Release Day: Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout, read by Dave Thompson
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Release Day: Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout, read by Dave Thompson
Posted on 2013-01-24 at 19:12 by Sam
Back in the summer of 2009 I was getting back into reading and, ok, writing a bit, and started discovering some very interesting authors on Twitter — in particular the trio of William Shunn, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Greg van Eekhout. I had actually even picked up van Eekhout’s Spectra-published debut novel from a bit earlier that year, Norse Code, plucked from the bottom shelf of the B&N fantasy section, based on the clever title and strong opening line and chapter. (“On the last true day of spring the nine worlds will ever know, my brother and I fly recon through the land of the gods.“) But… I was also getting back into audiobooks in a big way, and after listening to audiobooks from Shunn (the excellent novella Inclination) and Bacigalupi (the award-winning and Jonathan Davis-narrated The Windup Girl), not to mention podcasts of van Eekhout’s short stories (the PodCastle miniature “Carnival Park” remains one of my favorites) I kept looking for news of Norse Code in audio, but alas, nothing. The print book got buried in a stack of “to reads” and there was only the nagging memory of a book that kept slipping further and further into the “regrets” column. But! Then I was very excited to hear late last year that The AudioBookaneers’ own Dave Thompson would be narrating the audiobook, for Audible.com itself no less. Dave is of course an experienced narrator (innumerable episodes of PodCastle, and Tim Pratt’s novel Briarpatch) and, as I hope readers here have learned, listener of audiobooks. Well, the audiobook is finally here, and I for one am looking forward to finally getting past the prologue. (Now, how about van Eekhout’s next books, Kid Vs. Squid and The Boy at the End of the World? Meanwhile, this isn’t the last we’ll hear from Dave in the near future, as he’s just announced that he’ll be narrating the first book in James Maxey’s Dragon Age series, Bitterwood.)
Norse Code by Greg Van Eekhout Narrated by Dave Thompson for Audible, Inc. Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
”Is this Ragnarok, or just California? The NorseCODE genome project was designed to identify descendants of Odin. What it found was Kathy Castillo, a murdered MBA student brought back from the dead to serve as a Valkyrie in the Norse god’s army. Given a sword and a new name, Mist’s job is to recruit soldiers for the war between the gods at the end of the world - and to kill those who refuse to fight. But as the twilight of the gods descends, Mist makes other plans. Journeying across a chaotic American landscape already degenerating into violence and madness, Mist hopes to find her way to Helheim, the land of the dead, to rescue her murdered sister from death’s clutches. To do so, she’ll need the help of Hermod, a Norse god bumming around Los Angeles with troubles of his own. Together they find themselves drafted into a higher cause, trying to do what fate long ago deemed could not be done: save the world of man. For even if myths aren’t made to be broken, it can’t hurt to go down fighting…can it?”
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