I think daylight is a good idea. This new one gave me the shivering fantods, and also that thing where I kept looking over my shoulder every thirty seconds for no particular reason and could not seem to get myself to stop.
The ice sequence in Available Dark is one of my favorite bits. Of course she didn't die of hypothermia, though, that's the one thing in the book that is unambiguously, unquestionably supernatural. She explicitly starts out as if she were a berserkr, bare-sark, only with crank in her system instead of Magical Rage Powers, she mentions that right from the beginning of the sequence, and then the whole thing serves as her initiatory journey, complete with the raven Hugin swooping down and attacking her when it looks as though she might be going wrong.
You can tell it's Hugin because there are only two ravens in the book, and that one appears at the place where, if she knew the territory, she'd be able to think her way out of the problem, so it has to be Thought. The earlier one appears exactly at the start of the sequence of events she's going to have to analyze and dissect over and over again for the rest of the book, and also the other character who sees it addresses it as Thief, so it has to be Memory.
And then after that journey everybody starts treating her as though she is a) supernaturally meant to be where she is right then and b) has some kind of moral authority. I meant Chooser of the Slain literally and it's what she does at the book's climax, she has in fact turned into a Valkyrie. I love the Norse stuff in Available Dark because it's there but it's subtle but it's there when I look for it-- I mean, there's a character called Einar Broddurson, which I read as einherjar and Brotherson, and he kills a character called Baldur and is killed by Vidar, so the villain is Loki and Loki's monster child rolled into one investment banker. Then on Cass's way out of Iceland Eyjafjallajokull erupts underneath her, exactly when it did in real life, Loki fretting under his bindings. Because he lost. (Quinn is, though, and I do not say this lightly, the single weirdest version of Odin I have ever encountered. Given the symbol set, though, and some of his behavior, I don't see who else he can be.)
That's all there in Hard Light, too, but because it's England it crashes into another set of things, and I must admit I was rather hoping you'd read this one because its gods get very you-ish around the edges, archetypes I've seen go through your work.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2016-06-01 10:59 am (UTC)The ice sequence in Available Dark is one of my favorite bits. Of course she didn't die of hypothermia, though, that's the one thing in the book that is unambiguously, unquestionably supernatural. She explicitly starts out as if she were a berserkr, bare-sark, only with crank in her system instead of Magical Rage Powers, she mentions that right from the beginning of the sequence, and then the whole thing serves as her initiatory journey, complete with the raven Hugin swooping down and attacking her when it looks as though she might be going wrong.
You can tell it's Hugin because there are only two ravens in the book, and that one appears at the place where, if she knew the territory, she'd be able to think her way out of the problem, so it has to be Thought. The earlier one appears exactly at the start of the sequence of events she's going to have to analyze and dissect over and over again for the rest of the book, and also the other character who sees it addresses it as Thief, so it has to be Memory.
And then after that journey everybody starts treating her as though she is a) supernaturally meant to be where she is right then and b) has some kind of moral authority. I meant Chooser of the Slain literally and it's what she does at the book's climax, she has in fact turned into a Valkyrie. I love the Norse stuff in Available Dark because it's there but it's subtle but it's there when I look for it-- I mean, there's a character called Einar Broddurson, which I read as einherjar and Brotherson, and he kills a character called Baldur and is killed by Vidar, so the villain is Loki and Loki's monster child rolled into one investment banker. Then on Cass's way out of Iceland Eyjafjallajokull erupts underneath her, exactly when it did in real life, Loki fretting under his bindings. Because he lost. (Quinn is, though, and I do not say this lightly, the single weirdest version of Odin I have ever encountered. Given the symbol set, though, and some of his behavior, I don't see who else he can be.)
That's all there in Hard Light, too, but because it's England it crashes into another set of things, and I must admit I was rather hoping you'd read this one because its gods get very you-ish around the edges, archetypes I've seen go through your work.