Ymir

by Rich Larson

As glittering and treacherous as an icy cavern, Rich Larson's far-future tale of revenge and revolution is a gripping thriller, perfect for fans of Richard K. Morgan and inspired by the legendary story of Beowulf.  
Yorick never wanted to see his homeworld again. He left Ymir two decades ago, with half his face blown off and no love lost for the place. But when his employer's mines are threatened by a vicious alien machine, Yorick is shipped back home to hunt it.

All he wants is to do his job and get out. Instead, Yorick is pulled into a revolution brewing beneath Ymir's frozen surface, led by the very last person he wanted to see again—the brother who sent him off in pieces twenty years ago..

Genres: Science Fiction, Retellings, Fiction, Cyberpunk, Space Opera, Fantasy, Audiobook

417 pages, Paperback

First published July 12, 2022

About the author

Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in the south of Spain, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. Since he began writing in 2011, he’s sold over a hundred stories, the majority of them speculative fiction published in magazines like Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com.

His work appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, French and Italian. Annex, his debut novel and first book of The Violet Wars trilogy, comes out in July 2018 with Orbit Books. Tomorrow Factory, his debut collection, follows in October 2018 with Talos Press.

Besides writing, he enjoys travelling, learning languages, playing soccer, watching basketball, shooting pool, and dancing kizomba.

Reviews

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
This was such an incredibly fresh and unique novel. I understand that this story is inspired by Beowulf. I cannot comment on the similarities because I have not read the original work or seen any adaptation. Yet I can attest that readers do not need to understand the classic in order to love this book.

I loved the world building and alien design which felt wonderfully "otherly". The tone is dark and foreboding with a perfect touch of suspense. This book was just so different than most of the tropey science fiction that keeps getting published today.

I highly recommend this standalone to any sci fi reader looking for a fresh, new story.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

[Khalid Abdul-Mumin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bleak and cold far future cyberpunk smash!

Rich Larson's Ymir hasn't lived up to my expectations but it's surpassed many others at the same time even though I found it a bit unnecessarily boggy and convoluted when it comes to the execution of its plotline but it was still quite enjoyable.

Nevertheless, I absolutely love his writing and I'll certainly devour everything he has thus far, even when he goes on and on and on...its almost always still gruesome and extremely fast-paced (imagine Crouch's pace and writing but grittier, grimier, dark and mind blowing world-building on steroids!). Recommended.

*Read: November, 2022 *

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I contain multitudes," Yorick says. "And most of them are shitbags."

oh, Ymir, it's not you, it's me. this is a fantastic book for a different reader—one with an appetite for cyberpunk/near future stuff. i consistently struggle with SF because i have no imagination, and even the smallest bit of tech-stuff leaves me panicked with incomprehension, so i was floundered in over my head with this one.

i loved Annex and several of his short stories*, and i like Beowulf and i LOVE Grendel, so i figured it would be an excellent pairing, but alas, i am not the right reader for this book.

it's a very loose interpretation of b-wulf—these aren't your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granny's grendels:

Grendels have distributed processing, a dozen odd nodes that are in constant flux around the reactor—not unlike the nervous systems of the clever cephalopods, the ones the company breeds on some colony worlds for marine work. Humans have an echo of the same in their limbic system, in reflex and instinct.

they're all xenocarbon armor and ports and filaments that burrow into your EYES to communicate and in the rest of the book there's nerve suits and geophages and drones and droids and ansibles and gutjacks and holomasks and torpor pools and teledocs and debodying and bubblefabs and all of that to say that larson has Done the Work of worldbuilding, but i am lost within his world. i'm fine with the bodymod stuff—having just seen Crimes of the Future, i have no problem encountering a detachable mandible or a leg containing a musical instrument, but futuristic weaponry and neurochemical manipulation are way beyond my abilities.

it was not a complete loss, though—underneath all the futuretech is a timeless human story of estranged brothers and revenge and lost opportunities for reconciliation, and it is powerful stuff, and the cityscapes peppered with orphans and oddballs was very appealing. also—lots of creative violence, people reduced to "rearranged meat" and such. loved that for me.

additionally, the dystopian-mystery/rebellion elements were great; there's an almost noir aspect to the suspense, in the way that Blade Runner is noir, and i appreciate the gloomy humor:

Yorick knows that now is the time to stay put. To stay safe. He can drink himself into a stupor in the furnished oblivion of his hotel room, order the host droid to bring an endless parade of bottles up the endless staircase. He can gorge himself until his shrunken stomach is screaming, then throw it all up in the toilet. These are a few of his many pastimes.

but while i'm sure the rest of it would be incredibly entertaining and original to someone whose brain works in a way that mine does not, i can only be the reader that i am and no one is more disappointed in me than myself.


* i just looked, and this is an unprecedented short story winning streak: i have five-starred How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobučar, Painless, Our King and His Court, Meat and Salt and Sparks, and The King in the Cathedral, which goodreads deleted from the site but you can read here and my deleted from GR review is still over on blog.

the only one i gave fewer than five stars was Dark Warm Heart. clearly, my love of rich larson will prevail despite me not loving this one.

come to my blog!

[Chantaal · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's really hard to put my thoughts together on this one because it's such an odd, dark sci-fi novel.

Ymir is one of those novels that delights me and makes me wonder how some authors create worlds like this. Worlds that are wildly fun to learn about, and allow me to suspend all disbelief and just roll along with whatever I'm given. Rich Larson comes up with a lot of fun sci-fi ideas on this far flung planet Ymir, from ruling corporations to alien robot monsters to the body horror of being de-bodied as punishment.

Yorick as a main character is...well, Yorick is a fucking mess. The man is beyond a mess. He's the mess that a mess makes when it's being its messiest. He's got trauma and drinks and does drugs and lives with so much emotional pain that he almost craves physical pain as he's processing the trauma that being back on Ymir brings him. He's hard to swallow, but Rich Larson's writing puts you so squarely in Yorick's mind, frames the entire story so completely through Yorick, that there is no novel without him and everything he's going through.

I think the thing that really docked a star for me here was the pacing, though I think I understand why the pacing is the way that it is. As I've said, this book is SO thoroughly about Yorick that it slows down when he slows down, and speeds up to almost manic pacing when he's going through action scenes. It made me feel off kilter, and at times the slower scenes were very morose and maudlin and I wanted to be out and past them and back to the greater storyline. Except the plot is Yorick, Yorick is the plot and you don't get a second away from him. The book is masterful at that, I have to say.

I would NOT recommend this to anyone coming here for a straight Beowulf retelling; while that has provided the basis for some theme work, it's not a one to one retelling and the world is so wildly different that I understood this without having read Beowulf. I just know the basic story plot beats and this doesn't follow them beyond hunting a grendel.

I'd instead recommend this to sci-fi fans who want something new and interesting and can handle super dark themes. Like, SUPER dark. There is no light in this book, but it IS good.

Overall, this was a really good, immersive sci-fi novel.

[Ed McCutchan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Yorick is a company man with so much love to give. After nearly twenty years in torpor (think suspended animation but more dead than frozen) he’s back on his home planet of Ymir. It is far from a happy homecoming as Ymir is near bursting with a revolt against the company and Yorick has a history there he’d like to forget. Now he has to hunt a grendel and be haunted by the memories of his brother. With his bionic jaw and habitual drug use, he is unwell, but there is no one for whom it is well.
“Ymir” by Rich Larson was sold to me as “BEOWULF IN SPAAAAACE!!!!” And I get that comparison. There is a grim Viking feeling found throughout the book and the monster is referred to as a grendel. However, I found that description lacking. The overall story doesn’t really follow the same beats as “Beowulf,” though there are rather distinct episodes similar to how the saga has three unique parts. Yet, if you’re looking for a one-to-one plot comparison you’ll be left confused.
The main similarity for me is not the plot but the theme. “Beowulf” is at its heart about legacy. Beowulf establishes his legacy as a warrior. Hrothgar is struggling to establish his legacy as king. The saga ends with the future legacy of Beowulf’s reign up in the air as the dragon lays waste and the king dies. Likewise “Ymir” is all about Yorick’s legacy on his home planet, his family, and the Company. He tries to forget the legacy he left behind by using drugs. He attempts to rewrite his legacy by trying to right his longs.
I loved this book. There is a cyberpunk-esque aesthetic that I loved and while the setting was grim it was never hopeless. The author never held your hand and explained everything, but instead, let some mysteries stay hidden. While it was thought-provoking, it was also a quick read.
The only complaint I had was that Yorick was at times a frustrating protagonist. He is made out in the story to be a famed grendel hunter, but all we see for the most part is a broken man. Which is fine, I love a flawed, broken protagonist, but I would have loved to see more moments of competence. Yet, in the end, I also recognize that this is a more thoughtful story than an action-packed thriller.
Definitely give this book a chance. I was so glad I did, and I’m sure you will be too.

[Jordan (Forever Lost in Literature) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Find this review at Forever Lost in Literature!

Ymir was a really exciting and unexpected read that sucked me in far more than I expected it to. It's a grim, unpredictable, and somewhat foreboding book featuring some truly intriguing world-building. This is also one of those books that’s a little difficult to review for me because it has such a distinct and unique world that’s hard to describe without more context, but I’ll do my best!

The story takes place on an alien planet called Ymir, a frozen wasteland of sorts where what appear to be genetically modified humans live and work primarily as miners mining resources for the Company. The Company, naturally, doesn’t really care about it’s workers or their safety, only the profit of the mining resources, and this has left many workers angry and wanting change. Unfortunately for the Company, monstrous alien beasts known as grendels often inhabit the mines and disrupt the work of miners by attacking and killing them, which prompts the Company to hire humans such as our protagonist Yorick who kills grendels for a living.

Things kick off in Ymir when Yorick is sent by the Company back to Ymir where he grew up in order to ride the mines of a new grendel that has massacred some miners. Prior to this, Yorick has spent most of his time hunting grendels in off world locations far from Ymir and is furious at being sent back to his home planet, somewhere he never wanted to return to. Once there, however, he realizes that there is some sort of rebellion brewing and he reluctantly gets pulled into things, which is also where he rediscovers his brother whom he left on pretty bad terms with all those years ago and who is the last person he wanted to see.

I think Ymir did a great job of dropping readers into a world where you don’t really know much of anything and still managing to tell it in a way that’s easy enough to follow and allowed for me to really engage with the story and connect with it from the start, something that I’ve found not all books are great at doing. I really loved every opportunity to learn more about all the different little details and aspects of this world, especially with the somewhat alien and futuristic atmosphere that encompasses this story. For instance, there are a lot of different modifications that humans can get for a variety of uses that were interesting to read about, and even the drugs used on this planet had their own ways of working and affecting people, all of which really contributed to world-building and I had a great time exploring. I really appreciated learning about this world and I honestly would love to read something that kind of dives deeper into this world or explains a bit more about the backstory, like a bonus story of some sort to get deeper into things.

Yorick is someone who doesn’t seem to really have a lot motivating him in life and instead seems to mainly just exist and work rather than really live. He has a bit of a drug problem and seems to struggle mentally and emotionally with his life and circumstances. I found this element of Yorick’s personality really compelling in seeing how it would play into the story and how it might lead to his own change. I liked getting to accompany Yorick on a lot of important journeys he embarked upon as well, from coming to terms with his childhood on Ymir to getting reacquainted with his brother and dealing with the hostility that exists between them. We really get to see Yorick evolve over the course of the story and learn how to handle his various internal and external struggles, and I think Larson captured these all really well.

In addition to Yorick is a cast of characters that really added to the story and made this story even better. There’s some humor littered throughout from both Yorick and the characters in small moments (and with some dryness) and I loved seeing how unique each person was. The characters we meet are all so different from one another and had such strong personalities that I think really helped to expand the world by kind of seeing who they are, what they do, and what their opinions are on things happening in this world.

The pacing and plotting of Ymir felt very steady overall. I would say it’s a bit of a slower story, although at the same time I feel as though I managed to read through it pretty quickly, which made it feel a bit more fast-paced to me... despite the fact that I still wouldn't consider it that fast-paced, which I understand sounds a bit confusing. It’s not an action-packed story for the most part and is instead more centered around Yorick and his coming back to grips with this world and meeting both new and old people, while also focusing heavily on Ymir and the tensions brewing amidst the working and living conditions of the people there.

Overall, I was really surprised by Ymir and found it extremely engaging, unique, and fresh. I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately, as I’ve probably mentioned quite a number of times. It’s not that I’m not reading at all, but rather that books just haven’t really been grabbing me as much lately and I was so happy to find that Ymir really captured me in a way that I didn’t expect. It didn’t feel like I was reading something that had been rehashed over and over again already, and I find that the best and most refreshing part of this book. For anyone who may read this book, I would just say to be aware going into it that things might be a little confusing at first and at various points in the story, but also know that it will still grab you and things will come together. Larson does a really great job of creating a little bit of a path through the dense forest of this new world that really allows you to follow along without giving everything away or leaving too much out of sight.

I've given Ymir 4.25 stars! I really enjoyed this story and my first experience with Rich Larson's writing and I now intend to go search out some of his backlist to check out. If you're looking for a unique sci-fi, Ymir is a perfect pick.

[Derek Künsken · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got to read an advanced review copy of Ymir. It's a striking work, with powerful prose and a compelling story. There's a reason that Rich Larson's short fiction is routinely selected for year's best anthologies. All of his talent is on display in Ymir.

[Elena Linville-Abdo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stars: 5 out of 5.

This book tugged at my heartstrings from the beginning till the end. I honestly didn't expect to like it as much as I did. I always say that I don't particularly enjoy books with unlikeable characters I can't empathize with. Well this book proved me wrong. Turns out, I do enjoy unlikeable characters when they feel like fleshed-out human beings. 

Yorick is a mess. He has so much suppressed trauma that he is a self-destructive mess. Most of the things he does to himself and to others are rather horrible and make him unlikeable... but you can't help but feel empathy for the guy. The more you learn about his past, the more you understand why he is so messed up. And returning to Ymir, which is the place of his nightmares, only triggers all those memories, all that trauma. No wonder he spirals. I would as well.

I also really liked the world of Ymir. It feels foreign, unforgiving, but also like home to the people who chose to live there. And the author did a great job illustrating that by creating a culture and traditions for those people that are very different from what "company men" bring to the table. The wake for the dead was fascinating. The dirges and ballads and the folklore about spirits and the underworld, when layered on top of this cold and starless world, paints a harsh but beautiful picture of Ymir.

These details make the reader understand that the people who call this world their home will never be subjugated like the company wants. They are too proud and independent to bend the knee, no matter what the algorithm thinks. 

And the story of Yorick and Thello is heartbreaking as well. They both did the things they did because they loved each other and wanted to create a better life for each other. Problem was, they saw what that better life could be very differently. Yorick decided that the only way to survive abuse was to become tougher and meaner than his abusers, not realizing until too late that by doing so he became no better than them. And that he lost the person he loved the most - his brother, along the way. He tries to repair at least some damage that he's done once he realizes the truth.

I love that there is no happy ending at the end of this book. No big teary reunion with hugs and declarations of love and forgiveness. There is too much hurt between the two bothers for that. There is silent acceptance of things as they are, and that's the best these two can hope for.

There is also no real resolution for Ymir either. Yes, the grendel disrupted the Company's systems when it left, but was that only on Ymir or everywhere? And what comes now? After all, the company wasn't all bad. It also brought progress, technology, and access to things that made the life on this harsh planet fore bearable. 

In fact, this ending is just the beginning of another story, and I will be interested to see if the author will continue with it, and where he would take it.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Tori]

dnf @ pg 200

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

”…A retelling of a fairy tale, myth, or classic novel”

This book had me at “gritty cyberpunk retelling of Beowulf”. Honestly though, this was wild. It had very little to do with the actual story of Beowulf which I rather liked. I hate when something tries to “retell” or “expand” on an original or classic story because I feel like it will always fall short (it’s why I often have issues with song covers and movie remakes as well). I’m of the opinion that you should just write or make your own story instead of riding someone else’s coattails (unless of course, you do something totally original with the material). Well, this book does it right. It holds only the slightest of resemblances to the original epic Old English poem (that is near and dear to me) and it’s all the better for it. It is a completely original, gritty, wildly imaginative cyberpunk novel that, frankly, totally surprised me by how much I enjoyed it. I was completely taken in by the world building (which you should by now realize is one of my main concerns in a novel), and the characters served their purposes. I loved what Larson did with “Grendel”, I thought that was super unique and interesting. I was occasionally reminded of the TV adaptation of Altered Carbon (which is also on my TBR list this year), and even the Sprawl novels of William Gibson (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive…which makes sense because Cyberpunk). I was going to reread the book Grendel by John Gardner for this prompt, because it’s a retelling of the same story but from the perspective of the famous monster (and it’s bonkers and I love it), but I’m glad I took a chance on this book.

[Chris Monceaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

***Thank you to Orbit Books and Angela Man for providing a copy of the book! My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience.***

I didn’t know what to expect from this book going into it other than it was a sci-fi retelling of Beowulf. To be honest, I don’t remember much about Beowulf because I haven’t read it since high school. So, I can’t really provide any analysis comparing this take to the original tale. However, I can say that I never wanted to put this excellent sci-fi thriller down. The intelligent writing and short, abrupt chapters did a wonderful job of setting the caustic tone of this book and brought the inhospitable world of Ymir to life in riveting detail.

The unusual structure of the narrative added a puzzle-like experience to reading the story. There were memories/flashbacks and cryptic dreams scattered throughout that dropped clues about the characters' backstories and motivations. I had a lot of fun trying to piece it all together. The plot was fascinating with plenty of good sci-fi action and a compelling story of rebellion. It also included an interesting and entertaining critique of unfettered capitalism and colonialism. The ending, while epic, felt a bit rushed, and I came away wondering what the impact of the events would be on the larger civilization. Maybe there should have been an epilogue? I'm not sure.

The real strength of this book, though, was the characterization. The main protagonist, Yorick, exhibited mystery and depth in ways I didn't expect. He was incredibly broken, both psychologically and physically, and had spent years running away from his past trauma. In this story, he was required to face it all head on, and I was fascinated by his journey of discovering his past wasn't all he remembered it to be. He gradually realized that he might actually be the monster of the story and then had to come to terms with what that meant for his relationships, self-image, and future. It was a truly harrowing tale with many morally grey, complex characters to round out the incredibly brilliant cast.

I'd be remiss if I didn't comment on the world-building. It had all the trappings of great sci-fi, including tons of cool technology, artificial intelligence, and alien monsters. The crisp descriptiveness of the prose made the world come alive, even though there were plenty of times I sort of wished it hadn't due to the gruesome nature of some of the scenes. There was just enough background and history given to have the story make sense. Personally, I would have liked a bit more information on the grendels and the history of the Company and civilization as a whole, but I also enjoyed that the story focused more on being Yorick's tale. The book just made me really curious about the civilization and its past. So, it felt slightly unsatisfying to not get any real development of the wider galaxy or the ramifications of the important events happening on this one planet.

Overall, this was an excellent sci-fi thriller filled with both action and compelling character development and brought to life by intelligent, textured writing. I didn't want to put it down and cannot recommend it enough. Therefore, I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

See more of my reviews and other bookish content here!

[Nathaniel R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I've thought a lot about how best to describe this book in a sentence: If Games Workshop allowed Warhammer 40k to be less like an action movie and more real. If drug dependence was treated more humainly. If relationships were treated more humainly. If Warhammer 40k was treated more humainly.


A soft scifi thriller in which our ace, drug-fueled, self-destroying protagonist is returned to his home planet to hunt a dangerous alien machine mind that has surfaced shut down a company mine. We follow our protagonist from drug induced torpor to drug-induced stupor as he goes about his job, relives best-forgotten memories and traumas and gets involved in a revolution that has been brewing long before he left 20 years ago.

The writing switches from poetic to prose very effectively, while keeping the grit and punishing hurt almost always in mind. Even then, the writing is very human and sympathetic. The technology used across Ymir is imaginative and well thought out and, when it involves the company, fucking grotesque (They don't pull any punches). There are good laughs in the beginning, but you don't miss them as the pace picks up and you get drawn into the plot and the world too.

Hey, if you're a fan of warhammer 40k, I'm sure you'll love this. If you're a fan of anti-heroes and them getting their retribution, I'm sure you'll love this. If you're a fan of far-future science fiction where all the characters are portrayed as human with hurts and pains, navigating life through the things they want and things they want to get away from, I'm sure you'll get your fill.

[Jordi · Rating 4 out of 5]

’Ice and death and shit’. And a lot of damage.

[Benjamin - Les Mots Magiques]

Je me suis procuré ce livre aux dernières Utopiales mais ça n’a malheureusement pas été une grande réussite pour moi puisque cette lecture s’est soldée par un abandon.
⠀
Après 20 ans d’absence, Yorick est renvoyé sur sa planète natale pour une mission : éradiquer un grendel. Mais ce retour sur Ymir s’avère plus compliqué que prévu pour Yorick qui est encore hanté par les souvenirs de ce qui s’est passé la dernière fois qu’il y a mis les pieds.
⠀
Je suis pas mal embêté par ce livre parce que, dans l’absolu, j’ai apprécié ce que j’ai découvert de l’histoire. L’univers est sombre et violent mais très prenant. La société dépeinte est pleine de disparités et on rencontre une multitude d’espèces qui semblent toutes très intéressantes.
⠀
Le souci c’est que je n’ai pas réussi à accrocher à la narration, et notamment au style de l’auteur que j’ai trouvé extrêmement froid. Les chapitres sont courts, ce que j’apprécie d’habitude, mais là où ça permet généralement de dynamiser le récit, j’ai trouvé ici que ça rendait le tout très saccadé et pas franchement agréable. C’est évidemment une question de ressenti (d’autant que je suis dans une période où j’ai du mal à apprécier mes lectures, indépendamment de la qualité des livres) mais ça ne l’a vraiment pas fait pour moi et j’en suis le premier déçu.
⠀
Un autre point qui m’a gêné, c’est le résumé que je trouve très spoilant. Je me suis arrêté à la moitié du livre et au stade où j’en étais, je découvrais tout juste un point mentionné dans le résumé de l’éditeur. Il y avait quelques indices depuis le début, évidemment, mais c’était loin d’être explicite et je trouve dommage que le résumé donne cette information aussi tôt. Si vous pouvez, je vous conseille donc de ne pas lire l’intégralité du résumé avant de vous lancer dans cette lecture.

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rep: nonbinary side characters

CWs: body horror, gore, torture

[Marie Labrousse · Rating 4 out of 5]

J’étais curieuse de découvrir Rich Larson dans la forme longue, moi qui ai adoré ses nouvelles, tant dans leur traduction française (La Fabrique des lendemains) que dans leur traduction québécoise (Rêves de drones et autres entropies).

Étrangement, je pense que je préfère cet auteur dans la forme courte, ce qui m’étonne un peu, parce que 1. J’ai généralement tendance à préférer les romans aux nouvelles ; 2. Les univers dépeints par Rich Larson sont si riches et complexes qu’on les imagine volontiers se déployer dans un roman pour en explorer tous les recoins. Finalement, j’en viens à penser qu’un des charmes des œuvres de cet auteur vient du plongeon brutal dans ses univers à chaque début de nouvelle : une sensation un peu diluée quand on l’étire sur un roman de 400 pages.

Cela dit, bien qu’un cran en-dessous de ses nouvelles, Ymir n’en reste pas moins un excellent roman, un planet opera cyberpunk aussi poisseux qu’émouvant. Ymir est une planète glacée, dont les habitants vivent sous le joug d’une compagnie minière depuis près de vingt ans, lorsqu’a eu lieu la Soumission (je crois que le jeu de mots n’existe pas dans la VO, coup de chapeau au traducteur pour cette trouvaille). Yorick, natif de la planète, qui a joué un rôle actif dans la Soumission (pour le camp de la Compagnie), doit y retourner pour une mission spéciale : traquer un « grendel », machine biomécanique antique qui menace l’exploitation des mines. Un retour contraint qui le confrontera à ses vieux démons…

Le personnage principal, traître devenu mercenaire désabusé, est de prime abord assez dur à apprécier, mais Rich Larson réussit le tour de force de finir par le rendre attachant. La principale clé du roman est sa relation d’amour/haine avec son jeune frère, Thello, le trop sensible Thello qui en a pris plein la poire de la part de la Compagnie et fomente une révolte… Cette relation difficile, basée sur une incompréhension fondamentale, a pris une tournure tragique lors de la Soumission : vingt ans plus tard, alors que tout semble joué, y’a-t-il de la place pour un ultime épilogue? En tant que lecteurice, on souhaite à tout prix que tout s’arrange entre eux, mais il arrive que certains actes demeurent impardonnables…

Le roman se présente également comme une réécriture de Beowulf, en reprenant notamment la trame du combat contre Grendel. Néanmoins, je ne connais vraiment pas assez le mythe originel pour repérer toutes les références et je ne doute pas que beaucoup de choses m’aient échappées.

Un roman fort et bouleversant. Je regrette de ne plus avoir rien d’autre de Rich Larson à me mettre sous la dent – comment ça, il y a une novella parue récemment dans la collection Une heure-lumière? Voilà qui serait idéal pour tester le format mi-long…

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ymir does a lot right, but it loses its footing about halfway through the story. A sci-fi retelling of Beowulf (which, when it comes down to it, feels more like a light nod), this story has a lot of unique elements but paired together muddled the story a bit.

This was one of my highly anticipated reads of the year, and while I enjoyed the reading experience, I was left wanting more from it. There's a lot of jargon that I think is reasonably easy to infer if you're a sci-fi reader, but I think can get confusing and read more like a jumble of words that want to sound different, futuristic and techy. And because of that, it can lose the impact of what it means relative to the story unfolding and the immersion in the reading experience in general. I also wasn't super fond of pretty much any of the characters, so it was hard to stay invested when you're not really rooting for anyone or anything.

This was fine. But it was only fine. I'd be interested in picking up something else from Rich Larson. His ideas are great, I just wanted more out of the execution.

Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the ARC!

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

DNF at page 122

Yes, I gave a four-star rating to a book I didn’t finish.

It’s easy to explain, really; the structure of the prose is just too much hard work for me. The last thing I want to feel like is that I’m back at school taking a test I haven’t prepared for. I tried so hard to push through, but regrettably had to admit to myself I was just miserable reading this book. My mind was doing far more work, parsing the prose, than it was enjoying the story. But these are all my personal hang-ups and not the book’s fault.

The book itself is incredibly good, yes, even the prose. Just because I can't get along with it doesn’t mean it isn’t good. The world-building is phenomenal, the plot keeps you intrigued, and the main character is a real person, not the superhuman you might have expected. The imaginative invention in Ymir is quite incredible, briskly scattered over every page with such confidence it feels completely natural to the reader. Larson has done an excellent job of creating a mind-blowingly unusual sci-fi novel that feels incredibly relatable.

I’m hugely disappointed I didn’t have it in myself to finish this book.

[Lynnae · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF'd at 72ish% — I thought I was going to finish and give it a humble 3 stars, but I soon realized that I was dreading picking this book up each day.

This was very disappointing, and ultimately a tragedy of unrealized potential. Before I get into my critiques, I will say that I liked Larson's writing style. It's very easy to read (maybe too easy because if I wasn't totally focused on the book my mind would wander) and the chapters are short (like 2 pages on average), so you can make a lot of progress in an evening. The world-building and the politics are easy to grasp so I think this could've been a passable movie (Aaron Paul is my fancast for Yorick). Unfortunately, the execution on the plot falls short in a lot of places. I can honestly say I was only TRULY interested during two moments in 300 pages.

My biggest gripe is that Ymir didn't deliver on the fraught brother vs. brother dynamics that I was promised. And that was my whole reason for being there! When Yorick and his brother Thello reunited after 20 years of radio silence....nothing happens. There's no angst, no tension, no yelling, no trying one way or the other to either repair their relationship or destroy it so they could both be free from this holding pattern. Even though Thello ruined his face (and possibly his life), Yorick is so full of loathing for himself and everything around him that hate obviously isn't all that he feels for his brother. There's hate, shame, grasping for a relationship with the only person in the world who loved him, loss, wonder at how it all could've gone so wrong all mixed up together, and that does come through — through vibes only, I might add, because Yorick is so busy substance abusing and repressing that we don't get to unpack it in any real way. It would've been delicious if we had!

Thello, on the other hand, is indifferent to his brother. I can't even really say if he was hateful. Grown up Thello is in his automaton era (part of this could be due to the fact that's he's tapped in with the grendel and being the leader of this revolution or whatever) but he was giving serial killer and he acts like Yorick is just any man who walked in off the street. You see your brother for the first time in 20 years after you blew half his head off, and you have NOTHING to say? You don't wanna explain yourself or justify your actions? You don't wanna rage at him for leaving? You don't wanna have a villain's monologue where you explain how you've gotten here and it's all his fault somehow? NOTHING????? It fell criminally flat and while I was reading I realized that I didn't necessarily trust Larson to fix his error in the next 100 pages so I was like...why am I here?

1 of the 2 interesting moments in the book is when Thello reveals he's going to use Yorick in his rebellion and makes him ingest an explosive that'll kill him in three days to ensure his compliance. So Yorick decides that he's gonna stick by the company and find someway to ruin his plan SOLELY to get back at Thello, and he's even gonna get Thello tortured and imprisoned. And I was like "THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!!!!!" FINALLY some family drama in this house. But then other things happen and by pg. 300 we find out that Yorick shot himself in the head not Thello, and so now he's gonna go break his brother out of company prison and get the grendel and "save the day." And I'm like...........ok. That didn't feel like the right ending for these two either. The right ending to me felt like a Shakespearean tragedy where everybody dies, and Larson very well could've served that but I couldn't bring myself to stick around to find out.

My second biggest gripe is that in addition to not developing the biggest draw of the book, the characters aren't engaging. I am no stranger to the sad-horrible-miserable-man trope (and some of my fave characters fall into this category) so it's not like I expected to fall in love with Yorick, but you've gotta give me something to make me care and Larson didn't it. It felt like he was so focused on making the most despondent character imaginable that he forgot to do anything else. I had no hope that Yorick was going to "reform," he certainly wasn't going to live happily ever after, and I doubted that anything meaningful was going to happen with the brother so, again....why am I here?

I think if Larson had spent less time on trying to make the world as bleak and cold and unforgiving as possible and put more effort into the character work I think we could've had something really interesting on our hands.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

7 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com...

A dark, otherworldly retelling of Beowulf takes place on a dystopian ice-world where the company owns and tells all. A tale of two brothers separated by time, space, and bad blood. Yorick hunts monsters—specifically the eyeless grey terror known as the grendel, that lurk beneath the earth on many company worlds. He left home early, after a spat with his brother that cost him his jaw.

And now he’s back in the one place he hoped never to be again: the ice-world Ymir.

Thello is a mystery. In Yorick’s mind, his homecoming would coincide with his brother’s apology—that or a fight to the death—but upon landing Yorick finds neither. In fact, he hasn’t seen Thello at all, instead greeted by a company man Dam Gausta, his former mentor, the woman who ushered him into the company; and a hulking red clanswoman, Fen, who clearly wants to gut him at first sight. At first Yorick thinks that she must know him—but no, he’s been gone decades, and the Butcher that Cooked the Cradle must be assumed to be well and truly dead by now.

Without his brother, there is only the hunt that matters now.

But this grendel is different than the mindless killing-machines Yorick has dispatched in the past. Beneath that cold, clammy skin there is definitely a very alien mind at work, but there is also something disturbingly human to it as well, something Yorick recognizes and knows all too well. Thello.

—

Written in the style of Takeshi Kovacs, Ymir takes a fast-paced, minimalist story designs of Richard K. Morgan and applies them to a Beowulf inspired tale, complete with nordic themes and terrifying grendels. A dark, gritty tale takes place on both sides of the ice of Ymir, even plunging deep underground in pitch-black tunnels where only those desperate or alien live.

The pacing itself is strange, but it is what the story makes it. It’s the way the story is told; in glimpses—with chapters so short we might as well be visiting the story as opposed to spending a book’s length with it. We jump from action to action, spending just enough time to progress the plot—but no more.

While I loved the dark, gritty feel of the ice-world Ymir, there was never enough of it to go around. When you’re only spending one to five pages in the same place, it’s hard to get a real sense of worth from it. Thus, instead of a full-body immersion, this was like a bath taken in quick dips, where you get a shock of cold that eventually builds up into a deep freeze, but only after a long period. It was an interesting way to tell a story—and not one I entirely enjoyed.

I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative between the two brothers, though it didn’t last as long as I’d’ve expected, coming to a cliffhanger well before the close that felt like a foregone conclusion rather than a mystery by the time it was resolved at the end.

TL;DR

While there was more than enough to like about Ymir, very little about the tale wowed me. It did prove a great read and a good story besides, as well as an interesting and unique retelling/tale based heavily on the epic Beowulf. But there was just too little there: too little time spent in any one place; too little depth on any of the supporting characters; too little backstory on the company, the grendels, Ymir itself, anything of the world to make it feel real. Overall, while I enjoyed pretty much everything I saw from Ymir, I’d’ve liked to have seen more of… pretty much all of it. For what is a tale told in glimpses than no tale at all?

[Sam Tovey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Rich Larson's short fiction for years, so I was eager to pick this one up and give it a read.

And wow. It did not disappoint! The story starts slowly, building up this grimy, frozen planet with a rich history and an undercurrent of socio-political tension, all centred around our troubled prodigal son, Yorick. Then it draws you into his conflict with a bio-engineered, robotic "Grendel", that has Yorick reckoning with his past, with his brother and with his own role in the planet's uneasy history. A really gripping and beautifully-written book.

If you're intrigued, but don't want to jump right into the novel, I'd highly recommend giving some of Rich Larson's short stories a read first. I've put some recommendations below, all of which are excellent and have a similar vibe to 'Ymir'. These can easily be found for free with a quick google:

"Let's Take This Viral"
"Meat and Salt and Sparks"
"Going Endo"
"Brute"
"Ice" (which you may recognise from 'Love, Death and Robots' on Netflix).

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking, punishing, heartbreaking, enthralling, and sprinkled with wry humour—delivered, no doubt, with a raised eyebrow and crooked smile. The quality of the writing is unmatched. There is so much to unpack—one reading won’t be enough!

[Laramie Graber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Ymir, I felt as if I was on the planet itself. I felt the despair and rage of the clanners towards the company, the tear of flesh from weapon’s fire, and most of all, the howling wind and the all-encompassing, unrelenting cold. For me, the visceral writing is phenomenal as it thoroughly crafts a cyberpunk world on an ice-locked planet. Full disclosure, with just this, I would have probably enjoyed the book.

Not that this is the novel’s only strength. The plotting is also clever and taut. Almost every detail is deliberate and pays off. If you find the opening confusing or a bit slow, have faith. My only quibble is that some of the action scenes could be cut. I love them, but some are awfully similar and blur together a little bit.

Ultimately though, the novel is Yorick’s story and your opinion of him could make or break the novel. In close third-person, the novel is heavily filtered through his perspective. Yorick is the company man sent to hunt the grendel—left behind by an ancient race of aliens that comes out of the ground when the company gets too greedy, digs too deep. Yorick is native to Ymir but looked down on as a half-blood. This hatred became his and that drove him away from his brother and into the arms of the company. Though never entirely lost from some type of redemption, Yorick is not simply an unlikable character he is often the villain. His experiences have left him miserable and deeply broken. He is well-drawn, and I connected with him, but some readers won’t want to spend time with Yorick.

If you choose to though, prepare for a wild, excruciating, and at times, wonderful ride.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yorick and his younger brother Thello were born and raised on the cold, dark planet Ymir, where you either worked in the mines or you worked for the Company overseeing the mines. Yorick escaped Ymir by joining the Company and became a grendel hunter. Grendels are semi-autonomous biomachine left dormant on planets throughout human space; left behind by a now-extinct race known only as The Oldies. When Yorick is tasked with returning to Ymir after a suspected grendel attack in a mine he is less than enthused as his borther Thello, who he blames for his face being blown off in a needlegun blast, has remained on Ymir these past decades. Suffice it to say that Yorick’s feelings for Thello are conflicted. Once back on Ymir Yorick finds that his past has not been disguised as well as the Company thought and he becomes a vilified figure (for a massacre decades earlier) and he also finds that a missing miner was actually his brother Thello. When the grendel he is hunting starts exhibiting aware autonomus behaviour Yorick suspects a great mystery and an even greater lie. Rich Larson’s long-awaited novel is a real page-turner where the gritty lives of the Ymir inhabitants is contrasted sharply with the apathetic cruelty of the Company. The ending ties up loose ends to the readers’s satisfaction and the book is RECOMMENDED.

[Mendousse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Premier roman de Rich Larson, dont j'ai par ailleurs beaucoup aimé les nouvelles publiées par Le Belial, notamment le recueil La Fabrique des Lendemains.
Le ton est ici très sombre, peut-être de manière excessive. Le style, très vif, est adapté à l'histoire très nerveuse.
L'histoire se situe dans le continuum des nouvelles de l'auteur, on retrouve des repères technologiques et sociétaux déjà connus. La confrontation avec l'inconnu est bien amenée.
Malgré quelques maladresses, j'ai lu ce roman avec beaucoup de plaisir. J'ai cependant préféré l'auteur dans son activité de nouvelliste.

[Yuyine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ymir est un roman à l’ambiance poisseuse de sang et de misère qui transpire la violence et la douleur. Roman cyberpunk à la Alterned Carbon, il se fait aussi critique sociale en toile de fond dans une intrigue de guerre fratricide où l’humanité se cache sous une couche de désespoir. C’était surprenant, perturbant et glauque, mais je l’ai dévoré sans peine par des chapitres s’enchaînant à un rythme soutenu.

Critique complète sur yuyine.be!

[Maddalena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this novel from Orbit Books, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review: my thanks to both of them for this opportunity.

Chillingly grim but totally fascinating. If I were asked to sum up my experience with Ymir in five words, these would be the perfect choice: this novel’s blurb likens it to a spacefaring version of Beowulf, and there are indeed some connections to that famous epic (including a request for a monster’s arm as a trophy), but Ymir is very much its own story, and a compelling - if sometimes harsh - one.

The alien planet of Ymir is a frozen, forbidding wasteland in which humanity (or rather a genetically modified branch of it) toils by mining its resources under the aegis of the Company, a ruthless cartel which grinds its employees with little or no regards for their rights or comforts, and quashes any attempt at rebellion with swift brutality. But the Company’s profit is threatened by grendels, alien constructs which are part flesh and part cybernetic components: a recent attack from a grendel in the depths of a mine cost the Company a number of workers and, far worse from their point of view, a stop to the extraction activities, so Yorick, the best grendel hunter in their employ, is dispatched to Ymir to solve the problem.

Yorick was kept in torpor (a sort of cold-storage suspended animation the Company employs to make its assets last longer, among other uses) for a long time, and once awakened he’s not happy to be returned to his home planet, from which he’s been absent for a subjective time of ten years, while on the world twenty have effectively elapsed. The hunter is considered a traitor on his home world, since he joined the ranks of the Company and committed some serious atrocities in their employ, but what’s worse he has some huge unfinished business to deal with: before he left he violently clashed with his brother Thello, who shot him with a needle gun taking away the lower half of Yorick’s face, which has since then been replaced by a prosthesis (warning: this is something of a gross detail in the narrative).

The timing for the hunt could not be worse, however, because a widespread rebellion against the Company is brewing under the icy surface of the planet, and Thello might be at the center of it, forcing Yorick to deal with the conflicting emotions generated by his past associations and his present duties: the road he finds himself traveling is fraught with dangers, and they don’t come only from the grendel’s threat…

‘Fascinating’ was the word I first used for this novel, and it is indeed despite its bleakness, which starts with the descriptions of Ymir, where darkness and ice extend as far as the eye can see, taking their toll on the miners and reflecting in their living spaces, where there is almost no respite from the harshness of the land. The workers are just as hard and unforgiving as the environment they live in, the physical changes wrought on them from generations turning them into creatures as alien as the place they live in: there are several flashbacks from Yorick as he recalls his and Thello’s childhood, marred by the lack of acceptance from their peers - who called them half-breeds - and by their mother’s abusive behavior, a consequence of her though living and working conditions. Young Yorick wanted nothing else but to escape from Ymir, taking Thello with him, while his younger brother felt stronger ties with the place and its people, and that difference was the spark that ultimately led to their final, bloody encounter.

Still, family ties can exert a strong pull on Yorick, and from the start we see him torn between love and hate for Thello and the planet were they were born: getting to know Yorick, and connecting with him as a character, is the most difficult part of the book, because he’s not an easy or relatable figure. Past actions have branded him a monster, and the old disfigurement added to the image, but what makes Yorick such a anti-hero is his self-destructive attitude: we see him literally wallowing in recreative drugs or in performance-enhancing drugs, and it’s clear that what’s left under that mountain of self abuse is a broken individual with little hope and almost no dreams - only nightmares. The skilled, heartless hunter is nothing but a shell under which the damaged child still dwells:

He takes his space like a gas giant, making his body as big as he can. […] Inside, when nobody can see him, he always makes himself small.

What ultimately saves Yorick from being a despicable character (and I assure you that looking past that constantly drugged fog is NOT easy…) is his desire to re-establish a bond with Thello, to still try and save him as he was unable to in the past. I’m sorry I can’t say more because I risk treading on spoiler territory, but Yorick’s attempt at a redemption arc is what manages to bring to the surface what little humanity is left in him. And this is enough.

Ymir might not be the easiest book to read, but it offers such a compelling narrative that it will prove quite difficult to set aside.


Originally posted at Space and Sorcery Blog

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read Beowulf so can't comment on how Ymir compares with it, but you don't need to have read it to understand this book.

The setting and concepts were unique and interesting, and there was a healthy balance of worldbuilding and character development.

Much like the frigid world of Ymir, the writing felt very cold and clinical to me at times, and it lacked an emotional punch which is why I haven't given it a higher rating.

[Lel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost DNF’d this book but I’m glad I didn’t. There were bits I found confusing because of the terminology and the drug use. But after 100 or so pages the story got going and it was good. I loved the brothers and their complicated relationship.

[Healz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

It have at least the privilege to be a cyberpunk story that is not sexist, which is remarkable.