By the Mountain Bound, by Elizabeth Bear

By the Mountain Bound
Elizabeth Bear
Tor: 2009

By the Mountain Bound is a remarkable novel. It is a prequel to All the Windwracked Stars, but it is a prequel that does not simply tell of events that came before, it is a prequel that makes the events of All the Windwracked Stars all the richer and more powerful. During the early chapters of All the Windwracked Stars we see that Muire is the lone survivor of a war that claimed the waelcryge and from which she ran. We see her alone in the snow at the end of the world. We are told of a war that was faught and that so many of the waelcryge, warriors of Light, were Tarnished. We learned that the Tarnishing of their power, of their light was of far greater significance than is conveyed in the first novel.

In By the Mountain Bound readers are shown the loss and the power in the word “tarnished” that is never quite captured in All the Windwracked Stars. This is the story of what happened before the fall. For a moment, though, Elizabeth Bear makes the reader forget that we know how this all ends.

Bear gives us three viewpoint characters: Muire, Mingan, and Strifbjorn. Readers know Muire from AtWS, but though Mingan is an important part of AtWS, here he is brought to life in a very unexpected manner. The depth to his character is surprising (though not surprising given the author), as is his more sympathetic nature. Here Mingan is a much more developed character compared to the somewhat sinister character he was in the background of All the Windwracked Stars. Even Muire, though, is different here. For a member of the warrior class, Muire is comparatively meek and quiet. She is the historian. Muire is a different character here than in All the Windwracked Stars. She’d have to be. She has not yet gone through the end of her world. Strifbjorn is the, comparatively, new character in By the Mountain Bound. Strifbjorn is the war chief of the waelcryge, the immortal children of the light, and it is he who finds the woman who is neither mortal nor waelcryge. This beginning of the end of the world.

There are no stock characters here (or in anything Elizabeth Bear writes). Each character comes across as real and layered. Even the minor characters who are given names but do not have anything to do in the novel have a sense of solidity, as if only they were given a voice we would see that their motives and desires were as strong as those of the main characters. This is something which Bear does especially well. Her characters are not just waiting offstage for the chance to step into the spotlight, they each have their lives and sometimes we get to see what they are.

By the Mountain Bound also opens up all sorts of questions and new ways to read All the Windwracked Stars, except to even mention what those questions are would be to spoil part of By the Mountain Bound. It is a rare novel that makes the preceding novel so much richer and opens up new avenues for Elizabeth Bear to explore in The Sea Thy Mistress.

By the Mountain Bound is a rich and beautiful novel. It stands as one of Elizabeth Bear’s best, and that is high praise indeed.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Tor Books.


Previous Reviews
Blood and Iron
Whiskey and Water
Ink and Steel
Hell and Earth
Hammered
Scardown
New Amsterdam
Seven for a Secret
A Companion to Wolves
All the Windwracked Stars

All the Windwracked Stars, by Elizabeth Bear

All the Windwracked Stars
Elizabeth Bear
Tor: 2008

Elizabeth Bear described All the Windwracked Stars as "periApocalyptic Norse steampunk noir high fantasy." According to the words of Bear, periApocalyptic means that the story "takes place after, during, and before the end of the world. In that order, yes." The rest of the description can be parsed out fairly easily, though there is always a question as to what those terms mean in regards to All the Windwracked Stars.

The novel opens in the wreckage of the first apocalypse, where the Valkyries, the Children of Light, battled the Tarnished Ones until there were no more Valkyries left on Valdyrgard. Except one. Muire. Muire and one Valraven, Kasimir, a steed of the Valkyries. Do not assume, however, that because Elizabeth Bear uses the term "valkyrie" the path of this novel is obvious, because it is not. Yes, All the Windwracked Stars is steeped in Norse mythology and this informs the language of the text. We get the Old English "waelcyrge" and part of the mood is the terms Bear uses to tell her story: Ragnarok, waelcyrge, herfjotur - words which sound alien to an American reader but which have a history and which are used to create a world which never existed.

Some two thousand years later Muire still walks Valdyrgard, has rejected Kasimir, and once again Valdyrgard is dying. The Technomancer, viewed as despot and savior, somehow holds together one of the last cities and of the remnants of humanity. Mingan the Wolf, seen at the last Apocalypse, is also walking the city and Muire begins her hunt.

All the Windwracked Stars is one of those novels which, for me, has a very slow build, a slow burn. After the two thousand years pass and the reader is dropped into a different story than the opening chapter, Bear takes some time to reveal what the basic story is. According to Bear,

It stars a valkyrie who has gotten herself shipwrecked in time, a kickboxing gigolo, a kitten with a whip, a two-headed iron horse, and a nihilistic wolf, and it's about all sorts of things--the differences--or lack thereof--between service and slavery being one of them.

There is a such a disparate group of characters, each with their own motivations and desires (and, since this is an Elizabeth Bear novel, each with their own pain), that the reader may be a bit lost early on. Bear reveals things in her own time, and while this is no different than her Promethean Age novels, it is the alien-ness of the Norse terms which causes the first third or so of All the Windwracked Stars to be an initially difficult read.

Finishing the novel is rewarding, however. All the Windwracked Stars is worth the effort to push through and see this world that Bear is developing. The novel works as a standalone novel, but it is also the first volume in a trilogy: The Edda of Burdens. This is perhaps the most remarkable aspect of All the Windwracked Stars - the conclusion turns any expectation for the rest of the series on their head. I refuse to spoil the conclusion, and this is a difficult novel to talk about the overall plot anyway, but one of my thoughts after finishing the novel was "where the hell is she going to go from there?"

All the Windwracked Stars is not essential reading as her Promethean Age novels are, but it is a strong, solid novel on its own. The next two volumes may affect how AtWS is viewed, but for now, it is worth a shot. I cannot give it my strongest recommendation, but Bear is always worth reading.