Winds of Chaos

Series: Chronicles of Asgard: Awakening, #1

Author: Laura Brewer, Roland Brewer

Genre: Fantasy

Book Description:

Welcome to the training grounds of the Armies of Heaven.

Born on a world full of dangerous creatures and agents of darkness, Alvinar and Rowan are rigorously trained to hunt and fight all manner of things to survive. Asked to lead a new settlement, far from aid, they throw themselves into the business of exploring and securing the area. Freya and Thor warn them trouble is on the horizon.

When scouts find the remains of an ancient city, they go to explore; concerned at the presence of strange magic that feels – different. Several of the gods from Asgard come to investigate. An attempted invasion by portal stirs the strange magic in defense, but also destabilizes that magic and ripples are felt even in Asgard.

Alvinar is changed by it and Freya takes him to Asgard. When a magical explosion in the ruins spreads chaos, even in Asgard, the very core of Rowan and Alvinar’s perception of who they are will be tried in its fire.

Can they keep to the path of Light when Darkness seeks to sear their very souls?

Review:

This is, without a doubt, the strangest book I have read this year. Possibly, in longer than that. A Viking/Norse fantasy with Christian themes and references to the book of Job – and what seems to be rare, occasional reincarnation. Among other, possibly odder things.

Before we launch into the real review, my favorite quote from the book (lightly edited to avoid spoilers):

Thor looked at him for a moment before he answered. “Let’s just call it a demon. You had me worried for a moment, but when your greatest strength was used against you, the demon forgot it was still your greatest strength. Your bond was forged by the Creator and could only be broken in this life by your own choice. When you reached for the Light, it failed.”

Somehow, it all fit together pretty well, as the story follows two pairs of siblings, male and female twins, betrothed at birth – as they were married in another life before falling in battle together. Now, they’re born on the world Eamon, under the protection of Asgard, and dedicated to the Norse gods at their birth. They’ve grown up on the frontier together, friends and the children of friends, and they’re four very close friends who excel at the skills of the frontier. The friendship relationships in this one are as strong and important as any of the other relationship-types – and the parents are loving and good

But one thing I wished was that more time was spent just getting to know the various characters. The story doesn’t dive into the epic, but it’s still told in more of an overview fashion, with more emphasis on what they do, when I wanted to see them interacting and developing more. That was not lacking, but I wanted more of it, especially in the beginning and middle portions of the story.

The setting, the magic, and so forth felt much like a game-lit setting. Not that it was progression or cultivation, but the abundance of strange and wild things to hunt, the constant emphasis of dangerous monsters, some of them evil, some of them just dangerous and sometimes hunted for their meat and valuables – though at times carefully not overhunted – felt like a D&D or video game environment. Right down to bags of holding, which don’t quite make what they contain weightless, but do allow one to carry far more in terms of weight and volume than one ever could without them. Magic and magical creatures were everywhere, and the dangers, the monsters, the hunting, oftentimes felt rather routine. There are all sorts of different armors that can be made, of varying rarities and value, that are resistant to different kinds of attacks, and some of which work better for magic users or warriors. So just a lot of RPG elements.

The setting, and the political structure, is at times rather medieval in feel, and the school where many of the young people – including our protagonists – go to learn what they need to fight, survive, and thrive is a major part of the first half of the book. It is run on fairly equal grounds, with everyone having to carry their share in all activities and learn whatever they’re suited to learn, and any abuse of team mates is strictly disciplined.

Though the setting and the action is often described in a fair amount of detail, it is never gory. One gets to see all kinds of other things as well: choosing clothing and trim and dresses, discovery and exploration of a new continent, designing a fortress and town and magical defenses and just – the whole gamut of things that life in Eamon consists of.

There’s a feeling that many things are being woven together, and many things that seem incidental will be woven into the weave in greater and greater importance, but in a way that’s still very synthetic and natural, organic and not at all forced. There’s a feel that something very epic is coming, but the story is very much a slice-of-life adventure. One watches the characters grow up, and have children of their own, playing with them or telling them stories, and teaching them to hunt their first horned rabbit. Even in the midst of a wild and unexpected disaster that leaves everyone reeling. It was really endearing at times.

There are a handful of relationships I wished we were shown in more detail. What they are is often summarized rather quickly, and that left me unable to feel the vibe behind them accurately, and understand them very well. There are some spoiler events that made me really feel this lack, and left me very confused as to the nature of the relationships and some of the intentions behind what was happening. But though I wished I got to see more of the development of the relationships piece-by-piece, there were definitely places where the emotions were deep and compelling, sweeping one away, whether happy, positive ones, or more negative ones.

I liked the relationship of the protagonists to the Norse gods to whom they are dedicated, Thor and Freya. I really enjoyed that, in the context of the way they all revere the Creator. Thor and Freya aren’t always overtly present, but they are really active in their lives, and I liked how they are tied together. At the same time as they worship the Creator in a way that’s altogether higher and deeper. It was very touching.

Thor to Rowan:

“You may not know this, but it hurts us when our followers are in distress, particularly the devoted ones. I feel your pain, quite literally. You have got to let this go or it will eat you alive.”

It was also fun seeing even the gods amazed by things sometimes. This is a relationship in which the gods are not strictly superiors who know better at all times – sometimes they’re surprised by the way the humans do things, and the humans are right – and I enjoyed that, and the light it casts on other relationships and hierarchies throughout the book. I also enjoyed some of the magic, particularly the earth magic and wards.

There’s something weird related to gender that I have somewhat confused feelings about. There are ways I liked and enjoyed it, and ways I didn’t, or felt that it fell short of that potential. Some of that, however, may be due only to my dreams of it, and also to the fact that I don’t understand gender in general, and some of the relevant specifics in the book, very well. Perhaps, others will understand the relationships affected and get more out of it than I did. Put succinctly, I liked the sense that gender is not what defines a person, and certainly not all there is to a personality. But at the same time, I find like it was over-rated and overemphasized, in a way that was a bit simplistic, and mostly just fell short of my rather vague expectations. And I’ll go into a bit more detail in the spoiler section, but for now …

This is a book that I think would be really enjoyed by anyone who likes slice-of-life and a bit of cozy in an epic game-lit (though not really litRPG) world. Even the way it focused more on the descriptions of what the characters are doing, whether that’s fitting armor or selecting trim for their garments or hunting a salamander, instead of deep dives into showing us the piece-by-piece flow of the relationships, I think may be more characteristic of RPG-inspired novels.

It will also be enjoyed by those who like new takes on Norse mythology, and maybe other mythologies as well. There are so many things here – gods and Valkyries, warriors from Valhalla, and shape-shifters.

I think it is also great for those who’d like a somewhat weird fantasy with Christian themes or elements. The elements are mild, not omnipresent and only occasionally overt, but you get glimpses here and there. And, so far, it avoids a lot of the things that make me avoid most fiction with overt Christian elements. I wouldn’t call it Christian Fiction for that reason. It has a lot of things you won’t find in Christian fiction, and lacks many things one often does. I did feel kind of strange about the Job references – but, hey, if you want something that feels like a really weird take on the story of Job, this one’s interesting. And it has some foreshadowing that just raises the tension considerably.

All in all, it’s a weird and wild ride, and I am excited to see what happens in the next book! Perhaps, after reading the next one, I’ll start to get the handle on some of these relationships that I’m not quite seeing yet. I do think as I got towards the end, either the story itself had more of the emotional depth and rhythm I wanted, and the kinds of personal showing of relationships, or I got better at understanding the way it was written. – And I just want to mention, I thought the rare, special-occasions reincarnation was pretty cool, too.

Spoiler Review:

I simply can’t not talk about the gender-change. Simply put, our main characters, Rowan and Alvinar, ended up having to swap genders. Rowan, who’s the children’s mother, becomes a man, and Alvinar becomes a woman. Ends up having to change names, too, to Alvinari. As I said, I liked the way that this implies there’s a lot more to who a person is than gender, and such. But I also felt like it was not explored in adequate depth, though perhaps more of that will come in the next book. Some of it may also have to do with my own nearly complete lack of comprehension of gender.

Possibly the point I felt was most oversimplified was the relationship of the existing children to their parents. The implication is that Alvinari is now their Ma and Rowan their Pa. But I would think, given that Rowan is the one who conceived, bore, and nursed them, that even though she is now he, there’d still be a lot of strains of Ma in his relationship to those two. It’s hard to see the author’s mind on all these things, but it would deeply offend me to assume that the emotional shifts and the connection created by giving birth and nursing is simply transferred to Alvinari, and taken from Rowan. That would seem to require changing the past, since it is Rowan who did those things for the children, had those feelings for them, and so even if some of that is changed, I’d think the history would still inform the relationship a great deal. I would expect this gender swap, where they both still have their histories from before it, would result in a man who still carries some of what it means to be a woman, to whom certain aspects of being a woman will ever be more ready in his personality, and a woman who still carries some of what it means to be a man, in which those aspects are ever more ready in her personality. The habits, the memories, seem to still be still there.

This is the place where I really wished I understood the character’s personalities better, so I could really see and feel what changed, and what didn’t. Instead, with the summarization, I sometimes don’t know what the author is summarizing.

Beyond this, I feel like a lot of it was stuff that I really don’t have any right having feelings about, since I don’t understand it well enough for my feelings to have any accuracy.

I wished, too, that I’d gotten to see the depths and details of their anguish, resistance to the change, and the slow degrees towards acceptance in more … length. It’s hard to know exactly what I wanted to see, just that it sometimes felt wrapped up a bit too quickly. But it does come near the end of the book, so maybe we will see it returned to in the next one, and further developed with more layers of what happened, and is still happening.

It’s possible even my unhappiness about the parent-child relationships is due to it coming near the end of the book, and hardly getting to see Alvinari with the children at all. Only Rowan who, it must be granted, still really seems really close to them in many of the ways I’d expect, once I think about it. It will be interesting to see how Rowan’s relationship to her first twins compares with his later children, and the same with Alvinar/Alvinari.

Honestly, I think the end was the best part of it, and as I write this review, and re-consider and read those few interactions between the parents and the children, I’m happier about it.