This
is the first book in a trilogy that actually gets a good bit of
positive press, and I can’t really see why that is. The Bloodsong
trilogy first appeared in the 80’s, written by C. Dean Anderson
under the name Asa Drake, as he already had a bit of momentum going
under that name. The whole thing was later reprinted under his own
name, getting a nice trade edition from Hawk Publishing in 2000. In
the notes, Anderson makes much of being a student of Norse myth and
history, which might lead you to expect a gritty, realistic
adventure. You would be wrong.
The
series follows the adventures of Bloodsong, a warrior-woman
originally named Freyadis, but who has died and been brought back to
life by the death-goddess Hel as a “Hel-Warrior” to ride against
the sorcerer Nidhug. Nidhug was once Hel’s priest, but he has
turned against her and he has the power of one of her artifacts –
the War-Skull, which is depicted as just a huge skull partly embedded
in the earth – which is admittedly kind of bitchin’.
I
say “adventures” but really this book has an extremely linear and
uninteresting plot. We start with Bloodsong some indeterminate
distance from the castle of Nidhug, she rides toward it, and he uses
various magical bullshit to try and stop her from getting there.
That is literally all there is to it. He sends some demons or
whatever to kill her, she fights them off, then he tries something
else, and she defeats that. And so on. It is extremely tedious when
you realize that nothing interesting is going to happen, and the same
things will essentially repeat until the book is done. It’s like
the plot of an arcade game.
Bloodsong
is equipped with a ring that gives her various magical powers taught
to her by Hel, and these are all referred to as “Hel-something”
in a manner reminiscent of the old Batman show: Hel-horse, Hel-ring,
Hel-fire, until you half-expect her to whip out the Hel-mobile.
The
plot seems to begin in the middle of a larger story that I am just as
glad I missed. Bloodsong has a past with a dead husband and dead
child that are supposed to motivate her, but we never see them, so it
fails to make for any kind of emotional connection. We just follow
along with the “action” as she fights magical MacGuffins, and
slices up human minions in scenes that are bloody, yet unexciting.
In
between Bloodsong’s uninteresting plotline, we switch back to the
POV of either Nidhug or one of his captives for some magical
hugger-mugger and general unpleasantness, as we see the wizard forced
to use the giant skull to keep himself young and vital by draining
the life out of naked slaves. We have one slave who he tortures
repeatedly through the book, paralyzing her, stabbing her, and then
later locking her in a room to be raped to death by zombies. (The
fact that said zombie raping does not actually happen is a great
relief.) None of this serves any purpose, adds to drama or
excitement, or reveals any interesting layers to the villain, who
remains steadfastly two-dimensional. It all seems to just exist so
we can have naked females brutalized every other chapter.
By
the time the end comes you are far past caring. None of the magic
seems to have any rules, the action remains flat, and Bloodsong seems
to win kind of by accident. There are no interesting characters, no
character moments that are not wholly cliche, no tension and no
drama. No book that’s only 70,000 words should feel this
long, or be this much of a slog. I have seen people hold this up as
an overlooked classic, but a sweet Boris Vallejo cover does not make
for a good, or even a tolerable book.
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