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Sto caricando le informazioni... Hrímland 01 / Shadows of the Short Days (originale 2014; edizione 2020)di Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson (Autore)
Informazioni sull'operaShadows of the Short Days di Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson (Author) (2014)
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. ***WHO SUCKED ME IN?*** Literature Science Alliance in their ALL MY UNREAD BOOKS || My Physical TBR || August 2021 [CC] video on YouTube published on donderdag 20 augustus 2021 I've never read a fantasy from an Icelandic author. Superficial I know. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Appartiene alle SerieHrímland (1)
A strikingly original Icelandic debut set in a strangely familiar alternate Reykjavik where wild and industrialised magic meet. Perfect for fans of contemporary fantasy in the style of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or China Mieville's The City & The City Sæmundur the Mad, addict and sorcerer, has been expelled from the magical university, Svartiskóli, and can no longer study galdur, an esoteric source of magic. Obsessed with proving his peers wrong, he will stop at nothing to gain absolute power and knowledge, especially of that which is long forbidden. Garún is an outcast: half-human, half-huldufólk, fighting against an unjust government that refuses to grant people like her basic rights. A militant revolutionary and graffiti artist, recklessly dismissive of the status quo, she will do anything to achieve a just society, including spark a revolution. Even if she has to do it alone. This is a tale of revolution set in a twisted version of Reykjavik fuelled by industrialised magic and populated by humans, interdimensional exiles, otherworldly creatures, psychoactive graffiti and demonic familiars. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)839.6935Literature German and related languages Other Germanic literatures Old Norse, Old Icelandic, Icelandic, Faroese literatures Modern West Scandinavian; Modern Icelandic Modern Icelandic fiction 21st CenturyClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Hrímland is an introduction to an Iceland inhabited by pure humans, huldufólk (extradimensional exiles), huldumanneskja (those born of human and huldufólk parents), náskári (the ravenfolk), marbendill (aquatic folk), and the four landvættir (the spirits of the land). We are introduced to Sæmundur who has been expelled from the Svartiskóli, the School of Supernatural Sciences and driven by an obsessive need for knowledge and understanding of terrifying, undefinable, spoken magic called galdur. Its companion is seiður, a more orderly, land-based, sorcerous energy (seiðmagn) that can be harnessed by industrial means. We also meet Garún, a mixed-breed artist of huldufólk and human parents with a foot in both worlds and part of neither. She is on a singular quest for belonging by destroying the Kalmar Commonwealth’s hold over her homeland and guided at times by her demon-powered audioskull that plays changeable music through her headphones to alert her of danger.
As our two obsessed protagonists continue on their separate journeys, we are introduced to a Reykjavík where everything is a potential threat under an authoritarian regime that is deeply intelligent, crafty, spies on its own citizens, and has no qualms about using violence to put down protests. At their disposal is not only a looming airship and a prison from which none escape, but also disturbing seiðskratti (wielders of seiðmagn) in red robes and plague doctor masks who call to mind the worst imaginings of inquisitional torturers. Sæmundur and Garún continue to spiral into ever deeper shadows and riskier situations in their personal quests from venturing into the Forgotten Downtown to the depths of Svartiskóli’s forbidden magical library. The protest scenes and dystopian atmosphere are very timely as our world sees a rise in authoritarianism and as one character points out, “They will kill us for demanding civil rights and rewrite history to make us sound like hooligans.”
At turns deeply satisfying, rebellious, and disturbing. Vilhjálmsson plays with music, sound, and silence as a part of his rich worldbuilding. At one point he calls this out directly: “As a composer [Sæmundur and Vilhjálmsson both] break up his work with the absence of sound, he used the silences as well to draw in the power from beyond, lying behind the entirety of creation.” If as Vilhjálmsson writes, “No space is as infinite as the gulf between the mind of a living being and the reality outside it,” he has done an excellent job at creating a bridge between one mind and another to draw the reader into his astonishing first novel.
As we get toward the end of this Icelandic opera, we are treated to a carefully orchestrated discordant tone. Where other authors might linger over action in Reykjavík at a particularly dramatic moment, Vilhjálmsson instead pulls us headlong into the obsessive nature of the protagonists with shorter passages switching between the two that rushes the reader into the explosive crescendo of a conclusion that should not be told here, only experienced. ( )