All the Windwracked Stars [Mass Market Paperback]

Elizabeth Bear (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 1, 2009

It all began with Ragnarok, with the Children of the Light and the Tarnished ones battling to the death in the ice and the dark. At the end of the long battle, one Valkyrie survived, wounded, and one valraven – the steeds of the valkyrie.

Because they lived, Valdyrgard was not wholly destroyed. Because the valraven was transformed in the last miracle offered to a Child of the Light, Valdyrgard was changed to a world where magic and technology worked hand in hand.

2500 years later, Muire is in the last city on the dying planet, where the Technomancer rules what’s left of humanity. She's caught sight of someone she has not seen since the Last Battle:  Mingan the Wolf is hunting in her city. 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Hugo winner Bear (Undertow) perfectly captures the essence of faded hopes and exhausted melancholy in this postapocalyptic melodrama based loosely upon Norse mythology. On the Last Day, the historian Muire fled the battle, leaving her sibling Valkyries to die. More than 2,300 years later, only a single city, Eiledon, has survived as the dying world slowly turns into ice. Ashamed of her cowardice, Muire now vows to keep the last humans safe, but as she slowly pieces together the horrific truth behind the magic that has kept Eiledon standing, she must decide whether it's worth the price. Readers will be captivated by Bear's incredibly complex, broken characters; multilayered themes of redemption; and haunting, world-breaking decisions. While stilted prose slows the beginning of the tale, its finale is both rewarding and compelling. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Bear creates a world with an astonishing depth of mythology in a tale that begins with Ragnarok. Though Muire was the least of her sisters, she is the only one who survived the battle between the Light and the Tarnished. One of the sisters’ steeds also survived, in part because of the last miracle of the Light. Two thousand years later, it is nearly the end of the world again. This time, Muire stands to fight to the end. In the last city remaining on a dying planet, her enemies are old friends, one of whom was there the last time the world ended. The Technomancer, ruler of Eiledon, has gotten her power from a most unfortunate source, and the swords of Muire’s lost siblings are reappearing, as are their spirits. In an epic battle for the survival of life, Muire must overcome her conviction that she is the least of the Valkyries and transform into someone who can take on ancient powers. Bear’s world building echoes the best of Zelazny and pulls the reader into the story and the history until it’s over. Muire is, despite a certain difficulty in the beginning, one of Bear’s more interesting and likable characters, and the mythology Bear deploys promises further satisfying stories based in it. --Regina Schroeder --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy; Reprint edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765358514
• ISBN-13: 978-0765358516
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,484,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I tell stories. I prefer the mountains to the desert, and rain to sun. My eyes are blue. I like flying on airplanes, but they keep making the seats smaller.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars good book October 30, 2008

By Eleanor Skinner VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is set in the same world of her stories 'Ice' & 'The Devil You Don't' from her collection The Chains That You Refuse. In fact, 'Ice' seems to be an excerpt or something that expanded into the novel, & from side references in Windwracked Stars it looks like 'The Devil You Don't' actually happened too. But you don't need to have read either story to read the novel.

Muire is a waelcyrge, a valkyrie in the Norse sort of world of the book. Ragnarok happened. Unfortunately, she ran away. She comes back after the battle to find everything she has ever known dead, except for an almost-dead valraven (two-headed intelligent pegasus) and the empty place where the body of Mingan the Wolf (sort of Loki & Fenris combined) had lain. The valraven convinces Muire to make a stab at living, at least as an emotional cripple, & in turn is reborn when Muire asks for a miracle.

Fast forward a few thousand years to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the last city alive on Valdygard (the earth/planet). It's protected from the wastes outside by the Technomancer, & Muire is living a quiet life when she suddenly meets both the reincarnation of Strifbjorn, the einherjar (angel/Norse god) she had loved from afar, & the still-dangerous old incarnation of Mingan, who vampyrically kills a man before disappearing. Muire has to deal with a shock to her emotional stability & the threat of her old enemy's reappearance.

Elizabeth Bear seems to like Norse mythology, as it was also the background for A Companion to Wolves, co-written with Sarah Monette. This is a novel about surviving and about being reborn, & reminded me at various times of parts of Bujold's A Civil Campaign ('the trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn'), my favourite Fire Logic, by Laurie J Marks, & parts of Diane Duane. It also has intelligent animal-people (including a catgirl with a whip) who serve the Technomancer, called moreaux in a nod to HG Wells. I was waiting the whole book for some kind of reference to C'Mell (which didn't come). It was a really hard book to put down, & I liked it very much.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Norse mythology and apocalyptic science fiction combined to create a dark dreamscape March 9, 2010

By Greg VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

When the battle (Ragnarok) is over, only three immortals are left alive: Muire, the smallest waelcyrge, the valraven, Kasmir, a two-headed, winged war-mount, and the one whose betrayal damned them all. Together they live through the coming ages to play their roles in the very last days of the world.

I needed something really different to read and All the Windwracked Stars was just what the doctor ordered and more. Elizabeth Bear combines Norse mythology and apocalyptic science fiction to create a dark dreamscape, and also invents a very intriguing concept: angels whose god is either dead or has gone missing.

The desperately savage combat at the beginning of All the Windwracked Stars drew me right in and I soon found myself liking characters that I normally would not. The prose is somewhat surreal, and this story has a rather strange flow which, at times, made it a little difficult for me to follow. Usually I'd find that a little irritating, but for the EDDA OF BURDENS series, this wistful style works perfectly because the characters themselves are lost souls struggling to understand their own destinies.

I was once a big fan of Apocalyptic Sci-fi, so it was a refreshing thrill to lose myself in Elizabeth Bear's dying world. The outcome of doomsday comes down to a handful of unique misfits in a truly original story. I especially liked the conclusion and I was so gloomily fascinated that I immediately downloaded the Kindle version of the next book, By the Mountain Bound.

I almost never jump into the next book in a series without a break between, but By the Mountain Bound is the story leading up to the battle of Ragnarok -- the beginning of All the Windwracked Stars -- and I just had to know the answers to some of the wonderfully tantalizing mysteries left unexplained in this book

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Apocalypse Is Not the End... January 10, 2009

By A. Lee

Format:Hardcover

Muire is a waelcyrge (Valkyrie) who survives the Last Day (Ragnarok) and the deaths of her sisters and brothers fighting sdadown (shadow wolves). Her world has ended. The smallest of her sisters, a poet and historian, Muire survived, to her shame, by running away. She is alone among the ten thousand fallen, of the Shadow and the Light. The only other survivor she sees is one of the waelcyrge steeds, Kasimir, a valraven (two-headed, horned, winged), who is dying. With her last wish she saves him, turning him into a burning creature of metal. Unknown to her, another survives, The Grey Wolf. After lifetimes and ages come and go, at yet another apocalypse, the Last Days of the last city of Eiledon, he will hunt again, and Muire and Kasimir--and the reincarnated souls of the dead waelcyrge-- will meet again and hunt the hunter.

Civilization has risen and is now falling. There is high-tech and magic and a new dark age. In the high reaches of a floating island in the center of the city, is a university. It is where the Technomancer Thjierry Thorvaldsdottir strives to save the last city at any cost, along with her unman (non-human) servitors, cat fighters and rat mages. In the shadows under the floating island, in dark taverns and alleyways, live poor trumen or nearmen (mutated, no longer purely human), such as Cathoair, who fights in contest and prostitutes for money. Muire and the Grey Wolf and others converge. Can the last city be saved? Should it be saved?

There are strange turns and unexpected switches. Deadly fights and soul-stealing kisses. A post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic tale featuring an alternate Ragnarok seems a natural. Aside from the terminology and names, the society isn't particularly Norse-like, however. But then, nothing is typical or expected. A strange and fascinating look at sacrifice and redemption, death and transition, and the essence of life and living that are true no matter who you are and where in time or place.