Ari Bach's Blog, page 90
April 20, 2016
Ethics- Not Gonna Lie
Time to level with you on this- There’s a lot of cannibalism in the Valhalla Trilogy.
In the first book, the villain devours a small but significant portion of the main character. This leads to one amusing moment, after he cuts her fingers off, where she pokes at the pile of severed fingers with her toes and props up the middle one to flip him off.
The second book is little better with mention of “soylent goods” on the black market and a scene where one guy bits another guys head off with his surgically modified unhingeable jaw (which also has chainsaw teeth).
And the third book has the “rapist jerky” that’s become so controversial, in addition to the sale of a dead gang as “pork” to a local restaurant. It’s even suggested that the main character consumes a few people she probably didn’t have to. The thing is- None of this is why the Valhalla series is a highly immoral work.
Valhalla is about a band of paramilitary badasses who blow shit up to keep the world safe. They kill tons of people. People they don’t always need to kill. These aren’t books where the bad guy has to reach for the gun so the good guy can shoot him because the main characters in my novels would be the villains of any other. These aren’t heroes. They’re vicious monsters and that’s why the books are so much fun.
These are books where you can indulge the darkest parts of your mind. Your angriest core, your most savage instincts. This series is for the part of you that argues with some asshole then thinks for hours about beating the shit out of ‘em. The part that quietly wishes for something to go wrong so you can kick some ass and set things straight. The part that hopes the tailgating car hits you so you can walk back to them on the side of the road and take a crowbar to their face.
At the same time, it’s a series about a beautiful future, and a horrible future, about some very cool, clever people and about some demented warriors. It’s about ray guns and explosions and spies but it’s also a love story and a comedy tour and cathartic tragedy.
So the whole “rapist jerky” thing people are debating is a moot point. That’s the least of the terrors in these books. But it also fails to represent the inspiration and beauty of the trilogy.
And as for ethics- There are none. This series, by all measures, is immoral and unethical in nature.
When is the last time you read a book with a backwards moral? The last time you read a book that doesn’t preach, but slaughters its preachers? The last time a book spoke to you and didn’t just reason with your intellect but fed the demon living in your gut?
The Valhalla Trilogy is dessert. The unhealthy treat you deserve and crave.
Read it free on Amazon for two chapters, just click the cover art.
facts-i-just-made-up:
paradisemantis:
facts-i-just-made-up:
paradisemantis:
skyenymph:
paradisem...
Note to self: next time you buy a book, go with one that doesn’t have a protagonist who makes jerky out of rapists
To be fair though is there any better use for them?
Almost literally anything else, human meat is unsafe for consumption.
Typically in 2016, sure, but survival cannibalism in 2233 is quite the opposite. In the context of the Valhalla Trilogy, I defy anyone to point to any reason that consuming the meat of the sexual predators you kill is unsafe or improper.
Communicable diseases from a rapist who is probably not too concerned with blood-to-blood contact (which could happen during, say, a violent rape scenario) or other health issues due to being mentally ill…just ya know, for starters. Also it’s improper to murder people for any reason.
Have to disagree with that last bit
If someone raped my daughter, or my son, or my wife/husband or whatever, I’d make them beg for death
Killing them won’t unrape your family, it will just make you a murderer.
Context is critical here. Should you as a fine upstanding citizen eat a random person you meet on the street in 2016 America, you would likely be in the wrong. But- If you’re wandering a post-apocalyptic wasteland, freezing and starving to death quickly and you encounter a deranged rapist who intends to assault you, then you’re well within reason to kill and eat that person. Disease and morality are distant considerations when you’re about to die, when the world as we know it has ceased to be, and when you are yourself already a mass murderer responsible for the deaths of hundreds personally and billions by extension. The incident in which a rapist is turned into jerky in the Valhalla Trilogy is far closer to the latter than the former, and I feel the protagonist is quite justified in her actions.
Hell, I think she’s still sympathetic when she shreds an entire gang and sells their meat to a local restaurant. That’s just how things are in 2233 Scotland.
Whether or not the matter of disease or morality are distant considerations they are still of some consideration, enough so to explain, at the very least, why eating people is “unsafe”. You defied anyone to point out how it would be unsafe and I did so - communicable disease.
Even if the act is justified it is still unsafe for your health, especially if you’re eating people for which heath is a “distant consideration” and your own access to health care is limited (as I would expect from any wasteland.)
You did point out the drawbacks as I challenged, I give you full props for that :)
I still think if you’re in the situation Vibeke encounters in the book though, cannibalism is probably the best available option.
fetchtival:
Note to self: next time you buy a book, go with one that doesn’t have a protagonist who...
Note to self: next time you buy a book, go with one that doesn’t have a protagonist who makes jerky out of rapists
To be fair though is there any better use for them?
April 19, 2016
lumpatronics:
Finally finished Valhalla! It was so good, I immediately bought the second one!
I...
Finally finished Valhalla! It was so good, I immediately bought the second one!
I gotta say, everyone was great, but umberto holds a special place in my heart. I worked with (aka played with) jocko the walrus (real name is sivuqaq), for about a year, and I immediately thought of him when I read about umberto. Miss the big fella :(
Still, I’m so happy how great this book was, and how everything just made sense. There were so many opportunities for this book to rely on overused tropes, but it never did!
I can’t wait to read the second one
April 18, 2016
Turning Page | Reviewing the Valhalla Trilogy by Ari Bach
I reviewed the trilogy and thought you’d want to see it!
Thank you for this exceptional review!!! It sounds like you got exactly what I was going for. This is also a really well written review and gets at a lot of the meat of the series that most reviews don’t address. Thank you very, very much!!!
Please note that this review contains complete spoilers for the novels.
tempus-fuckit:
Just finished Ragnarok by Ari Bach. Ho. Lee. Shit.
Diving right into...
Just finished Ragnarok by Ari Bach. Ho. Lee. Shit.
Diving right into Gudsriki.
Thank you for reading them, enjoy the finale!
thedoommerchant:
Read Valhalla in November.
Read Ragnarok over Wednesday and Thursday.
Read...
April 16, 2016
So naturally I had to try this on my own novels. I plugged all...
So naturally I had to try this on my own novels.
I plugged all three books into an online tool and though it works a bit differently from the above (it just does phrases, not sentences), here are the seven most common sentences or phrases in the Valhalla Trilogy by Ari Bach. I have not altered the order in which they appear most commonly, this is from highest number of instances (8) to lowest (3). This is the actual order they came in:
-didn’t know what to make of it.
She tried to think.
She thought for a moment.
It was as simple as that.
She kissed her on the lips.
-for the first time.
-as hard as she could.
So yeah. Uh…
April 12, 2016
sibqm-lmvm:
I’m about to start chapter 5 of Ragnarok, and...
I’m about to start chapter 5 of Ragnarok, and nothing too devastating has happened yet. I’m getting nervous… everyone says these books will rip your heart out…
You have a couple more chapters of fun before then. Enjoy it while you can :D
