Book Review: Valhalla: Absent Without Leave by Lee Gold
Robin “Grima” Johnson didn’t die of cancer, which was something of a surprise, considering it kept coming back. But when an earthquake hit California and made the hospital she was in start to collapse, Robin rose from her bed of pain and worked to save lives. She died heroically when an oxygen tank exploded. And that was one of the things that gave her the opportunity to go to Valhalla.
Robin is gifted a magical sword nearly identical with the one her character Grima used in the long-running Dungeons and Dragons campaign she and her cancer support group played. And as the first new hero to enter Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain, in quite some time, she’s very welcome. She soon makes fast friends with the crew of Door 13, rune worker Bersi “Bookwyrm” Beornson, skald (poet) Knut “Nine-Toes” Vidarson, and the Valwolf, whose true name is a secret.
A few days into her afterlife of battling and dying all day, then getting up just fine and feasting and partying all night, Robin comes to the conclusion that maybe the doom that hangs over the Norse gods is not quite as inevitable as it is depicted in the Eddas. What if, just saying, someone were to remove certain key pieces of the Ragnarok prophecy ahead of time? Might that not somewhat change the ending?
Robin talks her new friends into giving it a shot with her, and they begin a fantastic adventure across the Nine Worlds.
Lee Gold is a long-time member of the science fiction and role-playing communities, having founded the Alarums & Excursions role-playing Amateur Press Association magazine in 1975. She’s written role-playing supplements based on Vikings and Norse lore, but this is her first professionally published novel.
The narrator is one of the characters, chatty and opinionated, and when they enter the story proper, sometimes has trouble staying in third person. Robin acquires other traveling companions as she goes, as well as enemies. For much of the story, the narrator is more interested in sharing tidbits about Norse culture and language, rather than the details of combat, only switching to blow by blow action for the climatic battle.
The Norse mythology setup is more authentic than Marvel Comics’ version, but subverts a lot of what you might normally expect by the end. Not for nothing does Loki have many nicknames!
While this book can certainly be read by senior high-level readers on up, it is very much a book for adults, full of adult concerns. (Robin is at least in her late twenties at the time of her death, and only still in college by dint of changing majors to keep getting student health insurance.) I found the passages about Robin’s experience with cancer harrowing.
Content notes: Frank discussion of human body parts, sex, rape, and Norse cultural attitudes. Loads of violence, getting gory in places. Various kinds of prejudice.
The narrator’s snark gets tiresome in places, which makes sense with their personality, but still.
I should mention that this book is complete in one volume. While room is left for a sequel, it ties up properly at the end, so you don’t have to worry about signing on to another endless fantasy series. It’s small press, and there are refreshingly few typos, but I don’t like the cover.
This is certainly a fresh take on Norse mythology, and recommended to mature fantasy fans.
