Reviewed by annieb123 on
The Rebels of Vanaheim is an exciting prose adventure featuring Heimdall and Valkyrie Uschi imagined by Richard Lee Byers. Released 21st Dec 2021 by Aconyte Books, it's 352 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is a prose adventure. It's not a comic, although it is part of the canonical Legends of Asgard. It's action driven, with well defined characters who are believable and nuanced. The pace is often frenetic and Heimdall and Uschi are drive pillar to post trying to battle shape-shifting really nasty undead draugr and uncover the reasons behind the anti-Asgardian feeling in Vanaheim.
The battle action scenes are creatively described and coordinated. It was easy for me to imagine the fight scenes in my head whilst I was reading. I really enjoyed the mechanics of the story being told as a story inside a story, rendering the epilogue humorous and effective.
This is a good story, well told. Although it works perfectly well as a standalone, readers who prefer to read series in order should be aware that this novel is a sequel to The Head of Mimir by the same author (published 2020).
Four stars. Wall-to-wall action and epic fantasy.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 25 March, 2022: Finished reading
- 25 March, 2022: Reviewed