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Icefall, by Matthew J. Kirby
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Critically acclaimed author Matthew J. Kirby deftly weaves a stunning coming-of-age tale with chilling cleverness and subtle suspense that will leave readers racing breathlessly to the end.
Trapped in a hidden fortress tucked between towering mountains and a frozen sea, Solveig--along with her brother the crown prince, their older sister, and an army of restless warriors--anxiously awaits news of her father's victory at battle. But as winter stretches on, and the unending ice refuses to break, terrible acts of treachery soon make it clear that a traitor lurks in their midst. Solveig must also embark on a journey to find her own path. Yet, a malevolent air begins to seep through the fortress walls, as a smothering claustrophobia slowly turns these prisoners of winter against one another.
Those charged with protecting the king's children are all suspect, and the siblings must choose their allies wisely. But who can be trusted so far from their father's watchful eye? Can Solveig survive the long winter months and expose the traitor before he manages to destroy a kingdom?
- Sales Rank: #63414 in Books
- Published on: 2013-02-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 5.50" w x 1.00" l, .48 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
Review
Praise for ICEFALL:
A 2012 Edgar Award Winner for Best Juvenile Mystery
A 2011 Agatha Award Nominee
New York Public Library 100 Books for Reading and Sharing
2012 ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults
Judy Lopez Memorial Award Winner
"[O]ne of the best reads of the season . . ." --DESERET NEWS
"[A] claustrophobic, thought-provoking coming-of-age adventure . . ." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"[A] taut, compelling mystery and survival story . . . Readers will be left thinking about this one long after the chill has left their bones." --BULLETIN OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS
"[A] superb mystery enriched with powerful, believable characters, plot, and setting, and guarantees that readers will be thoroughly engaged to the final word." --BOOKS TO BORROW, BOOKS TO BUY, Nationally Syndicated Column
"Interesting, well-developed characters abound. . . . [and] the chilly, claustrophobic, ancient setting is vividly created." --KIRKUS REVIEWS
Praise for THE CLOCKWORK THREE
"In this riveting historical fantasy . . . debut novelist Kirby has assembled all the ingredients for a rousing adventure, which he delivers with rich, transporting prose. Mixing fantasy and steampunk elements with subtle urban mythology, Kirby's immersive story can be read as a modern morality play or a satisfying stand-alone tale." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review
"[M]emorable characters, hearty action, and palpable atmospherics." --BOOKLIST
About the Author
Matthew J. Kirby is the critically acclaimed author of the middle-grade novels ICEFALL, which won an Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, and THE CLOCKWORK THREE. He was born in Utah and grew up in Maryland, California, and Hawaii. Matthew is a school psychologist. He and his wife live in northern Idaho, where he is working on his next novel. Visit his website at www.matthewjkirby.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From Icefall
Listen to me.
All of you.
We cannot let this enemy divide us. We cannot let our suspicions and our doubts run wild, or else we will destroy ourselves. Brave and honorable men have died, and it is true that there may be a traitor among us. But if there is, we hasten his purpose if we turn on each other.
We cannot forget who we are. Who we were. If ever you listened to me, hearken to me now.
For I would remind you, and I have many stories to tell...
Most helpful customer reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
Ten little, nine little, eight little berserkers . . .
By E. R. Bird
There's a certain breed of middle grade fiction novel for kids that defies easy categorization. Call them fantasies without fantasy. These strange little novels pop up from time to time encouraging readers to believe that they are reading about something fantastical without having to throw magic spells, ghosts, or singing teacups into the mix. Frances Hardinge's "Fly by Night" and "Fly Trap" fit this description. Ditto any book that really involves an alternate world. Now when I received my copy of Matthew Kirby's "Icefall" I had an inkling that it would definitely be that kind of book. This notion was confirmed when I flipped to the first entry in my advanced reader's galley and read the following classifications. They call it: "Action & Adventure", "Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magic", and "Mysteries & Detective Stories". Highly amusing since there isn't much in a way of science fiction or fantasy or magic here. Action, Adventure, Mysteries, and Detective Stories though? Tons! And entirely worth discovering too.
It's tough being the middle child. Solveig knows this, but it doesn't make her life any easier. Neither a beauty like her older sister Asa nor . . . well . . . male like her younger brother Harald, Solveig has never attracted the attention of her father, the king. Now with their nation at war, the three children have been sent to a distant mountain fortress to wait out the days until the battle's end. As they wait they are joined by their father's guard, the highly unreliable and frightening berserkers. At first Solveig is put off by their manners and actions, but as time goes on she grows to trust them. That's part of the reason she's so shocked when someone attempts to poison them all off. Though the community in this fortress is small, someone amongst them is a traitor. And in the midst of her training to be a storyteller, Solveig must discover the culprit, even if he or she is someone she dearly loves.
Now when I said that this book didn't contain so much as a drop of magic within its pages I was being facetious. Truth be told, aside from the whole alternate world building Kirby does allow Solveig some premonitions in the form of dreams. And yes, the dreams seem to foretell what will occur in the future. Admitted. That said, I get the feeling that Mr. Kirby included the dreams almost as an afterthought. To be perfectly blunt, they come right out. Their sole purpose is to foreshadow, and foreshadow they do. There are certain fictional tropes for kids that just rub me the wrong way, like prophecies and the like. Portentous dreams, as it happens, don't bother me one way or another unless they rate too much importance. In "Icefall" Kirby grants his characters' dreams just the right amount of attention. Not too much. Not too little.
The book would actually make a fairly effective murder mystery play, should someone wish to adapt it. Like any good murder mystery the suspects are limited, cut off from the rest of the world. Scenes can only be set in the woods or in the buildings, and not much of anywhere else. Then there's the whole "And Then There Were None" aspect. Anyone could be a suspect, and Kirby does a stand up job at not making the culprit too easy to identify. A big smarty pants adult, I thought I'd figured it out partway through, but it turned out that I was only solving a portion of the mystery. Well played, Mr. Kirby, sir. I should probably be more upset that Solveig never really solves the mystery unless forces beyond her control take over, but surprisingly I didn't really mind. For me, the focus of this book isn't the mystery aspect, but Solveig's own personal journey.
I like to keep my ear to the ground and pay attention to the books that garner a bit of buzz. And "Icefall", much to my surprise and pleasure, has legs. Both adults and kids have really responded to Kirby's writing here. Considering that we're not dealing with a notebook novel or a story involving witches, wizards, vampires, zombies, or the future in any way, shape, or form, this is interesting to me. Who would have thought that a story involving a Viking-like girl with low self-esteem would garner such love? I credit Kirby's writing. Though the murder mystery is a good way to lure in potential readers, the real strength to the tale lies in the blossoming of Solveig. Her desire to become a storyteller is there, but this isn't a book where the heroine decides she wants something and then shows an immediate and natural acuity for it. Solveig struggles with her gift, and fights to improve it. Better still, Kirby has the wherewithal to hinge his plot on Solveig's growth. What she learns in the course of the story is directly responsible for the story's climax. To wit, this is a novel where the protagonist begins the book with an apologetic "I am only Solveig" and ends with a strong, no nonsense, "I am Solveig".
Long story short (so to speak) when reading "Icefall" you believe in Kirby's characters, relationships, setting, and the ability of the heroine to learn and grow. Mr. Matthew Kirby debuted as a middle grade novelist last year with his original and amusing "The Clockwork Three". That, compared to this, was a book with epic intentions but was, in its way, very much a debut novel. With "Icefall", Mr. Kirby's writing has matured. There's a depth to "Icefall" that sets the book apart from the pack. This is a story that stays with the reader for long periods of time. Maybe folks will find it a bit predictable or slow at times, but with its reliable writing and killer ending (literally), this is a book that establishes Mr. Kirby as a writer to watch closely. I like where this fellow is going and I like this novel. And so will the kids.
For ages 9-14.
19 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
A top 5 YA and one of the top for adults as well
By B. Capossere
Last year I wrote this about Matthew Kirby's novel The Clockwork Three:
Amid the several highly anticipated children's and YA works this year by big names such as Suzanne Collins and Rick Riordan, one can be forgiven for missing the entry onto the stage of Matthew Kirby's first novel, The Clockwork Three. Forgiven, but no longer excused, for among all those much more hyped releases (though they are often justifiably hyped), this stands out as among the best. There. Now you know. You should get it. '
One might imagine, therefore, that Kirby's second novel, entitled Icefall, would have a difficult time matching the quality of the first. Darned if he didn't just do it though. Before I'd even finished it, Icefall was already on my list of top ten YA novels for 2011 and by the time I was done, as I suspected might happen, it made its way to my top ten fantasy novels in general. And fair warning to all those books coming out in the last few months: it's going to be hard to knock Icefall out of either list. Now you know. You should get it.
According to its publisher, Icefall is a Middle Grade book, for ages 8-12. I can tell you my nine-year-old son loved it, devouring it in a single sitting. I'll just point out, however, that I did the same (age 49) as did my wife (age 46). In other words, don't let its targeted age group deter you from picking it up; Icefall is easily better than 95 percent of the non-YA fantasy novels I've read this year. Easily.
The time period is ancient Norway and the only setting is a small fortress where a Viking king has sent his three children (Harald the young prince; Asa, the beautiful older daughter; and Solveig, the plain-looking overlooked middle child) for safety before he heads off to battle a rival warlord. Along with them are Per, head of a small group of soldiers; Bera, their cook; Raudi, Bera's son and Solveig's childhood friend; and Ole, a thrall captured in battle years ago and now sworn to the king. Stuck between the glacier-topped mountains and the icy fjord that led to the keep, with winter nearing, they look every day for news of their father's hoped-for victory. Instead, just before the fjord freezes completely, confining them there for the winter, a single ship arrives bearing the king's skald Alric and a select group of Berserker warriors, led by their Captain--Hake--, ordered there by the king as further protection.
Soon though, the fortress is beset by mysterious misfortunes, and it eventually becomes clear that there is a traitor among them, one who will stop at nothing to weaken and/or kill them. Trapped by geography and weather, stalked by hunger, death, and perhaps the worst enemy of all--mistrust of each other--they must make it through the winter and hope that when the fjord is free of ice, it will be the king's warships, and not his rival's, that greet them.
As with The Clockwork Three, Icefall is wonderfully tight. I wouldn't remove a single chapter and doubt I'd take out many single sentences or even words. This alone is nearly enough to make me weep in appreciation, as this seems to be a rapidly disappearing concept, this idea of using exactly as many words are needed and no more. When I'm consistently writing in review after review how many hundreds of pages could and should be removed from a novel to improve it, Kirby's concision and efficiency is like an oasis in an ocean of sandy verbiage. The prose is sparse but lyrical, as when he very early on describes an overcast sky as looking "like a burnt log in the morning hearth, cold, spent, and ashen" which not only describes the visual, but sets the mood for the entire book to come. He also has a nice sense of rhythm and space:
There was so little time for preparation before Father sent us away and went to war. He promised a boatload of food, clothing, and blankets, but we have seen no ship.
And none today.
And the fjord is freezing over.
The novel has an obvious dual structure, employing an alternate chapter construction. The longer chapters relate ongoing events from Solveig's first-person present-tense point of view while the shorter chapters are tiny flashbacks, also from Solveig's POV but told in the past tense. These vignettes (rarely more than a single page) often focus on her relationship with one of the other characters. One such chapter, for example, relates how her sister consoled her one night when she was miserable, another tells of the shame she felt when her father seemingly forgot about introducing her to someone. In a really masterful touch, the vignettes also move forward in time, until two-thirds of the way through they mesh with the present time and are dropped altogether. Complicating the structure, adding a more subtle third thread woven right into the action and dialog rather than separated out like the vignettes, are a series of Norse myths, some told by Alric and others by Solveig as she considers becoming Alric's apprentice. The movement among these three different strands is quite fluid, with each strand typically resonating with the others in terms of theme, character, plot, or imagery. It is a deft piece of work.
Along with emphasizing themes or character, the interruptions serve another purpose; they allow for the slow build-up of suspense as the traitor performs one attack after another, each more damaging than the last and as mistrust gradually seeps like its own poison into the fortress. The setting enhances this feeling throughout--the claustrophobia of such a small, single setting, the frozen landscape, the harsh weather and cold light, the haunting groans and moans of the glacier above them. It's almost an old Country House Murder kind of story--the lights go out in an isolated mansion, someone dies, the light come back on, and the survivors are left looking at each other wondering "which one is it--you? You? You?" It's worse than that though, for this is no group of strangers but people who have known and trusted, and even loved, each other for years if not their entire lives. Seeing this from young Solveig's eyes makes this even more wrenching, for where is she to cast her own suspicion: the woman who raised her as if she were her own child? Her childhood best friend? Her sister? The captain who was trusted so much by her father that he was sent to watch over his entire line? Kirby dangles enough clues that one can figure out the traitor, but he also drops enough red herrings that it's easy to get the traitor wrong. The truth is, you suspect several throughout.
As readers, each of these characters is drawn so fully, even if extremely concisely, that we not only feel Solveig's pain that one might be, must be, a traitor; we don't want it to be true ourselves. Solveig is clearly the most detailed character, but Kirby does an excellent job of bringing most of the others to life as well despite their lack of page-time. This is especially true of Hake--the Berserker captain--and Alric, the skald. But Solveig simply shines; this is her coming of age story, her slow blossoming that makes us care so much what happens, her voice that carries us throughout.
And it is literally her voice that she must find as she trains to become a skald under Alric's tutelage. Not only is this a brilliant metaphor for the coming-of-age story, it also allows Kirby to examine the nature and power of stories and story-telling itself. As when Alric tells Solveig:
A story is not a thing. A story is an act. It only exists in the brief moment of its telling. The question you must ask is what a story has the power to do. The truth of something you do is very different from the truth of something you know . . . My tale last night. Did it comfort you?
Yes.
And was the comfort real? Was it true?
I thought it was.
Then the story was true . . . whether Thor's chariot is really pulled by two bucks or not.
The novel's conclusion is as emotionally harrowing as it is suspenseful and action-filled. How does Solveig's story end? Like all life stories. In happiness. In sorrow. In triumph. In grief. In joy. In bitterness.
In two books, Matthew Kirby has, in my mind, cemented himself as one of the best fantasy writers going today. And I'd be perfectly fine if someone wanted to take out the "fantasy" part of that description. A complicated, sophisticated structure. Vivid characterization. Gripping tension and suspense. A story about the power of story. Prose that glitters like ice. A main character whose painful awakening out of innocence would melt the heart of the coldest glacier and whose self-discovery is like the coming of spring after winter. This book should be on everybody's top ten fantasies list by the end of the year. It should be in your hands before then.
Addendum by Bill's my nine-year-old son Kaidan,:
I would give it five stars or a 95 out of 100. I liked the plot, the suspense, all the characters (especially Hake). I ranked it my third favorite out of the 68 books I read in the past year. It was really suspenseful. I wanted to know what happened, if Solveig's dream was going to come true, would the evil come, and especially who the traitor was. I suspected several different characters, including Ole, Per, and Asa, but I was never sure. My favorite scene was the conclusion. I did think it began a little slowly and I could have done without all of the myth stories--I thought there were a few too many--but overall this was the best book I've read in a long time.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Dramatic and Thrilling
By SciFiChick
Solveig is the second daughter of the king, neither heir to the throne like her younger brother nor beautiful like her older sister. She and her siblings have been sent away to a remote, frozen hideaway to remain safe while their father is at war. Then the king sends a group of his deadly berserker warriors to watch over them. But it will be a long winter, trapped in their fortress with limited food. And soon it's clear that there is a traitor among them.
Solveig is a brave girl, but humble and unaware of her true potential. It's soon apparent that she's a talented storyteller, so she begins to apprentice with her father's bard. This is when Kirby shows his talent, weaving Scandinavian folklore into applicable stories in a beautiful and poignant way.
This coming-of-age tale is dramatic and thrilling. Readers of all ages should enjoy this fascinating story of honor, betrayal, and mystery. By the end, I was completely enveloped in Solveig's story and was swept away. This impressive sophomore novel is a standalone Nordic tale with the feel of an endearing fairy tale. Icefall is easily one of my favorite novels this year.
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