Reviewing Catherine Fisher's "Snow-Walker": Introduction

On a whim when visiting the library, I went to the YA section and picked out a book by Catherine Fisher. Years ago I had read her novel Incarceron and its sequel Sapphique, which I remember as being vivid speculative fiction in a steampunk-prison alternate universe. My library has several more of her books that for one reason or another I haven’t gotten around to reading...until now.  

Picking out a book is hard on two sides of the spectrum. On the shallow end, there seem to be so few books out there that are actually excellent; after a string of disappointments one begins to wonder if they’ve possibly read everything worth reading. On the deep end, there are so many books, all of them with the potential to be excellent—after all, you can’t judge a book by its cover, right?

I am always on the lookout for books that are emotionally satisfying, mentally exciting, with a plot that is both surprising yet logical, descriptions that give the story’s world dimension, and characters that are well-rounded and relatable.

This is a lot to expect from a couple hundred pieces of paper, I know, and I don’t expect every book to meet all of these requirements. I’m happy just to have one or two of those things, if they’re well-executed: for instance, Jules Verne’s novels usually leave much to be desired in the way of characters, but his plots and world-building usually make up for this defect.

Of the selection of Fisher’s novels, Snow-Walker intrigued me because it looked like a Viking fantasy novel. Most of the fantasy books I’ve read are set in a world resembling Medieval Britain, so this would be an interesting change. Besides, Norse mythology already lends itself to the “warrior quest against magic or monsters” trope that is the staple of many fantasy plots.

A few paragraphs ago I said you couldn’t judge a book by its cover, and that turned out to be more true than usual for Snow-Walker. As soon as I opened the book I discovered that it was not just one novel, but a collection of three novels that had previously been published independently: The Snow-Walker’s Son, The Empty Hand, and The Soul Thieves.

(I’m glad I knew this when I started reading, because in the second book Fisher does the usual “recap of first novel” with reintroducing the characters and summarizing what had happened to them before, all of which would have been weird if it were originally in the same book.)

Because they're a series rather than one cohesive novel, I will review each individually over the next few posts.