By the Mountain Bound

by Elizabeth Bear

Reviewed by Ruby

The Children of the Light, immortal Valkyries, fight the unjust in the world, just has it has always been for hundreds of years. Then the Lady arrives and foretells of an upcoming battle that will end the world. Many of the warriors abandon their old leader to follow the Lady, but a few see her as a false prophet, only coming to this world to bring about destruction. Soon battle lines are drawn that will pit the immortal children against each other.

So I picked up this book thinking it was the first book in a series, but it turns out that it is a prequel written after the first one and I am pretty sure the author expected us to read that one first. As far as I can tell, the entire book is a lead up to how the Historian ends up on her own and could have probably been told as a prologue instead of a stand-alone book. It was only three hundred pages and not many things actually happened. It could’ve easily been cut down to like fifty pages or less.

In all honesty, I was about ready to give up on the book a few chapters in because not only was it dull, but the author’s style of writing grated on my nerves. She is obsessed with two and three word sentences that are so grammatically incorrect that they made my head hurt. She has such terrible and convoluted prose that it was next to impossible to understand what she was trying to say. Not to mention that one of the main characters’ actions made absolutely no sense to me what-so-ever.

All in all, it was a terrible book that I should have given up on but didn’t. Completely not worth it.

Grade: F