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Valhalla #1
Valhalla
A Harmony Ink Press Young Adult Title
Violet MacRae is one of the aimless millions crowding northern Scotland. In the year 2330, where war is obsolete and only brilliant minds are valued, she emerges into adulthood with more brawn than brains and a propensity for violence. People dismiss her as a relic, but world peace is more fragile than they know.
In Valhalla, a clandestine base hidden in an icy ravine, Violet connects with a group of outcasts just like her. There, she learns the skills she needs to keep the world safe from genetically enhanced criminals and traitors who threaten the first friends she’s ever known. She also meets Wulfgar Kray, a genius gang leader who knows her better than she knows herself and who would conquer the world to capture her.
Branded from childhood as a useless barbarian, Violet is about to learn the world needs her exactly as she is.
Violet MacRae is one of the aimless millions crowding northern Scotland. In the year 2330, where war is obsolete and only brilliant minds are valued, she emerges into adulthood with more brawn than brains and a propensity for violence. People dismiss her as a relic, but world peace is more fragile than they know.
In Valhalla, a clandestine base hidden in an icy ravine, Violet connects with a group of outcasts just like her. There, she learns the skills she needs to keep the world safe from genetically enhanced criminals and traitors who threaten the first friends she’s ever known. She also meets Wulfgar Kray, a genius gang leader who knows her better than she knows herself and who would conquer the world to capture her.
Branded from childhood as a useless barbarian, Violet is about to learn the world needs her exactly as she is.
330 pages, Paperback
First published August 10, 2010
78 people are currently reading
2150 people want to read
About the author
Ari Bach
11 books81 followersAri Bach runs a blog devoted to the Valhalla series at http://the-walrus-squad.tumblr.com/
Ari’s artwork can be found online at http://aribach.deviantart.com/.
Ari also runs a webcomic at http://www.twistedjenius.com/Snail-Fa... and has a Tarot deck at http://surrealist.tarotsmith.net/.
But Ari is probably best known for the humor blog “Facts-I-Just-Made-Up” at http://facts-i-just-made-up.tumblr.com/.
Ari’s artwork can be found online at http://aribach.deviantart.com/.
Ari also runs a webcomic at http://www.twistedjenius.com/Snail-Fa... and has a Tarot deck at http://surrealist.tarotsmith.net/.
But Ari is probably best known for the humor blog “Facts-I-Just-Made-Up” at http://facts-i-just-made-up.tumblr.com/.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
May 23, 2015
This is a very good book, full of action and intrigue. It's set two hundred years in the future, with all kinds of cool tech and weaponry. Most people in this story are heavily modified with implants, their consciousness constantly connected to the internet. I don't know what would be worse, the constant barrage of cat pics, or the incessant ads claiming that my penis is way too small.
This book is about Violet, a teenage girl who lost her parents in a brutal firefight. Some gang invaded their home and shot up the place. But Violet picked up a gun and blasted the shit out of the intruders, becoming famous overnight for her heroics.
So she joins the military, as you do. Because she never really knew what she wanted to do with her life. Not until she killed those gang members. Now she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to kill bad guys. Like a boss. Unfortunately, the military doesn't take kindly to that idea.
I can relate. When I was 20 years old, I decided I wanted to join the Marines. So I took the test at the recruiting station, and it turned out I was smarter than most grunts. They decided that I belonged in the intelligence division. So I went through a bunch of interviews.
"Why do you want to join the Marines, son?" an officer asked me, in one interview.
"I want to learn how to kill people," I responded calmly.
Shortly thereafter, I was discharged from the process, never able to join the military, because apparently, I was bat-shit insane. You see, they don't want people who want to kill people. They want people who want to 'save lives' and 'keep the peace' etc. It's fucking bullshit, if you ask me.
So Violet gets discharged from the military, because just like me, she's bat-shit insane. She wins at all costs. She doesn't take any prisoners. She is one bad-ass chick. Too bad-ass for the military. Which is fine, because apparently, there's a place just for her, in this fucked up world.
Some agents of some secret agency approach her online and tell her of some secret mercenary outfit that wants to recruit her. Yes, they understand that she was kicked out of the military. They don't fucking care, because they're better than the pussy-ass military. This joint is hardcore.
Violet accepts the position, and spends literally 50% of this fucking book training with this new bad-ass crew. I get it, man. There's so much cool tech, and weapons, and crazy fucked-up characters. That's cool, man. But it doesn't merit spending half the fucking book training. Go out and do shit, man. Kill some fuckers. Blow some shit up. Who wants to learn about shit, when you can just blow it the fuck up?
Well, good news, because the rest of the book is pure hardcore action. Violet's friends get killed in action, but that's no big deal. They just turn 'em into cyborgs and bring 'em back to life. Cool beans, man. Then there's the walrus invasion. Yeah, watch out, man. Them walrus fuckers are coming for ya!
Violet sets her sights on the leader of the gang who killed her family. And she captures him, and puts him in a walrus cage at their Valhalla base. So every time she gets bored, she gets to go down and taunt the poor bastard. I mean, why kill him when you can just toy with him every day? It's not like he's going to escape, right?
So, of course, he escapes, and the base erupts in fire and mayhem as the gang leader is rescued by his people. This is why you kill the bad guy, Violet. Because those motherfuckers never die. They always come back to fuck up your life. So just put a bullet in his fucking skull. Cut his head off. Put it through a motherfucking blender. So they can't bring that cunt back to life. But nooooo...
I really did like this story. Yes, it could have been better. It could have done with more action and less training. I mean, the training was cool, don't get me wrong, but it went on for way too long. But I can't really complain. I mean, there was a cyborg vagina in this book for Christ's sake. I don't know if I should be scared as fuck, or absolutely fascinated by that idea.
This book is about Violet, a teenage girl who lost her parents in a brutal firefight. Some gang invaded their home and shot up the place. But Violet picked up a gun and blasted the shit out of the intruders, becoming famous overnight for her heroics.
So she joins the military, as you do. Because she never really knew what she wanted to do with her life. Not until she killed those gang members. Now she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to kill bad guys. Like a boss. Unfortunately, the military doesn't take kindly to that idea.
I can relate. When I was 20 years old, I decided I wanted to join the Marines. So I took the test at the recruiting station, and it turned out I was smarter than most grunts. They decided that I belonged in the intelligence division. So I went through a bunch of interviews.
"Why do you want to join the Marines, son?" an officer asked me, in one interview.
"I want to learn how to kill people," I responded calmly.
Shortly thereafter, I was discharged from the process, never able to join the military, because apparently, I was bat-shit insane. You see, they don't want people who want to kill people. They want people who want to 'save lives' and 'keep the peace' etc. It's fucking bullshit, if you ask me.
So Violet gets discharged from the military, because just like me, she's bat-shit insane. She wins at all costs. She doesn't take any prisoners. She is one bad-ass chick. Too bad-ass for the military. Which is fine, because apparently, there's a place just for her, in this fucked up world.
Some agents of some secret agency approach her online and tell her of some secret mercenary outfit that wants to recruit her. Yes, they understand that she was kicked out of the military. They don't fucking care, because they're better than the pussy-ass military. This joint is hardcore.
Violet accepts the position, and spends literally 50% of this fucking book training with this new bad-ass crew. I get it, man. There's so much cool tech, and weapons, and crazy fucked-up characters. That's cool, man. But it doesn't merit spending half the fucking book training. Go out and do shit, man. Kill some fuckers. Blow some shit up. Who wants to learn about shit, when you can just blow it the fuck up?
Well, good news, because the rest of the book is pure hardcore action. Violet's friends get killed in action, but that's no big deal. They just turn 'em into cyborgs and bring 'em back to life. Cool beans, man. Then there's the walrus invasion. Yeah, watch out, man. Them walrus fuckers are coming for ya!
Violet sets her sights on the leader of the gang who killed her family. And she captures him, and puts him in a walrus cage at their Valhalla base. So every time she gets bored, she gets to go down and taunt the poor bastard. I mean, why kill him when you can just toy with him every day? It's not like he's going to escape, right?
So, of course, he escapes, and the base erupts in fire and mayhem as the gang leader is rescued by his people. This is why you kill the bad guy, Violet. Because those motherfuckers never die. They always come back to fuck up your life. So just put a bullet in his fucking skull. Cut his head off. Put it through a motherfucking blender. So they can't bring that cunt back to life. But nooooo...
I really did like this story. Yes, it could have been better. It could have done with more action and less training. I mean, the training was cool, don't get me wrong, but it went on for way too long. But I can't really complain. I mean, there was a cyborg vagina in this book for Christ's sake. I don't know if I should be scared as fuck, or absolutely fascinated by that idea.
June 23, 2015
The good ratings for this book stun me. I should probably stop reading things penned by the Tumblr-famous. It's been two strikes so far.
I started out liking it. But that faded as I realized that despite some moments of excitement and drama, this book is overwhelmingly bland. The story is set hundreds of years into the future, with super advanced technology. But very little detail is given on this world or the people in it. I often found myself having not much of an idea what these places or people looked like. The main character, Violet, is a bit of a Mary Sue. The author makes a few attempts to rectify this, but they fall a bit flat. Violet can kick arse with ease even before training, she doesn't care what others think of her, and most of the time she's pretty darn smart despite the author's attempts to convince us otherwise. She's pretty OP, and before long she joins a group comprised of OP people. Where's the tension when a single person can mow through 30 men? When any injury can be healed within minutes and even a dead body can be brought back to life as long as the brain is kept intact?
There were two things in particular that really pissed me off:
1)Several times religion is brought up, and it is seemingly only brought up so that the author can get his/her opinion in there real quick when it was apparent that he/she didn't know much about religion in the first place. There is only one religious character and she is painted in a poor light. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem; authors can interject their own opinions. But if I consider your book mediocre at best and then I see you weaseling your opinions in there as well, it's gonna bug me. Also unless I recall incorrectly, Christianity is the only religion that's brought up and picked on.
2) MINOR SPOILERS: There's a torture scene but through some science mumbo jumbo the character cannot feel pain. So the character has to fake it. And the character's idea of a convincing act is to wince and groan as their fingers are chopped off. I'm not a professional torturer or anything, but I think people do more than wince and grunt when their fingers are lobbed off. But this has everyone tricked. To add insult to injury, the main villain is a bit over the top normally and he's twice as bad during the torture. He actually eats part of her neck and shoulder. Come on dude.
MINOR SPOILERS OVER
Honestly, this book was just not that good. I enjoyed it slightly more than Ravensgem, but that's because the prose wasn't at the level of a 4th grader and I did crack a smile a few times (the author does run a humor blog after all). I wish I could give 2 1/2 stars, but since this book has such an outrageously high rating, I'm cutting it down to 2. The story was bland. The characters were bland. There was no tension. There were no details to engage my imagination. There was no character development to make me care about anyone. I didn't give a crap about what happened to anyone or anything. It took me over a month to slog through this. It truly felt like I was reading something out of a textbook. Or the Bible. I would not recommend this book to anyone. I rank it a few notches above Twilight because at least the prose is decent.
Maybe I'll sell my copy on Amazon for a low price and include candy in the package to try and rectify my sin against whatever poor person buys it from me, to try and at least add some excitement. Or maybe I'll use the pages as kindling.
Don't be deceived. Don't buy this book. But do follow the author's blog. It's more entertaining and funny than this book.
I started out liking it. But that faded as I realized that despite some moments of excitement and drama, this book is overwhelmingly bland. The story is set hundreds of years into the future, with super advanced technology. But very little detail is given on this world or the people in it. I often found myself having not much of an idea what these places or people looked like. The main character, Violet, is a bit of a Mary Sue. The author makes a few attempts to rectify this, but they fall a bit flat. Violet can kick arse with ease even before training, she doesn't care what others think of her, and most of the time she's pretty darn smart despite the author's attempts to convince us otherwise. She's pretty OP, and before long she joins a group comprised of OP people. Where's the tension when a single person can mow through 30 men? When any injury can be healed within minutes and even a dead body can be brought back to life as long as the brain is kept intact?
There were two things in particular that really pissed me off:
1)Several times religion is brought up, and it is seemingly only brought up so that the author can get his/her opinion in there real quick when it was apparent that he/she didn't know much about religion in the first place. There is only one religious character and she is painted in a poor light. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem; authors can interject their own opinions. But if I consider your book mediocre at best and then I see you weaseling your opinions in there as well, it's gonna bug me. Also unless I recall incorrectly, Christianity is the only religion that's brought up and picked on.
2) MINOR SPOILERS: There's a torture scene but through some science mumbo jumbo the character cannot feel pain. So the character has to fake it. And the character's idea of a convincing act is to wince and groan as their fingers are chopped off. I'm not a professional torturer or anything, but I think people do more than wince and grunt when their fingers are lobbed off. But this has everyone tricked. To add insult to injury, the main villain is a bit over the top normally and he's twice as bad during the torture. He actually eats part of her neck and shoulder. Come on dude.
MINOR SPOILERS OVER
Honestly, this book was just not that good. I enjoyed it slightly more than Ravensgem, but that's because the prose wasn't at the level of a 4th grader and I did crack a smile a few times (the author does run a humor blog after all). I wish I could give 2 1/2 stars, but since this book has such an outrageously high rating, I'm cutting it down to 2. The story was bland. The characters were bland. There was no tension. There were no details to engage my imagination. There was no character development to make me care about anyone. I didn't give a crap about what happened to anyone or anything. It took me over a month to slog through this. It truly felt like I was reading something out of a textbook. Or the Bible. I would not recommend this book to anyone. I rank it a few notches above Twilight because at least the prose is decent.
Maybe I'll sell my copy on Amazon for a low price and include candy in the package to try and rectify my sin against whatever poor person buys it from me, to try and at least add some excitement. Or maybe I'll use the pages as kindling.
Don't be deceived. Don't buy this book. But do follow the author's blog. It's more entertaining and funny than this book.
July 1, 2014
There is a lot to love about Valhalla. It is a rare, exciting find in the world of YA literature – a book that doesn’t dumb down, self-censor or flinch away from the very things that keep readers glued to the page. The action is fast-paced and incredibly visual, and never flinches away from showing the violence in gory detail, yet it manages to avoid feeling gratuitous or disturbing. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to readers of thirteen and up – although I must confess, I read my first Stephen King book aged nine or ten! The references to pop-culture (especially science fiction), metal music and Norse mythology are very well done, but don’t worry if you miss most of them. At the speed I read, I didn’t pick out many (and kicked myself when they were pointed out later). The book still works as an exciting, compelling story without them. The humour is great – unsurprising when you realise that the author is also responsible for the popular Tumblr blog Facts I Just Made Up – and the characters are diverse and engaging. And, of course, there are walruses.
But I want to talk about Violet.
When I was fourteen and realised pretty much overnight that no, the amount I was thinking about girls wasn’t “normal” for a straight girl, Violet is the character I needed to read. Oh, I could have done with stories about coming out to hostile parents, dealing with bullying and navigating the painful experience of developing crushes on straight girls – but that was my reality. What I really needed to see was that young queer women’s stories don’t stop when they come to terms with their sexuality. We are complex people who can be good, evil or anything in between. Violet is, in short, representation done REALLY right. She is a lesbian character written in the way that straight people are written about – a complete human being with a whole story of her own that doesn’t revolve around who she is or is not attracted to. Romance is only a very small part of the plot, and you don’t have to be bothered about LGBTQ representation or lesbian romance to love the book, but I think whoever you are (homophobes not included) you have to appreciate a writer who is able to break out of tired stereotypes and write a relatable and authentic young woman.
She’s also a very unusual character. Young Adult stories tend to follow trends and it’s easy to get over-saturated with clones of the latest popular protagonist. Violet isn’t quite like any character I’ve ever read before. She is unapologetically comfortable with violence and ridiculously tough. It took me a little while to connect to her, but once I did I absolutely loved her. If you read the sample chapters on Amazon and find you’re not clicking with her, but you do enjoy the author’s writing style, I honestly recommend taking a chance and buying the book anyway. She’s a quite unemotional character, and because of that I found her hard to connect to in the early part of the book, but as I got to know her over the course of the story I found her more and more fascinating and relatable.
I don’t want to say much about the plot – I went into it blind aside from the official summary, and I’m glad I did. It’s best to just let the plot take you along, discovering the world Violet is pulled into alongside her. I also don’t want to insult other Young Adult books that I’ve enjoyed, but Valhalla is written in a far more substantial and immersive way than most, and is far more creative, boundary pushing and interesting than pretty much all of them. With a higher than average word count, quality writing and a plot that never slows down, this is a book you can really sink your teeth into with high rereading value.
But I want to talk about Violet.
When I was fourteen and realised pretty much overnight that no, the amount I was thinking about girls wasn’t “normal” for a straight girl, Violet is the character I needed to read. Oh, I could have done with stories about coming out to hostile parents, dealing with bullying and navigating the painful experience of developing crushes on straight girls – but that was my reality. What I really needed to see was that young queer women’s stories don’t stop when they come to terms with their sexuality. We are complex people who can be good, evil or anything in between. Violet is, in short, representation done REALLY right. She is a lesbian character written in the way that straight people are written about – a complete human being with a whole story of her own that doesn’t revolve around who she is or is not attracted to. Romance is only a very small part of the plot, and you don’t have to be bothered about LGBTQ representation or lesbian romance to love the book, but I think whoever you are (homophobes not included) you have to appreciate a writer who is able to break out of tired stereotypes and write a relatable and authentic young woman.
She’s also a very unusual character. Young Adult stories tend to follow trends and it’s easy to get over-saturated with clones of the latest popular protagonist. Violet isn’t quite like any character I’ve ever read before. She is unapologetically comfortable with violence and ridiculously tough. It took me a little while to connect to her, but once I did I absolutely loved her. If you read the sample chapters on Amazon and find you’re not clicking with her, but you do enjoy the author’s writing style, I honestly recommend taking a chance and buying the book anyway. She’s a quite unemotional character, and because of that I found her hard to connect to in the early part of the book, but as I got to know her over the course of the story I found her more and more fascinating and relatable.
I don’t want to say much about the plot – I went into it blind aside from the official summary, and I’m glad I did. It’s best to just let the plot take you along, discovering the world Violet is pulled into alongside her. I also don’t want to insult other Young Adult books that I’ve enjoyed, but Valhalla is written in a far more substantial and immersive way than most, and is far more creative, boundary pushing and interesting than pretty much all of them. With a higher than average word count, quality writing and a plot that never slows down, this is a book you can really sink your teeth into with high rereading value.
October 17, 2012
This may be the only review of this book ever written.
So in response to that I must tell you about why I believe this book was beautiful to me.
As there are no advertisements or stupid pages with a bunch of non-book shit on them it's almost a revolution against corporate greed in the literary world. Corporations do own governments in today's society it's just not actually believed by everyone on the planet because the corporations have influenced public opinion so much.
In light of this, the self published book, "Valhalla," shows how even in a futuristic world revolution and the rights of the individual can never be halted or stopped. Well done Ari. You set up your own independent establishment by producing this book yourself.
Okay now to the actual book. I found a few grammatical errors here and there but it never took away from the story and world Bach has created. Über futuristic and depressing with a message of hope, Violet maintains herself in the light of extraordinarily violent circumstances that would overwhelm any "normal" person. Her acceptance into the valhalla society proves her ability to handle such complicated world issues along with the revenge she seeks so badly. Very mature for being so young. The only real thing that I didn't like was the convinience of Violet being in V team. Therefor she doesn't have to change her name. I would have liked to see her on Z team or something new. Seeing how she would have handled that would have been an interesting twist.
All in all I greatly enjoyed this book and would love to see it turned into a movie. Scifi fans have been waiting for something new like this for a while.
So in response to that I must tell you about why I believe this book was beautiful to me.
As there are no advertisements or stupid pages with a bunch of non-book shit on them it's almost a revolution against corporate greed in the literary world. Corporations do own governments in today's society it's just not actually believed by everyone on the planet because the corporations have influenced public opinion so much.
In light of this, the self published book, "Valhalla," shows how even in a futuristic world revolution and the rights of the individual can never be halted or stopped. Well done Ari. You set up your own independent establishment by producing this book yourself.
Okay now to the actual book. I found a few grammatical errors here and there but it never took away from the story and world Bach has created. Über futuristic and depressing with a message of hope, Violet maintains herself in the light of extraordinarily violent circumstances that would overwhelm any "normal" person. Her acceptance into the valhalla society proves her ability to handle such complicated world issues along with the revenge she seeks so badly. Very mature for being so young. The only real thing that I didn't like was the convinience of Violet being in V team. Therefor she doesn't have to change her name. I would have liked to see her on Z team or something new. Seeing how she would have handled that would have been an interesting twist.
All in all I greatly enjoyed this book and would love to see it turned into a movie. Scifi fans have been waiting for something new like this for a while.
October 18, 2015
I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. It is rare to find a book so full of action and yet so boring at the same time. I blame this on the author's writing style. The overly-detailed descriptions and straight-forward narrative voice quickly proved monotonous. I never connected with the protagonist, mostly because her every action and choice was so clinically described that I felt like I was reading a lab report. The premise is promising, and this author managed to get it all down, but there is no voice or style present in the writing. It creates a distance that turns what should have been a very engaging action book full of blood and violence into a history channel documentary turned sleep aid for the insomniac. Part of the problem is a lack of flow. The story sort of encapsulates events and confines them into chunks that doesn't easily connect as a whole story. The decision to describe minutiae, like every level in Valhalla and the accent and appearance of every minor character, is equally problematic to the flow. The romance seems to have been tacked on as an afterthought and, for me, contradicted some of the charateristics the author worked so hard to emphasize in the protagonist. Overall, there was very little I enjoyed about this book, and I would struggle to find a reader I would recommend it to. Language and situations are appropriate for high school readers, though I can't see many of then sticking this one out. I would have abandoned it at 25% if I hadn't felt obligated by my request to read and review it.
May 2, 2013
I really did, quite, enjoy this book.
I've heard it said online that if you've read Jennifer Government and Wanted, this novel is pretty much covered and that there's no need to bother; while both of these comparisons are warranted, it's a little unfair to dismiss Valhalla out of hand. It does bring some more of its own.
Surprisingly thorough world-building, even for semi-dystopian sci fi, is demonstrated to the reader very rapidly, though sadly it's often just in the form of the narrator telling us things. It's The Future. Nations and governments are now wholly owned and operated by corporations, and Violet, our hero is embraced by a small secretive group who, not being owned by anybody, use their freedom to manipulate events around the world in order to stop the entire bureaucratic mess from plunging into chaos. Mostly they accomplish this by killing people. That's also how they fund themselves. How? It's best not to get stuck on that detail. Just enjoy the adventure - and there is a lot to enjoy, for all that I'm about to say about it.
The characters and the world are the real strengths of the text; the writing is quite poor, though probably not poor enough that it'll stop you from being able to finish. Bach is going to spend a great deal of time telling you things. Brutal fight scenes drown in paragraphs of explanations. Sentences are routinely obstructed with inexplicably counter-intuitive word choice. Objects, locations and characters are inconsistently described and there are several really quite interesting elements that could have been explored further but are disappointingly wasted.
To give a couple of examples: It's all very well to write "the cadets to be were treated very much like livestock at first, and then exactly like livestock later," but it's throwaway; there aren't any details to support this. If one had skipped that sentence, one would never have known, because it's not reflected at all in the way that they're treated. (It's also galling to read that simile so soon after learning that there are no cows in this world, not any more, so none of the cadets would understand the description either.)
It's also very easy to inform the reader that Violet can glean "a multitude of knowledge from every scrap" of information that the police unwittingly slip her, but since the reader is never told any of this knowledge, it's difficult to begin feeling that she is as clever as we are assured that she is.
The disoriented, even panicked feeling that Violet feels when her Link is unplugged - that's the internet connection in her brain, and as she realises that the advertisements that have been in her peripheral vision for her entire life aren't there any more was a tight, concisely-written section and would have had a far greater impact if these advertisements had ever been described in any meaningful way. They hadn't, so there's very little weight that one can attach to their departure.
Bach should be praised for the tech in the book; there are some particularly imaginative objects and gadgets, often based around tech that's familiar to us, taken to a plausible extreme in this fanciful future. The gatling shotgun, is one example, but since it's never physically described it presumes an understanding in the reader of what a gatling gun is and looks like. The microwave, as a second example, is an extremely important piece of kit for the protagonist and her friends, a kind of swiss-army-knife side-arm that is used in the first chapter and all the way through through to the end, but it isn't deemed worthy of description at all, beyond the fact that it has buttons.
Cliches also abound. If people aren't staring daggers or pussyfooting around with razor sharp wits then they're quick to the punch, fighting with the fury of hell, near showers of bullets. Bach also lacks the discipline to avoid puns; one of the aforementioned cadets "running afoul of fowl," that is to say, being attacked by a goose, was particularly irritating.
There is a beautiful and thoughtful passage fairly early on about how the military world had, in the many years since the last war, forgotten a little of the value of The Squad, and started to believe the myth of the hero. The book touches on this theme lightly a couple of times before, at the climax, our hero jumps alone onto a gigantic, multi-legged, jungle-roaming, aircraft-carrier base, and single-handedly kicks arse until it's totally destroyed. Oh well.
There's also a small faction who are subtly introduced and hints begin to come quickly that they're going to be significant. They're the big scary force that even the big scary leaders of this awesomely powerful organisation are afraid of. But despite this set-up there doesn't seem to be anything for them to do apart from scaring people (which, I must emphasise they do very well, in some of the best-written passages of the entire novel) before they shrug their shoulders and leave.
Oh, additionally, the formatting of the kindle.co.uk edition is dreadful; 30+ lines per page double spaced, random split paragraphs and blended sentences, and so on. While this added a real sense of authenticity to the self-published work, in combining with two fistfulls of spelling and grammatical mistakes it left a feeling of carelessness.
Valhalla was very imaginative, at times thoughtful, and given the price is well worth finishing. If these stylistic mis-handlings sound tolerable I urge you to go to Amazon or to Amazon.co.uk and support this self-published work by trying it.
I've heard it said online that if you've read Jennifer Government and Wanted, this novel is pretty much covered and that there's no need to bother; while both of these comparisons are warranted, it's a little unfair to dismiss Valhalla out of hand. It does bring some more of its own.
Surprisingly thorough world-building, even for semi-dystopian sci fi, is demonstrated to the reader very rapidly, though sadly it's often just in the form of the narrator telling us things. It's The Future. Nations and governments are now wholly owned and operated by corporations, and Violet, our hero is embraced by a small secretive group who, not being owned by anybody, use their freedom to manipulate events around the world in order to stop the entire bureaucratic mess from plunging into chaos. Mostly they accomplish this by killing people. That's also how they fund themselves. How? It's best not to get stuck on that detail. Just enjoy the adventure - and there is a lot to enjoy, for all that I'm about to say about it.
The characters and the world are the real strengths of the text; the writing is quite poor, though probably not poor enough that it'll stop you from being able to finish. Bach is going to spend a great deal of time telling you things. Brutal fight scenes drown in paragraphs of explanations. Sentences are routinely obstructed with inexplicably counter-intuitive word choice. Objects, locations and characters are inconsistently described and there are several really quite interesting elements that could have been explored further but are disappointingly wasted.
To give a couple of examples: It's all very well to write "the cadets to be were treated very much like livestock at first, and then exactly like livestock later," but it's throwaway; there aren't any details to support this. If one had skipped that sentence, one would never have known, because it's not reflected at all in the way that they're treated. (It's also galling to read that simile so soon after learning that there are no cows in this world, not any more, so none of the cadets would understand the description either.)
It's also very easy to inform the reader that Violet can glean "a multitude of knowledge from every scrap" of information that the police unwittingly slip her, but since the reader is never told any of this knowledge, it's difficult to begin feeling that she is as clever as we are assured that she is.
The disoriented, even panicked feeling that Violet feels when her Link is unplugged - that's the internet connection in her brain, and as she realises that the advertisements that have been in her peripheral vision for her entire life aren't there any more was a tight, concisely-written section and would have had a far greater impact if these advertisements had ever been described in any meaningful way. They hadn't, so there's very little weight that one can attach to their departure.
Bach should be praised for the tech in the book; there are some particularly imaginative objects and gadgets, often based around tech that's familiar to us, taken to a plausible extreme in this fanciful future. The gatling shotgun, is one example, but since it's never physically described it presumes an understanding in the reader of what a gatling gun is and looks like. The microwave, as a second example, is an extremely important piece of kit for the protagonist and her friends, a kind of swiss-army-knife side-arm that is used in the first chapter and all the way through through to the end, but it isn't deemed worthy of description at all, beyond the fact that it has buttons.
Cliches also abound. If people aren't staring daggers or pussyfooting around with razor sharp wits then they're quick to the punch, fighting with the fury of hell, near showers of bullets. Bach also lacks the discipline to avoid puns; one of the aforementioned cadets "running afoul of fowl," that is to say, being attacked by a goose, was particularly irritating.
There is a beautiful and thoughtful passage fairly early on about how the military world had, in the many years since the last war, forgotten a little of the value of The Squad, and started to believe the myth of the hero. The book touches on this theme lightly a couple of times before, at the climax, our hero jumps alone onto a gigantic, multi-legged, jungle-roaming, aircraft-carrier base, and single-handedly kicks arse until it's totally destroyed. Oh well.
There's also a small faction who are subtly introduced and hints begin to come quickly that they're going to be significant. They're the big scary force that even the big scary leaders of this awesomely powerful organisation are afraid of. But despite this set-up there doesn't seem to be anything for them to do apart from scaring people (which, I must emphasise they do very well, in some of the best-written passages of the entire novel) before they shrug their shoulders and leave.
Oh, additionally, the formatting of the kindle.co.uk edition is dreadful; 30+ lines per page double spaced, random split paragraphs and blended sentences, and so on. While this added a real sense of authenticity to the self-published work, in combining with two fistfulls of spelling and grammatical mistakes it left a feeling of carelessness.
Valhalla was very imaginative, at times thoughtful, and given the price is well worth finishing. If these stylistic mis-handlings sound tolerable I urge you to go to Amazon or to Amazon.co.uk and support this self-published work by trying it.
December 23, 2015
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This book reminds me of my own project when I was a high school student. I lost the writing and it never got finished. So, reading this kinda makes me felt nostalgic and respect for the writer. They finished it, and they made all three of it published. Congratulation.
Anyway, the book. I know the author from their tumblr, which I enjoyed a lot for their sense of humor. The book shares the same spirit, although it's more story-oriented than entertainment-purposed. Still, I like it. (One of my favorite scene is when Wulfgar got flattened by Umberto.
The first third of the book is amazing. I enjoyed the fast-paced storytelling and a lot of new ideas the author presented there. The world building is wonderful, well-constructed, and very convincing, although I don't think it could happen two centuries from now. (What do I know, though?).
But for the rest of it, especially after Violet's team got their fourth member and assigned for real missions, I gradually grew bored. The team never have had anything serious thrown at them. Serious, as in, something that give them challenge. Something that put their limit into test. They are always in control of every situation. As result, I didn't wait in thrill every time they departs for new mission. Would they fail? Nah, all of it were calculated and they almost always have 99% succession rate.
I understand, though. If they're not a competent team, there would not be the fearsome Hall of the Slain for the world to consider.
Then at some point, I stopped caring for the characters's fate. There's nothing wrong with their characterization (almost all of them are cool), but they're kind of ... detached. Reading their story, it was like hearing someone told me their life story and all I could think about it is, "So you've found a new life? I see, great you enjoyed it pretty much. Uh huh, wow, yeah, cool. Ok."
This brings us to death. It became a joke. Major blow to the body parts? Mechanize it. Torture? Activate self-implanted painkiller. Died? Resurrect them. And the resurrection doesn't have any risk to it--makes it almost like magic instead of science fiction stuff. (Also it's kind of surreal they're more afraid of their tikari's 'death' rather than themselves.) The resurrection part still fits, since this organization are heavily inspired from the 'real' Valhalla itself, but the easiness of it--the loss of risk, makes everything they gained felt not that worthy to be had.
Overall, the last two third of the book felt like reading an adventure which the participant enjoying themselves too much and forgotten about the audience. Perhaps the fault are also at the idea itself. It's way ahead of our time, and it makes me, the reader, felt 'left out' when everything goes at their own speed.
Which is fine. There are people who could and would enjoy themselves in this story. Guess I'm not one of them. Still, I adored the idea. It's the best sci-fi with Norse mythology reinterpretation I've ever read.
This book reminds me of my own project when I was a high school student. I lost the writing and it never got finished. So, reading this kinda makes me felt nostalgic and respect for the writer. They finished it, and they made all three of it published. Congratulation.
Anyway, the book. I know the author from their tumblr, which I enjoyed a lot for their sense of humor. The book shares the same spirit, although it's more story-oriented than entertainment-purposed. Still, I like it. (One of my favorite scene is when Wulfgar got flattened by Umberto.
The first third of the book is amazing. I enjoyed the fast-paced storytelling and a lot of new ideas the author presented there. The world building is wonderful, well-constructed, and very convincing, although I don't think it could happen two centuries from now. (What do I know, though?).
But for the rest of it, especially after Violet's team got their fourth member and assigned for real missions, I gradually grew bored. The team never have had anything serious thrown at them. Serious, as in, something that give them challenge. Something that put their limit into test. They are always in control of every situation. As result, I didn't wait in thrill every time they departs for new mission. Would they fail? Nah, all of it were calculated and they almost always have 99% succession rate.
I understand, though. If they're not a competent team, there would not be the fearsome Hall of the Slain for the world to consider.
Then at some point, I stopped caring for the characters's fate. There's nothing wrong with their characterization (almost all of them are cool), but they're kind of ... detached. Reading their story, it was like hearing someone told me their life story and all I could think about it is, "So you've found a new life? I see, great you enjoyed it pretty much. Uh huh, wow, yeah, cool. Ok."
This brings us to death. It became a joke. Major blow to the body parts? Mechanize it. Torture? Activate self-implanted painkiller. Died? Resurrect them. And the resurrection doesn't have any risk to it--makes it almost like magic instead of science fiction stuff. (Also it's kind of surreal they're more afraid of their tikari's 'death' rather than themselves.) The resurrection part still fits, since this organization are heavily inspired from the 'real' Valhalla itself, but the easiness of it--the loss of risk, makes everything they gained felt not that worthy to be had.
Overall, the last two third of the book felt like reading an adventure which the participant enjoying themselves too much and forgotten about the audience. Perhaps the fault are also at the idea itself. It's way ahead of our time, and it makes me, the reader, felt 'left out' when everything goes at their own speed.
Which is fine. There are people who could and would enjoy themselves in this story. Guess I'm not one of them. Still, I adored the idea. It's the best sci-fi with Norse mythology reinterpretation I've ever read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 23, 2014
Valhalla was not what I was expecting. That is really the only way to start off this review. At every turn, I thought I knew what would come next, and I was wrong. This is the best thing I can say about a book. Unpredictable is excellent! Unpredictable and logically plotted is EVEN BETTER!
Violet is a girl that is difficult to relate to right off the bat. The usual ropes of compassion and humaness are not present. You have this very violet young woman who very early on in the book looses her family, but that doesn't seem to bother her much. What made me stick around was seeing what Violet would do next. She is not erratic or emotional so you don't get those red flags as to what she's going to do. She makes decisions in ways that seem too cold for me to really synchronize with, but I understand her. Before she understands herself, I understand her, and there is a lot to be said for that sort of writing.
This book was a crazy panzercopter of a ride from start to finish and I enjoyed every moment of it. The way Valhalla makes Nordic mythological figures relevant in a world so entrenched in technology that most people pass out if they are left without it is a feat of literary mastery I gape in awe at. The development of love, camaraderie, and competence among Violet and the people she eventually refers to as her family made my heart ache at the simple sincerity of it all. Then there's also the violence, of which there is plenty.
A part of me felt very fulfilled by the copious amounts of violence. Too often we're told to look away, and this book indulges in our basest desire for carnage. It is given to us in a way that makes it nearly guilt free (in the fact that death is more often than not, not permanent) which takes the edge of guilt away from enjoying the gore-fest ensuing on the pages that might as well have been written with the blood of the people fool enough to make Valhalla their enemy.
Through all of the gore, the strategy, the metal references, there is the growth of Violet. She has found her home, her family and indeed the girl who attracts her attention. What I love about Violet's attraction is that it is as base of an impulse as her violence and she is less than eager to embrace it. She is scared of the dangers it represents, of the way it could tip the scales, and the moment she chooses to accept it is indeed beautiful as well as overwhelmingly human. You see these fragments of imperfect humanity within Violet that shine through once she is in a place where she is allowed to be the purest version of herself, and that (along with the absolutely hilarious and dry writing style) kept me up until nearly 6am to finish the book and review it.
Wonderfully plotter, wittily written, and so human it doesn't flinch at the site of blood, Valhalla is a book for anyone who is interested in stabbing now and asking questions later.
Violet is a girl that is difficult to relate to right off the bat. The usual ropes of compassion and humaness are not present. You have this very violet young woman who very early on in the book looses her family, but that doesn't seem to bother her much. What made me stick around was seeing what Violet would do next. She is not erratic or emotional so you don't get those red flags as to what she's going to do. She makes decisions in ways that seem too cold for me to really synchronize with, but I understand her. Before she understands herself, I understand her, and there is a lot to be said for that sort of writing.
This book was a crazy panzercopter of a ride from start to finish and I enjoyed every moment of it. The way Valhalla makes Nordic mythological figures relevant in a world so entrenched in technology that most people pass out if they are left without it is a feat of literary mastery I gape in awe at. The development of love, camaraderie, and competence among Violet and the people she eventually refers to as her family made my heart ache at the simple sincerity of it all. Then there's also the violence, of which there is plenty.
A part of me felt very fulfilled by the copious amounts of violence. Too often we're told to look away, and this book indulges in our basest desire for carnage. It is given to us in a way that makes it nearly guilt free (in the fact that death is more often than not, not permanent) which takes the edge of guilt away from enjoying the gore-fest ensuing on the pages that might as well have been written with the blood of the people fool enough to make Valhalla their enemy.
Through all of the gore, the strategy, the metal references, there is the growth of Violet. She has found her home, her family and indeed the girl who attracts her attention. What I love about Violet's attraction is that it is as base of an impulse as her violence and she is less than eager to embrace it. She is scared of the dangers it represents, of the way it could tip the scales, and the moment she chooses to accept it is indeed beautiful as well as overwhelmingly human. You see these fragments of imperfect humanity within Violet that shine through once she is in a place where she is allowed to be the purest version of herself, and that (along with the absolutely hilarious and dry writing style) kept me up until nearly 6am to finish the book and review it.
Wonderfully plotter, wittily written, and so human it doesn't flinch at the site of blood, Valhalla is a book for anyone who is interested in stabbing now and asking questions later.
March 10, 2014
Violence, and Walruses, what more can you want? 4 1/2 stars
September 22, 2015
Valhalla in 10 words: Violent chicks, Walruses, and a whole lot of kick-ass.
January 22, 2017
I loved this book! I haven't really gotten into a story in a long time, but I really got into this. The world is just so detailed, so well done.
April 9, 2015
I was asked to review this by sharkchunks.tumblr.com
---
A Harmony Ink Press Young Adult Title
Violet MacRae is one of the aimless millions crowding northern Scotland. In the year 2330, where war is obsolete and only brilliant minds are valued, she emerges into adulthood with more brawn than brains and a propensity for violence. People dismiss her as a relic, but world peace is more fragile than they know.
In Valhalla, a clandestine base hidden in an icy ravine, Violet connects with a group of outcasts just like her. There, she learns the skills she needs to keep the world safe from genetically enhanced criminals and traitors who threaten the first friends she’s ever known. She also meets Wulfgar Kray, a genius gang leader who knows her better than she knows herself and who would conquer the world to capture her.
Branded from childhood as a useless barbarian, Violet is about to learn the world needs her exactly as she is.
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Quick Reasons: Detailed world-building; fascinating characters with unique flaws; fast-paced story (after about the 50% mark); awesome concept, weapons, and plot; romance plays little part in character arcs or decisions
When Violet's parents are murdered by the Orange Gang, she finds herself on her own with no idea of what to do next or where to turn for help. All she knows is: she feels nothing.
Soon after, she learns of a military branch seeking recruits and she signs up, knowing that earlier childhood test scores reveal a penchant for violence and gore that might otherwise be unacceptable in other occupations. It doesn't last; she is kicked out just before graduating for just this.
When the Orange Gang tracks her back down at her home just after returning to the "real" world, Violet lets her instincts lead the way: she kills the men, including one of the brothers that helped to murder her parents. When she is approached by a group calling themselves Valhalla, she knows it might be one of her only ways out; she has a target on her back, and without help is just as good as dead. As she makes her first friends and begins discovering how to care for others, she also begins to learn secrets about herself. But at what cost is this information...and where will it lead her in the future?
I have to be honest: I found the first half of this book almost boring to read. There is so much information being dumped, it was hard at times to focus on a lot of it and I found myself wanting to skip ahead. Also, the writing style is a bit wonky--it's written in future tense a lot of the time, instead of the past or present as I'm used to, and I found myself getting confused about the timeline (when you constantly have sentences saying things like "she would do" or "later, she'd," it's hard to keep track). A lot of information was also relayed in dialogue-form, with little to no action between the text blocks.
While in a way this is smart of the writer—it eliminates the need for more than one focused perspective or other unusual means of getting information across (as Violet, while smart, knows next to nothing about the world she's been pulled into), it happens in such a small amount of time with little action between that I found myself getting bored.
That being said, the second half of this novel made the tedious first half worth it, as the information dumps level out and more action (and character growth!) ensues. Where the first half bored me almost to tears, the second half finally established a connection with the characters I was desperately searching for and let me take a step back and actually SEE the world being described. The writing style also became easier to follow; now, instead of focusing on how best to relay pertinent world or backstory information via long, breathless dialogue blocks, Ari Bach could take the time to paint the world itself.
The character growth in the second half are exemplary—my frustration and annoyance with Violet fell away into first a begrudging respect...and then a sense of admiration. She was no longer a cold-hearted girl with a penchant for blood and violence, but a well-rounded and flawed heroine.
The world building, while tedious at times, is also awe-inspiring. Ari Bach put a lot of thought into crafting this new (yet still almost the same?) world; instead of starting over from scratch, this world seems to be just a more scientifically-modified, futuristic version. While we don't get much description of scenery (it's set in Scotland) I don't feel I missed it too much; the action and detailing of the fights and the new weapons (insects that attach to ports in people's chests!) left little need for readers to know exactly how the ground looked or the air smelled.
Last noteworthy thing: Walruses. I don't think I need to say anything more.
Overall, I highly enjoyed reading this book and will probably be picking up the second book in the future. I'd recommend this to readers who love sci fi or action/adventure novels with only a hint of romance (and no mention of it being a distraction or a justification for a characters' actions!) This was a great read!
---
A Harmony Ink Press Young Adult Title
Violet MacRae is one of the aimless millions crowding northern Scotland. In the year 2330, where war is obsolete and only brilliant minds are valued, she emerges into adulthood with more brawn than brains and a propensity for violence. People dismiss her as a relic, but world peace is more fragile than they know.
In Valhalla, a clandestine base hidden in an icy ravine, Violet connects with a group of outcasts just like her. There, she learns the skills she needs to keep the world safe from genetically enhanced criminals and traitors who threaten the first friends she’s ever known. She also meets Wulfgar Kray, a genius gang leader who knows her better than she knows herself and who would conquer the world to capture her.
Branded from childhood as a useless barbarian, Violet is about to learn the world needs her exactly as she is.
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Quick Reasons: Detailed world-building; fascinating characters with unique flaws; fast-paced story (after about the 50% mark); awesome concept, weapons, and plot; romance plays little part in character arcs or decisions
When Violet's parents are murdered by the Orange Gang, she finds herself on her own with no idea of what to do next or where to turn for help. All she knows is: she feels nothing.
Soon after, she learns of a military branch seeking recruits and she signs up, knowing that earlier childhood test scores reveal a penchant for violence and gore that might otherwise be unacceptable in other occupations. It doesn't last; she is kicked out just before graduating for just this.
When the Orange Gang tracks her back down at her home just after returning to the "real" world, Violet lets her instincts lead the way: she kills the men, including one of the brothers that helped to murder her parents. When she is approached by a group calling themselves Valhalla, she knows it might be one of her only ways out; she has a target on her back, and without help is just as good as dead. As she makes her first friends and begins discovering how to care for others, she also begins to learn secrets about herself. But at what cost is this information...and where will it lead her in the future?
I have to be honest: I found the first half of this book almost boring to read. There is so much information being dumped, it was hard at times to focus on a lot of it and I found myself wanting to skip ahead. Also, the writing style is a bit wonky--it's written in future tense a lot of the time, instead of the past or present as I'm used to, and I found myself getting confused about the timeline (when you constantly have sentences saying things like "she would do" or "later, she'd," it's hard to keep track). A lot of information was also relayed in dialogue-form, with little to no action between the text blocks.
While in a way this is smart of the writer—it eliminates the need for more than one focused perspective or other unusual means of getting information across (as Violet, while smart, knows next to nothing about the world she's been pulled into), it happens in such a small amount of time with little action between that I found myself getting bored.
That being said, the second half of this novel made the tedious first half worth it, as the information dumps level out and more action (and character growth!) ensues. Where the first half bored me almost to tears, the second half finally established a connection with the characters I was desperately searching for and let me take a step back and actually SEE the world being described. The writing style also became easier to follow; now, instead of focusing on how best to relay pertinent world or backstory information via long, breathless dialogue blocks, Ari Bach could take the time to paint the world itself.
The character growth in the second half are exemplary—my frustration and annoyance with Violet fell away into first a begrudging respect...and then a sense of admiration. She was no longer a cold-hearted girl with a penchant for blood and violence, but a well-rounded and flawed heroine.
The world building, while tedious at times, is also awe-inspiring. Ari Bach put a lot of thought into crafting this new (yet still almost the same?) world; instead of starting over from scratch, this world seems to be just a more scientifically-modified, futuristic version. While we don't get much description of scenery (it's set in Scotland) I don't feel I missed it too much; the action and detailing of the fights and the new weapons (insects that attach to ports in people's chests!) left little need for readers to know exactly how the ground looked or the air smelled.
Last noteworthy thing: Walruses. I don't think I need to say anything more.
Overall, I highly enjoyed reading this book and will probably be picking up the second book in the future. I'd recommend this to readers who love sci fi or action/adventure novels with only a hint of romance (and no mention of it being a distraction or a justification for a characters' actions!) This was a great read!
November 24, 2021
Literally amazing. 10/10 for gay, 10/10 for concept, 10/10 for worldbuilding, but it's gonna be a 4/5 because huh?? what???
July 26, 2016
I'll have to do a reread to get all the details down exact, but here's the gist of my thoughts:
This is a pretty good book in a series I expect to only get better, which makes it worth a read.
Vahalla has an interesting world to work with, very well realized and fun to explore. Unfortunately, the book has a fairly slow start, and wasn't super good at holding my finnicky attention for the first two chapters. And boy, the chapters are long in this book. There's only 13 or so total for a 400 page book, if that explains things a little.
Once we get out of the intro and into Vahalla, things get cool and interesting. And stay that way. Cool and interesting! I love a lot of the technology and ideas Ari presents as he builds a pretty full world. Things get fairly ridiculous, and it's great. The book contains tons of references I don't understand, but still some jokes I'm able to enjoy. The writing can get heavy and dense sometimes, again perhaps full of references to norse myth and obscure things. But these sections don't really last long.
Violet, our heroine, isn't a particularly compelling character. I don't feel too much of a strong presence with her, or any of the main squad really. But I still like them, and appreciate them, and all that. I never disliked her or thought her bland. She's just not of extreme interest. The role she plays as a violent protag, as opposed to the more 'quiet, introvert, witty' person you usually see in books, is refreshing.
Vahalla really thrives for me with it's world and characters, but it is an action book. And the action is well done! I'm not super into it, and I did occasionally get lost. But there were still scenes of it I could get somewhat into, even if I was really just waiting for it to be over so I could find out what happened next.
The writing in the book isn't super interesting in it's pure delivery or prose. I'm not super picky on writing, but there was some common tropes played into and nothing really of note. Only thing of note was a torture scene that seriously made me cringe. Like I was freaking out. I probably should study that scene to make my own writing violence better!
I'm going to blab more on the tech. Perhaps the neatest concept in Valhalla are the tikari, little bugs that live in your chest, do tons of things, turn into melee weapons, and are your best friends. The last one is more implied. Never before has a book made me want to cut my chest open before. Give me a sick bug robot!
I'd hate to live in Violet's world but there's some sick things in it, is what I'm saying.
I previously mentioned I'm excited for the future of this book, even if (despite my glowing comments) it's not 100% the best book of the year. Somehow, I get the feeling this book series will have trouble failing. I can imagine lackluster character growth, maybe, but otherwise I feel the action is only going to step it up and the plot twists will be Pretty Sick Bro. Because the last half of this book is Pretty Sick. A lot of this book feels like it's meant to be cool, and honestly, it's difficult to fail at that.
I'm hopeful, okay? That's all I'm saying.
My copy of the sequel comes in sometime this week, so we'll see what happens then.
Ari's a nice dude, also, which I think should count in a review. I like the publisher too, and I feel like it's a good idea to try this book out and support the publisher if you're so inclined. Remember your independent presses! (Plus I want to publish a book with them, and would like it if people bought from them more frequently when that time potentially comes...)
This is a pretty good book in a series I expect to only get better, which makes it worth a read.
Vahalla has an interesting world to work with, very well realized and fun to explore. Unfortunately, the book has a fairly slow start, and wasn't super good at holding my finnicky attention for the first two chapters. And boy, the chapters are long in this book. There's only 13 or so total for a 400 page book, if that explains things a little.
Once we get out of the intro and into Vahalla, things get cool and interesting. And stay that way. Cool and interesting! I love a lot of the technology and ideas Ari presents as he builds a pretty full world. Things get fairly ridiculous, and it's great. The book contains tons of references I don't understand, but still some jokes I'm able to enjoy. The writing can get heavy and dense sometimes, again perhaps full of references to norse myth and obscure things. But these sections don't really last long.
Violet, our heroine, isn't a particularly compelling character. I don't feel too much of a strong presence with her, or any of the main squad really. But I still like them, and appreciate them, and all that. I never disliked her or thought her bland. She's just not of extreme interest. The role she plays as a violent protag, as opposed to the more 'quiet, introvert, witty' person you usually see in books, is refreshing.
Vahalla really thrives for me with it's world and characters, but it is an action book. And the action is well done! I'm not super into it, and I did occasionally get lost. But there were still scenes of it I could get somewhat into, even if I was really just waiting for it to be over so I could find out what happened next.
The writing in the book isn't super interesting in it's pure delivery or prose. I'm not super picky on writing, but there was some common tropes played into and nothing really of note. Only thing of note was a torture scene that seriously made me cringe. Like I was freaking out. I probably should study that scene to make my own writing violence better!
I'm going to blab more on the tech. Perhaps the neatest concept in Valhalla are the tikari, little bugs that live in your chest, do tons of things, turn into melee weapons, and are your best friends. The last one is more implied. Never before has a book made me want to cut my chest open before. Give me a sick bug robot!
I'd hate to live in Violet's world but there's some sick things in it, is what I'm saying.
I previously mentioned I'm excited for the future of this book, even if (despite my glowing comments) it's not 100% the best book of the year. Somehow, I get the feeling this book series will have trouble failing. I can imagine lackluster character growth, maybe, but otherwise I feel the action is only going to step it up and the plot twists will be Pretty Sick Bro. Because the last half of this book is Pretty Sick. A lot of this book feels like it's meant to be cool, and honestly, it's difficult to fail at that.
I'm hopeful, okay? That's all I'm saying.
My copy of the sequel comes in sometime this week, so we'll see what happens then.
Ari's a nice dude, also, which I think should count in a review. I like the publisher too, and I feel like it's a good idea to try this book out and support the publisher if you're so inclined. Remember your independent presses! (Plus I want to publish a book with them, and would like it if people bought from them more frequently when that time potentially comes...)
July 31, 2020
I picked up "Valhalla" after reading a review by Glen Hates Books. Take a look HERE. It was a good review. It was an even better book, which I probably wouldn't have found on my own.
Set in 2230, "Valhalla" tells the story of Violet, a teenage girl with the heart of a warrior, born into a society that sees violence as pathological and Violet as in need of a LOT of counseling.
At seventeen, on the brink of adulthood, Violet's family is murdered in front of her by the Orange Gang. Her response is instant, instinctive and lethal.
While the cops wait for her to fall into tears and request yet more counseling, Violet starts to figure out who killed her family and why. She joins the army so she can learn to be better at killing people but is thrown out because she's too violent.
The story kicks into higher gear when Violet is recruited by the legendary Valhalla, an independent group of heavily armed, cybernetically enhanced, very hard to kill and even harder to keep dead, warriors who see themselves as the good guys, and who's only rule is "Don't Fuck Shit Up".
This is a fun book that resists simple labels. It is a young adult right-of-passage book but its attitude towards religion (a cancer in society), violence (a way of letting off steam), and sex (as much fun as chocolate) is not going to get it into many school libraries. It is a science fiction book, filled with cool hi-tech weapons, medical techniques that can bring you back from the dead if your head is intact, and cyborg augmentation yet it is more focused on friendship and family and becoming yourself than it is on the toys. It is fast paced and packed with violence, achieving a body-count that would make even Hollywood action movies blush, it even includes a very graphic torture scene and yet none of it feels voyeuristic or even particularly repellent because of the tone of the story-telling.
The book carried me along quite happily, although some of the training in Valhalla went on a little too long. The plot had some nice twists and left me looking forward to the next book in the series.
The audiobook version is read by Steve Carlson, an American in his seventies, with the voice of an avuncular uncle who is also the black sheep of the family. He does a good job. I enjoyed listening to him but I wondered why he was selected. Violet is seventeen years old and from Scotland. Most of the action is in Scotland, Siberia or Norway. This would have been a very different book if it had been read by Gayle Madine, who did such a good job with "The Panopticon"
Set in 2230, "Valhalla" tells the story of Violet, a teenage girl with the heart of a warrior, born into a society that sees violence as pathological and Violet as in need of a LOT of counseling.
At seventeen, on the brink of adulthood, Violet's family is murdered in front of her by the Orange Gang. Her response is instant, instinctive and lethal.
While the cops wait for her to fall into tears and request yet more counseling, Violet starts to figure out who killed her family and why. She joins the army so she can learn to be better at killing people but is thrown out because she's too violent.
The story kicks into higher gear when Violet is recruited by the legendary Valhalla, an independent group of heavily armed, cybernetically enhanced, very hard to kill and even harder to keep dead, warriors who see themselves as the good guys, and who's only rule is "Don't Fuck Shit Up".
This is a fun book that resists simple labels. It is a young adult right-of-passage book but its attitude towards religion (a cancer in society), violence (a way of letting off steam), and sex (as much fun as chocolate) is not going to get it into many school libraries. It is a science fiction book, filled with cool hi-tech weapons, medical techniques that can bring you back from the dead if your head is intact, and cyborg augmentation yet it is more focused on friendship and family and becoming yourself than it is on the toys. It is fast paced and packed with violence, achieving a body-count that would make even Hollywood action movies blush, it even includes a very graphic torture scene and yet none of it feels voyeuristic or even particularly repellent because of the tone of the story-telling.
The book carried me along quite happily, although some of the training in Valhalla went on a little too long. The plot had some nice twists and left me looking forward to the next book in the series.
The audiobook version is read by Steve Carlson, an American in his seventies, with the voice of an avuncular uncle who is also the black sheep of the family. He does a good job. I enjoyed listening to him but I wondered why he was selected. Violet is seventeen years old and from Scotland. Most of the action is in Scotland, Siberia or Norway. This would have been a very different book if it had been read by Gayle Madine, who did such a good job with "The Panopticon"
April 6, 2016
Violet has no idea what to do with her future, since her aptitude tests give her only the option of the army, which she would love but her parents don't want for her... until they are murdered by the Orange Gang and Violet ends up killing several members of the gang. Now she's free to join the army, even as she has vowed revenge against the leader of the gang. Her time in the army is short-lived, after which she is recruited for Valhalla, a secret army that seeks to keep the gangs and pirates and other evil groups in check.
I really wanted to like this more than I did. I felt like the first half of the book was bogged down with world-building. First it was the futuristic world Violet lived in, where everyone has a port in their heads and learns via the internet, basically meaning that they don't have to learn anything, and everything is owned by a corporation. Then she's in the world of the army, where she has no port which means she actually has to learn things on her own and she has a structure, which she loves. Then it's the world of Valhalla, where everyone works in teams of four for missions and has to change their name to the same letter of their squad (conventiently Violet ends up on the V team).
Aside from the world building, I had a hard time connecting with Violet. Throughout most of the story she is described as having no emotions - she feels nothing when her parents are killed, but then she vows revenge that carries through the rest of the story? It is a little more realistic when she realizes at the end that she has feelings for one of her teammates, but given the similarities in their names I had a hard time really differentiating them. Also, it was hard to really feel like everything was on the line or truly dangerous when apparently those in Valhalla can be basically resurrected after being killed.
So, while this had a lot of action and gore, this got a bit too bogged down in the world building for me. It felt a bit like Red Rising but without a protagonist I cared about.
I really wanted to like this more than I did. I felt like the first half of the book was bogged down with world-building. First it was the futuristic world Violet lived in, where everyone has a port in their heads and learns via the internet, basically meaning that they don't have to learn anything, and everything is owned by a corporation. Then she's in the world of the army, where she has no port which means she actually has to learn things on her own and she has a structure, which she loves. Then it's the world of Valhalla, where everyone works in teams of four for missions and has to change their name to the same letter of their squad (conventiently Violet ends up on the V team).
Aside from the world building, I had a hard time connecting with Violet. Throughout most of the story she is described as having no emotions - she feels nothing when her parents are killed, but then she vows revenge that carries through the rest of the story? It is a little more realistic when she realizes at the end that she has feelings for one of her teammates, but given the similarities in their names I had a hard time really differentiating them. Also, it was hard to really feel like everything was on the line or truly dangerous when apparently those in Valhalla can be basically resurrected after being killed.
So, while this had a lot of action and gore, this got a bit too bogged down in the world building for me. It felt a bit like Red Rising but without a protagonist I cared about.
September 29, 2014
Valhalla by Ari Bach was an extremely refreshing take on the fast growing dystopian genre. Although it was fast passed in the beginning, you are quickly sucked into the main character Violet MacRae's world. Violet is one of the most fascinating characters that I have ever read. With most characters you find yourself identifying with some of the characteristics of that character fairly early on, but Violet is an almost completely new outtake on a teen fiction character. Even if you do not identify with Violet, you still find yourself continuing reading, wondering how she will react to the situations she is placed in just because of her personality. Violet is most of the time very apathetic, especially in the beginning, but at sometimes she just seemed like too much of a robot to me.
Violet lives in Northern Scotland, a favorable contrast to other futuristic society novels that are set in America. The year is 2230 and some pretty realistic scientific advancements have been made. The only problem is that they are not described very thoroughly. The whole civilization and their technological advancements were actually believable and I would love to hear more about how everything works and more on how things are run. I wish there was more about the adverts that are in people's vision and the whole online school where everyone has avatars. In some parts of the book the descriptions were amazing, most of the fight scenes provided incredible detail, but in other parts the descriptions were a little bit more lackluster.
When I first started the book I had no idea that the main character was a lesbian and it didn't have much to do with the story other than the fact that it was just a normal part of Violet and who she was. There are practically no characters that are not straight in today's fiction books that doesn't make the whole book about their sexuality. It was really nice.
Will there be a sequel? I hope so and would definitely recommend this book to lovers of sci-fi or that are not looking for a romance novel. I give it four stars.
Violet lives in Northern Scotland, a favorable contrast to other futuristic society novels that are set in America. The year is 2230 and some pretty realistic scientific advancements have been made. The only problem is that they are not described very thoroughly. The whole civilization and their technological advancements were actually believable and I would love to hear more about how everything works and more on how things are run. I wish there was more about the adverts that are in people's vision and the whole online school where everyone has avatars. In some parts of the book the descriptions were amazing, most of the fight scenes provided incredible detail, but in other parts the descriptions were a little bit more lackluster.
When I first started the book I had no idea that the main character was a lesbian and it didn't have much to do with the story other than the fact that it was just a normal part of Violet and who she was. There are practically no characters that are not straight in today's fiction books that doesn't make the whole book about their sexuality. It was really nice.
Will there be a sequel? I hope so and would definitely recommend this book to lovers of sci-fi or that are not looking for a romance novel. I give it four stars.
November 12, 2016
Meh, meh, meh...
Okay, so this actually wasn't that bad. The story was interesting, the world was original, the idea was great. But what's the "meh meh meh" part here? The execution. I mean, seriously. The writing is just so bland that even broccoli has better texture (I freaking hate broccoli). The characters are without soul and I honestly couldn't care less about any of them. I just didn't feel any connection with them.
Halfway through the book I discovered that this was originally a movie script and I just thought jesus, that makes so much sense. Because the descriptions and writing in overall are basically what someone would put in a movie script for the actors to give the characters life. And exactly that life was what this book was lacking.
Because on the big screen? I'd probably love the shit out of it. On paper? Meh.
Okay, so this actually wasn't that bad. The story was interesting, the world was original, the idea was great. But what's the "meh meh meh" part here? The execution. I mean, seriously. The writing is just so bland that even broccoli has better texture (I freaking hate broccoli). The characters are without soul and I honestly couldn't care less about any of them. I just didn't feel any connection with them.
Halfway through the book I discovered that this was originally a movie script and I just thought jesus, that makes so much sense. Because the descriptions and writing in overall are basically what someone would put in a movie script for the actors to give the characters life. And exactly that life was what this book was lacking.
Because on the big screen? I'd probably love the shit out of it. On paper? Meh.
April 30, 2015
This book....
I liked it. I really really liked it, but the book isn't 5 stars for sure. I'm not really sure why I like it so much. Maybe because I started the book wanting to like it?
Ari absolutely has a story he wants to tell, and he has an image of the world to tell this story in. This much is apparent, and it's a really compelling story. My problem with the book (and maybe this was because I listened to it via audiobook while at work) was that some parts of the book went on for a little too long, and weren't really memorable.
I think that it's really a good book, and I've already recomended it to my Sci-Fi reading fans, but it's not the "5/5 best book ever" everyone says it is.
I liked it. I really really liked it, but the book isn't 5 stars for sure. I'm not really sure why I like it so much. Maybe because I started the book wanting to like it?
Ari absolutely has a story he wants to tell, and he has an image of the world to tell this story in. This much is apparent, and it's a really compelling story. My problem with the book (and maybe this was because I listened to it via audiobook while at work) was that some parts of the book went on for a little too long, and weren't really memorable.
I think that it's really a good book, and I've already recomended it to my Sci-Fi reading fans, but it's not the "5/5 best book ever" everyone says it is.
May 20, 2015
Valhalla is one of the best books I've ever read. I loved the entire cast (or loved to hate a few characters), the action was intense, and there was plenty of humor. Ari Bach does an excellent job of portraying a batch of lovable, morally gray misfits. Stepping into Valhalla is like stepping into an entirely new world, one with a rich history and culture that is populated by real, three-dimensional people. But, at the same time, it also shows a realistic prediction of what our own world will be like in a few centuries, based on our present. I couldn't put Valhalla down until it was finished, and is on a very short list of books I would re-read.
August 3, 2016
The writing is rough in spots, but the world and characters are very engaging, and I really didn't want to put Valhalla down.
The highest points of the book to me are the world that Ari Bach has built as well as the character of Violet. The world isn't entirely unique, but the tropes it does use it uses well. Violet is refreshingly new and different than most protagonists I can think of.
My only complaints are that sometimes the characters seem to vary in how powerful/skilled they are or how effective their technology is. The writing greatly improves in the second book, and this is a great start to a great series.
The highest points of the book to me are the world that Ari Bach has built as well as the character of Violet. The world isn't entirely unique, but the tropes it does use it uses well. Violet is refreshingly new and different than most protagonists I can think of.
My only complaints are that sometimes the characters seem to vary in how powerful/skilled they are or how effective their technology is. The writing greatly improves in the second book, and this is a great start to a great series.
March 10, 2016
I've read some other reviews for this book complaining about the action sequences, the too-long training montages, etc.
And no offense to any of those people, but Violet Macrae could destroy them all with all her limbs zip-tied behind her back and her mouth welded shut. Violet Macrae could beat up Chuck Norris with invisible Barack Obama's invisible chair. Violet Macrae would leave Sheev Palpatine and Voldemort crying for their mommies.
Violet Macrae: finally, the senselessly violent action hero we deserved.
And no offense to any of those people, but Violet Macrae could destroy them all with all her limbs zip-tied behind her back and her mouth welded shut. Violet Macrae could beat up Chuck Norris with invisible Barack Obama's invisible chair. Violet Macrae would leave Sheev Palpatine and Voldemort crying for their mommies.
Violet Macrae: finally, the senselessly violent action hero we deserved.
October 19, 2014
I bought this book a few months ago and read it in two days. I loved the authors writing style and the pacing of the book. There was never a boring moment in it and it is a story that will stick with me for a long time! I plan to read this book again soon, and I'll be one of the first to buy the squeal. Overall a great read and definitely worth the money!
May 3, 2016
I have to say when I started this book I was unimpressed. That quickly faded. This book is set far in our future and plays with the tension between the past (our present time) and the present (our future) in such subtle yet fun ways that you cannot help but be drawn into this world. The characters are fun and lovable too. If you're looking for some bad*** characters then this is the book for you.
August 1, 2014
I loved this book. I found it through tumblr and I have not regretted it.
April 2, 2015
TOP FRICKIN TIER BRO
May 10, 2015
I hadn't realized it was intended as young adult when I sat down to read it, but I've been looking forward to this for a while now. A style of writing I don't normally go for, but a lot of fun.
September 4, 2015
An amazingly fun book. I really do enjoy young female protagonists that defy all stereotypes.
December 18, 2015
excellent book. Loved the story and the characters and the world.
July 31, 2016
very good world building
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