdered family and missing child, amidst rumors of more missing children.
Meanwhile, Varg is desperately trying to get access to one of two types of humans with magical capabilities to find out more about his sister’s death, and as a result, ends up competing to join the Bloodsworn, a band of mercenaries, to get access to their witch – descendants of the pantheon’s head god, witches have magical powers but are all enslaved. Varg is chosen to join on a trial basis, learns more about fighting and the ways of this band of mercenaries.
Elvar, meanwhile, is with her own band of mercenaries, the Battle-Grim, but the way they were introduced, I basically took an immediate dislike to them. Of course mercenaries are in it for the glory and the money but the Battle-Grim are introduced while they are hunting down someone wanted for murder, immediately kill the town’s jarl and others because they didn’t give them information, and then still hunt down the man who they want. Their target is a descendant of the god Berser, who cleans he is a berserkir and thus highly valuable and sought after by jarls to serve in their guards of slaves. The fact that they catch him with his wife, a witch, is only a bonus for them. The witch was basically my favorite character of Elvar’s chapters for the majority of the novel. Elvar, the daughter of a jarl, joined the mercenaries to make her own destiny but it’s hard to root for her when her fight against the patriarchy is built on the oppression of others – she doesn’t even call the thrall they use as a scent hound (based on the powers from his ancestor) anything other than hound or dog.
As the three individual stories progress, Gwynne slowly reveals connections – certain names and political leaders keep popping up, allusions to dragon-born, stolen children. By the end of the book, the connections between all three story lines are very clear, and I look forward to see where the trilogy progresses now that the set up is done. It sounds like there are two additional POV characters in the next novel – one of them, I actually am very interested in, the other one is basically one of the minor villains/thugs of this story so hopefully that’s more about giving as the broader perspective and not to make this person redeemable.