Siri Pettersen

Odin's Child

Story Eater

For readers looking for a fantasy adventure with a different point of view from conventional, English-language fantasy novels of the past few years, Odin’s Child is the book for you. 

A squalling infant appears from the other side of the stone rings during a violent storm of snow, rescued by a man in a society of magic-wielding, tailed bipeds with powers called “the Might.” While rescuing infants from certain death in sub-freezing temperatures is in all cases a wonderful thing, in this case, the infant, who does not possess a tail, should have been left to freeze. The alternative, which plays out in Pettersen’s multilayered fantasy, is that the child will only grow up to have to suffer the same fate at a later time, when all young people must submit to the Rite ceremony, where those without the power of the Might are discovered and eliminated.

Pettersen’s Raven Rings books are a new discovery for me, and once I saw the option on Edelweiss to review it, I immediately requested it. I absolutely love reading fantasies from other languages and cultures that have been translated into English. They provide, for me, a window into fantasy I’ve not heard of and most times, like in the case of Odin’s Child, offer a new lense to look through to fantasy that I have not seen before. 

Aside from the fantastic world building, the best aspect of Pettersen’s fantasy lies in the characters. Hirka was incredibly relatable to me; I felt she was neither a “Mary Sue” (which I don’t hold vitriol toward as much as other readers do) nor an antithesis of one, having some unrealistic strength she uses for her revenge or some power that makes her artificially stronger (and extremely violent) than every other character in the story. The other two main characters, Rime (the love interest) and Urd (the villain), complement each other in their roles in the story perfectly, and leave the narrative balanced in a way that weaves itself together perfectly at the end, which, I must note, will make the reader who loves the book want to read the next one immediately, but I must wait for it to be translated along with the third one, both of which I will be reading and most definitely purchasing for my shelf.

In regard to translation, the book is also easy to read, considering it is a translation. I did not find it necessary to reread things a couple of times to process the syntax of the writing. It was easy to understand. I have read translations of things that were in English and used English words but made no sense and felt like I still had some translating to do as I read. I know there are some reviews of other language translations with poor experiences in this area, but I felt the English translation did not have any issues—at least for me.

I could go on and on after a reread of this about all the tiny things I loved about it, particularly how atmospheric the setting is (a healthy amount of the book takes place in the woods) or how wonderfully the tension is built when focused on Urd and his plotting; but I would leave no details for readers to discover on their own. 

A solid 5-star read for me. Highly recommended

My profound thanks to Edelweiss, and particularly Arctis Books, for the ARC, for which I heartily give my own very positive and enthuisastic opinion.

celeste

*ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Odin’s Child follows the story of Hirka, a 15 year old girl who happens to be different from the rest of her village because she doesn’t have a tail. Yes, you read that right, a tail. What was the point of characters in this world to have tails? Lord only knows why was the authorial choice to make tails a thing, since apparently, they didn’t serve a single purpose. Anyways, because of that, her whole life Hirka’s been bullied and ostracized by the majority of the villagers, except for a handful of people who see past that, among which there’s Rime, the grandson and sole heir of the matriarch of the kingdom. Once you start this book you can clearly tell it’s going to be infused with norse folklore, a childhood friends to lovers and forbidden romance, adventure, and the prospect of evil lurking in the holiest of places. And as much as all of that sounds like exactly my cup of tea (because what’s there not to like about all that?), I had more issues and disappointments with this book than otherwise.

My first issue with Odin’s Child was the writing. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a translation from Nowregian to English, if things got lost in translation, or if that was indeed the way the original content was supposed to sound like, but the writing didn’t click for me. I couldn’t connect with it, and consequently I couldn’t connect with the characters at all. The writing felt clipped, with short sentences that didn’t flow or felt inorganic in the English language. Because it’s also written in third person, everything felt standoffish, cold, impossible to connect or care for what I was reading. The dry writing didn’t help at all either when the pacing of this book was as slow as a slug. Maybe the book needed of an extra round of editing and the chopping off of a significant amount of pages because the slow pace and never-ending addition of scenes that went nowhere affected my overall reading experience to the point of wanting to DNF the book altogether.

And here comes another problem I had with this book: the lack of explanation of the world-building. I had no idea what I was reading, or what anything was supposed to mean. The amount of terms and terminology thrown at you as soon as you start this book made it impossible for me to understand anything when no explanations were provided as to how anything worked. The Might, the blind, the Rite, the undead, Kolkagga, children of Odin, and so on and so forth these terms were mentioned in every single page without a single explanation as what they were or how they worked. While the book gets its inspiration from Norse mythology, there’s only so much that an outsider reader can know, and the rest was just a guessing game trying to follow through and make sense of whatever was going on.

But not everything was a disappointment and yes, I’m talking about Rime and Hirka’s relationship and dynamic. I’ve always been a sucker for angsty romances and forbidden relationships between characters that no matter how much they love and care for each other, there are significant reasons why they cannot be together. The angst was not lost in Odin’s Child either. Not only are the characters separated because of their differing social classes and status amongst the community, but also because of Hirka’s secret of being a child of Odin (whatever that means, since again, nothing was explained as to what that actually entails). Those reasons keep our protagonists apart and unable to fully surrender themselves to their feelings.


  “He gripped the pendant on her chest. The pendant he had left with her in Blindból. His hand burned feverishly against her skin and she felt her body come alive. It was violent. Dangerous. She shut herself off from the Might and was glad she managed it without screaming. Rime put his lips to her ear. His voice was rough like stone. “Urd found a way. I’ll find a way too. I’ll find you. And I’ll bring you the truth about the rot”.


Given the way this book ended, one cannot help but think that those reasons are going to be fully elaborated on in the second book of the series. And still, even if the only driving force for me to keep reading this book were those two and their dynamic, I couldn’t fully connect with them separately.

Last but not least, I need to make an honorable mention to yet another twirling-mustache type of villain that has flooded the YA genre since time immemorial. Odin’s Child couldn’t be free from the stereotypical villain for whom everything comes so easily, his manipulations were so easy to make and no one even deemed to mistrust him. It felt completely unrealistic how he could convince anyone of whatever he wanted to accomplish in such a short amount of time, and again, it felt like the mystery as to what his ulterior motives were could have remained a secret for the reader to be surprised by them when the time came for the characters to know them as well.

After years of praying for this book to get an English translation, and the second one being translated and to be released in October, I have no idea how to feel. While I’m left more with a feeling of disappointment of what this story could give, there were conceptual things that were interesting to me in this story, but unfortunately everything fell through in their very lackluster execution. Will I continue with the series? Only time will tell.

Nikki Sojkowski

I know this is a wildly popular book outside of the US, which is why it’s getting translated in the first place, so I really wanted to love it and/or chalk up my discomfort to a bad translation, but I’ve finished it feeling utterly confused. Some of the prose was really rough, and I’m genuinely not sure if that translation tried too hard to be literal or if they actually did copy Pettersen’s stylistic decisions and the original is simply rough around the edges as well. Even over looking this prose issue, the plot itself was hard to make sense of. 

The magic system is the Might, and I still don’t know what exactly it is, what it does, what one can or cannot accomplish by using it, or who the Might can be added/removed from a person’s body without their knowledge. I feel like after finishing the first book (especially after some of the stunts Rime has pulled) that I should have a sense of the world and its magic system, but I’m still utterly bamboozled. (view spoiler)[If the stone circles are doorways to other worlds, how did they travel from their world to another spot on their world??? How did Rime suddenly become this overpowered being who floats in the sky?? Why does Rime have to touch Hirka for more access to the Might and sometimes he doesn’t? (hide spoiler)] There was no explanation of the Might at the beginning, which is fine, but I found myself not enjoying parts of the book because the explanation never came. This led to some utterly chaotic scenes in the second half. 

Furthermore, Urd's entire plot line didn’t make any sense and I tried hard to compensate for that with my suspension of disbelief, which I shouldn’t have had to do. Even so, I thought my suspension of disbelief would be rewarded with some sort of tying up of the loose ends in the finale, but unfortunately that was not the case. Who really is Urd? Why do we never get any of his background? What is his connection to the blind? How did he become the one responsible for a sacrifice to them? Who is the disembodied voice that talks to him? I understand that this is a series, and maybe things will get fleshed out later on, but unfortunately the whole ordeal caused me to not connect to any of the character’s so even if it is explained in later books I’m not attached enough to read them.

Suzanne

I read an English translation of this book.

Things I liked:
- female protagonist, who finds her own power along the way
- fantasy setting
- fish out of water story

Things I didn't like so much:
- Lack of describing a tail (everyone but Hirka has one). How long is it? Which color? Is it skinny like a cat? Or more like a giraffe? 
- Pacing - there was so much repeating about inner thoughts, summarizing stuff we just read.
- World building - some elements of the world were very well outlined, but I missed a lot of details about Odin and what an Odin's child would be. The book is called "Odin's Child" - so you figure at least you will know what that would be.
- Length - could have been 25% shorter and still pack all the action.
- Fantasy world very similar to the middle ages except for the magic stuff.
- Traditional gender roles, while there are a few outstanding female characters, the fantasy world is very binary and patriarchal. In a world where people have long tails - why not having non-binary people and people in same sex relationships? 

I was invested enough to keep reading, and would read the translations to book 2 and 3.
(this book was provided as an ARC)

Odin's Child

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