The Giants of the Frost (Spoilers!)

[dark fuschia]

Have people finished this one yet? I think they must by now... I thought I'd start the ball rolling. I guess I partly suggested this book for book club because I thought it might start an interesting discussion debate, and I was curious which version of the book people might have read. It has two endings. The Australian version is incredibly sad, while the American release has a happy ending. Publishers there said the other ending just wouldn't wash in their market. I haven't read it so I am curious what the ending was actually. I heard about this in an interview with Kim Wilkins, and I found it curious how she had absolutely no qualms about rewriting a second happier ending for the American market. It was almost as if she wished for that happier ending too and she was secretly glad to depart from her usual grim style of ending (she has quite a few books out here, and none of them have the happily ever after style, some are incredibly creepy endings for characters you have grown to care about). I know this book probably wasn't for everyone in the book club, but I hope some of you enjooyed it. I love Kim Wilkins, her style is magical to me. I love how she combines fantasy with romance and horror (somewhat gratuitiously) and how each of her books has such a different setting. She's clearly an author who likes to challenge herself. I mostly love how she combines the modern world with fairy story (or in the case of this book, myth). She makes your own world seem like it could be brimming with magic, she flips my awareness of my suroundings to a different channel for a while. He books seep in and stay with you for days. I like that

[dark fuschia]

Just an addition: For those who didn't read the UK/Australian version, Vidar and Victoria fail in their attempt to re-unite. Victoria hooks up with the simple human guy who had a crush on her all along, they marry and have children, she moves on with her life, sad, but knowing that fate has won. She chooses to recognise it is not her destiny to be reunited with Vidar. In a way, it's like Victoria made the choice Vidar could not. To accept the love she could have (from the nerdy science guy) rather than pine for the love she could not have. Vidar could have had the love of Aud (which was just as precious as his far flung love across time and space) but he chose not to, and thus, he must live by his choice, having lost out in the high stake game he played, now enslaved to his father. It seemed an incredibly apt and incredibly heartbreaking ending. I liked it, it seemed like it could end no other way. I am curious how the American version ended and how it was happy?

[Eyreplenh]

Vidar and Aud?? What is this, it takes place in Norway or something? Ah, bugs curse on you, Amazon, now am really curious and pissed because you again fail to deliver!

[sir archely]

i finished it a few weeks ago... and apparently i have the americanized version. damnation.

and about the issue... if i had a novel that someone wanted to market in a different area and wanted me to change the content for the good of the sales, would i? i'd like to think i wouldn't, but i'm not so sure... i mean, i've never been much of a money hound. i'm not sure how i would feel about that sort of creation of my own after so much time and energy put into it. on one hand, it's just a book, so why not? on the other, it's a creation of mine. i guess it would perhaps depend a lot on the changes they wanted me to make.

basically, in the american version, vidar is working, and aud rides up with a tale of her own spell on thor to make him be in love with urd. thor wanders around in the tree singing love songs to urd, and aud follows him. when urd catches thor, aud catches urd. she gets urd to grant another change of fate deal. she changes vidar's fate so he is no longer the important son with regards to ragnarok. vidar, now a mortal man, rides past a spell-stricken heimdall over bifrost and presumably finds his way to victoria.

i think i like the uk/aussie version better, it just has that heart-wrenching appeal. though i do think that she did quite a good job of working a different ending into it. meaning, i guess, that it wasn't too predictable throughout.

i have a question about the content though and wonder what people think about this... vidar has a few moments (maybe even loki does too) where he talks about the kind of beings he and his family are. how they're deluded and think they're gods, but they're really not, and they're in decline, so forth. but this bugged me. just because they also talk about how the spread of christianity into the north is basically what caused the decline of their power and dominion. so what, really, are they? just beings from an alternate dimension? yet there is that idea, like in Gaiman's American Gods for one easy example, that worship is what sustains them and gives them power. Just curious what people thought, if anything, about that whole relationship. it just really got on me throughout the book.

[dark fuschia]

I noticed that arch, I thought of them as beings from another realm who had openings into our world, and had managed to glean some sort of cosmic sustenance from the people of earth, or perhaps they were created by earth but gradually growing separate from earth. Either works so its kind of nice to keep it mysterious. But its almost as if she didn't choose to elaborate on such details because she was far more interested in charactisation that beefing up the world she created. I think you are right and that it is a flaw of the book, something she could have done better.

However I have just remembered this book is part of a loose series. The first is "The Autumn Castle" and the third is "Rosa and the veil of Gold." This book is the middle one. Anyway the series is about this sort of notion of interlocking worlds, and perhaps some of my understanding came form the fact I read them in the proper order. The books are entirely unrelated in terms of the worlds and the characters that we come across, but the theme of a modern girl becoming tangled with creatures from another mythological world that has gateways into our own is the common thread. Each book is set in a somewhat exotic place inspired the by the pervading ancient mythology. Germany, Norway and Russia. I recomend them if you liked this one and want more of the same.

If you like the author and want something different from the above, I can recomend "The Resurectionists" and "Angel of Ruin". Both of those are more of the horror genre. Angel of Ruin is an awesome concept. Its about John Milton writing Paradise Lost, the great masterpiece that shows sympathy for the devil ("I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven"). Wilkins writes a story about his three daughters, who are visited by an angel. As the plot unfolds you feel almost as if a curse is being bestowed on you. It's awesomely outrageously creepy that one! Ressurectionsits is just a good old graveyard hack em up thriller involving the unearthing of a poor girls diary and the secrets found within. It's obviously one of her less mature works. Then she has a few others I haven't gotten around to reading yet but are probably just as good. In fact I guess all her works lack a certain level of maturity, but thats part of what makes them so good Its like she doesn't want to succumb to her great talent and make a hack of herself by writing "literature". She's going to keep a firm stance and keep writing the stuff of romance and frippery and imagination. heh I like it

I am really glad you read it!

Actually the ending doesn't sound so bad, I like the fact it was Aud who managed it, that still makes poetic sense even if it's different.

I actually didn't like Rosa and the Veil of Gold, it was ok, but just not nearly as good as her other stuff. It read a bit like a computer game and felt contrived in many places. Anyway I find it odd that that is the one they are releasing next in the US.

I am so sorry you didn't read it Eyrenplenh! I knew you had it ordered and just assumed it had been and gone by now. If you are still interested (Though we've ruined the plot) I can post it to you for free. I have a copy and I no one I know will read it. Although I have no idea if you'd be into it I am sure you would find it interesting reading about your own coutries mythology from the perspective of a visitor.

[Jennifer]

I don't think the ending in the American version was too bad. Yes it had more of a happy note, but hey, maybe Vidar didn't find her. I mean she moved to New Zealand and Vidar entered the world as a mortal with no way to find her and no one to help. It was left more open-ended. I was, however, expecting it to end sadly, so I was a bit surprised.

Arch, I was also a little confused over the whole are they/aren't they gods question. If they weren't gods, then why indeed did the spread of Christianity have an effect on them? Personally, I don't think they were like Gaiman's gods. I think they were beings from another dimension that had some power and immortality; humans, being the weak mortals that they are, thought they really were gods. Then again, a god can merely be defined as someone or something that is worshiped, so they could be considered gods. The question to me is, what does Vidar consider to be a god? Did his race have their own version of gods?

On the whole, the book was okay. I was kept entertained by it. I never really felt like I grew to care about any of the characters. While Vidar's love for Halla/Victoria could be considered the ultimate in romance (in spanned centuries, after all), his character seemed to have just that one side. There are hints of what he used to be, this awful killing maching, but I just didn't get what about Halla caused him to give all of that up. Sure she was sassy and pretty, but was that really it? Was Vidar maybe looking for a reason to stop killing? I wish they had explored that a little more, among other things that I don't have time to talk about (work beckons ).

[Eyreplenh]

So I finally finished the book (thanks df), I quite liked it, a quick read that was hard putting down.

I read the australian/uk one and felt the ending was quite good. A bit surprised and disappointed Vidar didn't kill himself. Or maybe he did. Or maybe this fascination I have about protagonists and heroes killing themselves are unhealthy. Anyway, I think that the happy ending that were described sounded a little bit patchworky, but it's hard to say without reading it.

As for the rest, it was fun to read a book by an australian about norwegian people and lore. I mean, let's face it, Norway isn't the most fascinating country around, and I've come across few foreign books that plays out here. For the mythology involved, it was a funny take she took on how the old norse gods would be like today. Especially Odin, who were in his time The father of the gods, the wise judge, and generally the one keeping peace amongst the gods; who now were a raving drunkard

In the start of the book I was just a little bit annoyed at her description of Loki (or Loke as we call him); Loki is of course the awesommest god around. But then again she vindicated him in the end by having him save the day; there was at least on happy ending in the book, no?

As for Vidar himself, I am not familiar with him at all, there are quite a few Vidars in our viking legends, but I can't remember him having a central role with the gods. He is mentioned, as the son of Odin (amongst MANY) but I don't recall the bit about him being destined to save Odin at Ragnarrok. I don't doubt the veracity of this, I haven't read about Norse mythology in some years...

The thing that I wonder the most is what she did with Valhalla, unless she re-named it and Valhalla actually (in the book) is Odins house. Not much to do with the plot of the book, perhaps, but I wonder none the less. Another small point is why she's taken away one of our most beautiful words, when she kept so many lesser norse ones. The World Tree of the norse gods is of course called Yggdrasíl. Dunno why she felt the need to translate that one.

All in all, a book worth reading I think. All hail Loki:broken: