All the Windwracked Stars (Sci Fi Essential Books) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: grey wolf, Elizabeth Bear, Ingraham Fasoltsen, Black Silk (more...)

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.)
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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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765318822
• ISBN-13: 978-0765318824
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #712,862 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too enigmatic and bleak for me, September 19, 2009

By	R. Sherman - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: All the Windwracked Stars (Mass Market Paperback)

There are several reasons I myself did not like this book. Number one is the style of writing. It is abrupt, inscrutable and jarring. Second, some people might like to be dropped in the middle of a story and figure their way out. I don't. It starts out after an apocalypse. It talks about people, places and things as if the reader should know them already. It seems at times as if descriptions were given to things that didn't matter or add to the plot and not enough to the main storyline. Third, it is grim, dispirited and filled with hopelessness. I will confess to reading the first third of the book, skipping to the middle, and realizing I didn't "get" it or care about it, skipped to the end.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow at times, but nonetheless pretty good, April 22, 2009

By	Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Poor Muire is the last of the waelcyrge (servants of Woden in Anglo-Saxon mythology), who saved her life at the end of Midgard by running away. Through the millennia, she has had to live with her failure, as she awaits the end of the other world, Valdygard. But, as things seem to wind down, surprises begin to appear. The Wolf has returned and is on the hunt, and it now appears that many, if not all, of the waelcyrge are being reincarnated. Something very strange is going on, and Muire must rise above her self-pity and self-doubt if she is to get to the bottom of things.

I must say that I found this to be an interesting book. After the initial Ragnarok, the story slows down considerably, and just kind of crawls along. Fortunately, during that time, the author introduces a number of very interesting characters and situations that really blossom as the story picks up speed. I didn't care much for Muire herself, but I did like just about everyone else in the story - Cathoair the super-soldier/prostitute, Selene the cat woman, Cristokos the rat mage, Thjierry the Technomancer, and others.

So, I did find this to be a pretty good book, slow at times, but nonetheless pretty good. Overall, I give it a somewhat guarded recommendation.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good book, October 30, 2008

By	Eleanor Skinner (Albany, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.