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rachelmanija Aug. 21st, 2021 10:48 am)
rachelmanija Aug. 21st, 2021 10:48 am)Cass Neary, now wanted for questioning regarding the events of the previous book, is offered a nice sum of money to evaluate some photographs owned by a fashion photographer who's famous for a unique kind of lens flare. She can guess what sort of photos they are, tells him she won't do kiddie porn, and agrees to do it once she's assured it's not that. The photos are beautifully staged scenes of gruesome murders with the iconic lens flare. Cass thinks they're brilliant and says so, with no intention of looking any deeper into how he took them and why he was there.
However, a call from a long-lost lover and a few brutal murders send her to Iceland, which is both freezing and in the middle of a financial crisis. Everyone is depressed and cold, so it's perfect for Cass. But soon she gets involved in a complicated plot involving the murder photos, Icelandic folklore, Scandinavian death metal, and a cult.
The story really takes off at about the halfway or two-thirds point, when Cass is ditched in a blizzard and left for dead. In a moment which is both ingenious and darkly hilarious, she remembers that 1) overdosing on meth can cause hyperthermia, 2) she just so happens to have enough meth to OD on in her pocket. (This is not an unlikely twist as Cass always has drugs on her person.) It's like an almost absurdly dark-and-edgy Dick Francis scene.
With the meth to raise her temperature, the most unsexy naked cuddling scene ever, and possibly intervention from Odin, she ends up with the former cult leader/serial murderer who decides that she's a Valkyrie, with all the death trailing after her. Plus, she was pecked in his direction by a raven...
I enjoy the deniable fantasy aspects of the series. This book had some slow-ish stretches in the middle but the mystery aspect worked better than in the first book, and the setting was very cool. The weird and morbid Scandinavian black metal scene was a very appropriate backdrop:
According to various sources, Euronymous took bits of Dead's skull and made them into necklaces for members of the black metal scene, including the band's drummer Hellhammer. Necrobutcher, the band's bassist, was so disgusted with Euronymous' actions that he left Mayhem. He was replaced by Burzum's Varg Vikernes, who murdered Euronymous two years later.
Dead, Dead, he was almost certainly not good in bed.
However, a call from a long-lost lover and a few brutal murders send her to Iceland, which is both freezing and in the middle of a financial crisis. Everyone is depressed and cold, so it's perfect for Cass. But soon she gets involved in a complicated plot involving the murder photos, Icelandic folklore, Scandinavian death metal, and a cult.
The story really takes off at about the halfway or two-thirds point, when Cass is ditched in a blizzard and left for dead. In a moment which is both ingenious and darkly hilarious, she remembers that 1) overdosing on meth can cause hyperthermia, 2) she just so happens to have enough meth to OD on in her pocket. (This is not an unlikely twist as Cass always has drugs on her person.) It's like an almost absurdly dark-and-edgy Dick Francis scene.
With the meth to raise her temperature, the most unsexy naked cuddling scene ever, and possibly intervention from Odin, she ends up with the former cult leader/serial murderer who decides that she's a Valkyrie, with all the death trailing after her. Plus, she was pecked in his direction by a raven...
I enjoy the deniable fantasy aspects of the series. This book had some slow-ish stretches in the middle but the mystery aspect worked better than in the first book, and the setting was very cool. The weird and morbid Scandinavian black metal scene was a very appropriate backdrop:
According to various sources, Euronymous took bits of Dead's skull and made them into necklaces for members of the black metal scene, including the band's drummer Hellhammer. Necrobutcher, the band's bassist, was so disgusted with Euronymous' actions that he left Mayhem. He was replaced by Burzum's Varg Vikernes, who murdered Euronymous two years later.
Dead, Dead, he was almost certainly not good in bed.
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The murder photos from this, with the modern adaptations of twisted myths, really stuck with me, and they tend to be the first thing I think of when I remember this. I would happily read a whole meta book that was just Cass discussing other people's photos, real or fictional. And the whole atmosphere in Iceland is great in its grim sort of way--if not exactly a travel recommendation.
I started to say, "This kind of reminds me of Wylding Hall," and then I realized there's a very, very obvious reason for that.
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Hand is so so good at creating fictional art. I have to remind myself that the music in Wylding Hall isn't real. Though in that particular case, it's so closely based on real music that I'm extremely familiar with that I do almost feel like I've heard it.
It was so startling to read about Iceland in this context, because I'd forgotten about its financial crisis and thought of it more in terms of positive things like gender equality, literacy and love of reading, etc.
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I didn't know about Aimo Koivunen the first time I read this novel and took the "snort meth, survive snow" strategy on faith; now I think it's ever funnier.
I love Cass-as-Valkyrie and see no reason to dispute it.
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Ooops.
I also totally believe that Cass is a Valkyrie.
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I went to a lecture Elizabeth Hand gave about black metal at Readercon when this book was about to come out. It was one of the finest lectures on anything I've ever been to in my life-- she's really good at getting across information, and the pacing was incredible. She went through all of the terrible things these people do/did to one another, interspersed with increasingly disturbing associated visual art (album covers, promo pics, tour candids), some of which was very hard to look at. And then only at the end did she play any of the music, and it was shatteringly beautiful and explained why she went on this research dive in the first place (I had been starting to wonder). One of the great regrets I have about my general poor health is that I could not make it to the Readercon lecture she gave about Henry Darger.
I love Available Dark, but Hard Light is my favorite that I've read of the series (new one that I can get soon! eee!), and I think the best on technical grounds. Remembering that Cass is a Valkyrie definitely adds dimensions to it.
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Tell me more about Odin in this book!