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Rich Larson

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Ymir Kindle Edition

by Rich Larson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 68 ratings

Book 2 of 2: The Violet Wars

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"Phenomenal, visceral, high-octane scifi... Altered Carbon unsleeves in a dystopian Beowulf."―Derek Künsken, Aurora-award-winning author of The Quantum Magician

As glittering and treacherous as an icy cavern, Rich Larson's far-future tale of revenge and revolution is a gripping thriller, perfect for fans of Richard K. Morgan and inspired by the legendary story of Beowulf.

Yorick never wanted to see his homeworld again. He left Ymir two decades ago, with half his face blown off and no love lost for the place. But when his employer's mines are threatened by a vicious alien machine, Yorick is shipped back home to hunt it.

All he wants is to do his job and get out. Instead, Yorick is pulled into a revolution brewing beneath Ymir's frozen surface, led by the very last person he wanted to see again—the brother who sent him off in pieces twenty years ago..

Editorial Reviews

Review

“An astonishing SF thriller with whiplash surprises and an ending that resonates…Ymir gets all over you and won’t come off.”―James Patrick Kelly, winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards

“Larson is a writer who can do just about anything, and in his second novel he splices Iain M. Banks with Alastair Reynolds…This is brain-busting sci-fi for the hardcore crowd.”―Nick Wolven, author of "Snowflake"

“Original, unpredictable, and starkly beautiful. A screaming dirge of a story.”―Ted Kosmatka, author of The Flicker Men

“Cyberpunk as fuck…I loved every gritty, punishing page of it.”―Tim Miller, director of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS and Deadpool

“Endlessly inventive, richly textured, and pricked with poignant beauty. If Alien met Neuromancer, and the mutant progeny was birthed in the amniotic fluid of pure myth, Ymir would be the result.”―Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Hugo and Locus finalist

"[Ymir] hurtles forward at dizzying speeds on an engine of jagged gorgeous writing. I adored Yorick, with his broken heart and his bad attitude and worse decisions...I ached with every twist and turn of his hideous beautiful journey."
-Sam J Miller, Nebula-award-winning author of Blackfish City―Sam J. Miller, Nebula award-winning author of Blackfish City

"Phenomenal, visceral, high-octane scifi... Altered Carbon unsleeves in a dystopian Beowulf."―Derek Künsken, Aurora-award-winning author of The Quantum Magician

“Icy, dangerous, yet darkly hopeful. An exhilarating journey that left me awed.”―Hugo finalist Sheree Renée Thomas, author of Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future

“Sci-fi thriller at its ice-cold coolest... Propulsive, terrifying, and human.”―Tamsyn Muir, New York Times best-selling author of the Locked Tomb series

About the Author

Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has lived in Spain and Czech Republic, and currently writes from Grande Prairie, Canada. He is the author of the novels Ymir and Annex, as well as over 150 short stories—some the best of which can be found in the collection Tomorrow Factory.

His fiction has appeared in over a dozen languages, including Polish, Italian, Romanian, and Japanese, and his translated collection La Fabrique des lendemains won the 2020 Grand Prix de L'Imaginaire. His first screen adaptation, Ice, won the 2021 Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program.

Find free reads and support his work at patreon.com/richlarson.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07K6J175Z
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orbit (July 12, 2022)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 12, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1070 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 394 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #820,328 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4,912 in First Contact Science Fiction (Books)
- #5,062 in First Contact Science Fiction eBooks
- #7,972 in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 68 ratings

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Rich Larson

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RICH LARSON was born in Galmi, Niger, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in the south of Spain, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. Since he began writing in 2011, he’s sold over a hundred stories, the majority of them speculative fiction published in magazines like Analog, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com.

His work also appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, Czech, and Italian. Annex, his debut novel, comes out in July with Orbit Books. Tomorrow Factory, his debut collection, follows with Talos Press in May 2018. Besides writing, he enjoys travelling, learning languages, playing soccer, watching basketball, shooting pool, and dancing salsa and kizomba.

Find out more at richwlarson.tumblr.com and support his work via patreon.com/richlarson.

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4.3 out of 5

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James C

Beautiful, dark, cyberpunk

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2022

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I loved Ymir and finished it in a couple of days! It's beautifully written in Rich Larson's distinctive style. The characters are vivid, original and believeable. The protagonist, Yorick, really sucked me in - he's grim, complex and surprisingly compelling for such an "antihero" type character. The setting is dark, gritty and real - think oil rigs/small towns in the Arctic. I also loved the AI hotel - it adds some humour to the story, and for me it evoked The Raven Hotel from Altered Carbon.

I switched back and forth between the ebook and audiobook throughout, and can highly recommend both. With its excellent narration, the audiobook brought an extra dimension to the characters in my mind and helped them to jump off the page even more when I went back to reading.

Note that even though this is billed as "Book 2" of the Violet Wars, you don't have to have read Annex (Book 1) to enjoy this - unless I missed something, there is no connection or carryover between the two novels. To me, this actually felt more like the successor to "Ice" (one of Larson's short stories, which made it onto Netflix). Also, to calibrate expectations, it's only very vaguely inspired by Beowulf so you don't need to know that story to enjoy it!

One person found this helpful

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Ruykann

Good

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2023

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Dark and entertaining. Will look for more from this author.

One person found this helpful

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Taylor

A Grippy Sci-fi Thriller with Emotional Depth

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2022

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I’ve been a diehard fan of Rich Larson’s short fiction since picking up Tomorrow Factory in 2018, and I’m delighted to say Ymir (his 2nd novel) doesn’t disappoint.

I was hooked right from the start. Larson’s writing is taut and elegant and at times brutal and in-your-face. The protagonist Yorick is a self-destructive, delusional, and occasionally repulsive lead, yet he is also deeply human, sympathetic in an unorthodox way, and thoroughly intriguing. I simply couldn’t put this book down and finished it three days.

This novel is hard to describe. It must be experienced to be truly appreciated. On the surface, it’s a grippy sci-fi thriller set on a hostile world crawling with leftover alien tech, an oppressive corporation, and downtrodden colonists (all familiar elements, but engaging nonetheless), yet somehow Larson manages to twist it into a much more complex, personal story that is ultimately about trauma, unreliable memory, and a dysfunctional relationship between two brothers. It works on every level, and the ending is thoroughly satisfying in ways few novels of this type are.

I highly recommend Ymir to sci-fi fans, new and old alike. The writing is accessible and even cinematic in places, but there’s a sophistication and emotional depth here that few other genre authors exhibit as well as Rich Larson.

If you decide to read this one (and you definitely should!) go ahead and pick up Tomorrow Factory as well. You’ll see some familiar names and places, and there’s even some thematic resonance between some of those stories and Ymir. You won’t be disappointed.

One person found this helpful

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Michael Smith

Otherworldly post-cyberpunk writing that puts you through the wringer (in a good way)

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2022

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This is great stuff--I burned through it in just a couple of days. Larson has a style that is punchy and evocative (even when describing something as straightforward as a landing ship or a medical bath) and it's a great match for the brutal sensibility he brings to the story of a guy returning home to kill a beast in the underground caverns of his frozen homeworld. The stretch where Yorick works with a military "hot-squad" is a highlight--it's going to stick with me for a while.

There's some solid suprises--it's always a treat when you think you're reading one sort of story and then the author turns it around on you in a way that feels satisfying and "baked in." Aside from that, the action comes fast and unforgiving and so do the emotions as Yorick realizes his life-story isn't what he thought it was.

3 people found this helpful

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Rachel G.

Excellent Dark and Gritty Sci-fi

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2024

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I've been a fan of Rich Larson's short stories for years and this is the first of his novels I've got a hold of. It does not disappoint. Short entertaining chapters, no fluff filler BS. The protagonist is definitely an anti-hero type, with a dark past to say the least. It's one of those books that seems like a real alternate universe that I'm somehow observing, similar to Dune. Can't recommend it enough.

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Ian V

Taut, tense, and wonderful

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2022

William Gibson meets biopunk. Really compelling writing and some nice story twists. I thought there were so many lightning-crisp and frightening-yet-cool ideas here that I hope no mercenary company or government takes heed. Rich Larson’s short stories are also excellent.

2 people found this helpful

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Nate Logos

Good ideas poorly executed

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2022

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I've been trying to get through this book for a few months. I just can't get into it. I like the characters, setting, and dialogue. The world building is creative. But halfway into the book I can't tell you what the plot is. The author makes suggestions from which the reader is supposed to infer what is going on, but I can't put the pieces together. I don't know what's going on. The writing is dry exposition that doesn't explain anything.

There's a lot of promise here. The conflict between the protagonist and his brother is intriguing, but I have yet to learn what they are fighting about. The Beowulf concept is cool. The various inhuman supporting characters are most creatively visualized. And the protagonist might be an interesting character if he is ever developed.

I hope the author keeps writing, but he needs to stop assuming his readers can read his mind. I've read way too much of this book to not know what is going on. I know they say you should show and not tell, but please tell us what we need to know in order to understand what you're showing us. I don't expect to finish this book.

5 people found this helpful

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Anthony

Great book.

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2022

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Awesome story , dynamic characters, and a great settings. Very visceral and easy to visualize. I like the realistic feel to the end versus the more common everything-works-out-perfectly-for-everyone type of story. There's a lot of real emotional issues tied to these characters but the narrative doesn't feel bogged down at all. It reads quickly and has a ton of depth while also bringing plenty of action one would expect in deep space.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Terence Blake

Undo the face, deconstruct the destiny

Reviewed in France on September 22, 2022

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YMIR, Rich Larson’s new novel, just came out, and I read it in one sitting. The book is a very intense read, despite the fact that the main character, Yorick, is very unlikeable, but there is a type of reader who finds intensity likeable, sympathetic. I speak of intensity and sympathy because the French translator of YMIR, Pierre-Paul Durastanti, chose to describe his experience of reading and translating the novel the adjectives “intense” and “sympathetic”. I think this will apply to any reader of the novel, provided we let the intensity of style and plot free us from any desire for identification. Philosopher Gilles Deleuze in his book DIALOGUES links the experiences of intensity and sympathy from a philosophical perspective, citing the work D.H. Lawrence as an example of their deep affinity. According to Deleuze, sympathy and antipathy are variations in a field of intensities where identity is irrelevant. The Deleuzian formula for going beyond fixed reference points is “ undoing the face ”. Yet, from the beginning of our story, Yorick is already deprived of much of the identity that makes us acceptable: half-blood, traitor, disfigured face (his lower jaw is missing) – he is extracted from an anonymous mass of quasi-corpses, and the first reaction his extractors have is to call him “ugly" and to spit on his inanimate face. During the course of the novel, Yorick (who is not even an anti-hero, since he must learn that he is not at the center of the saga which is woven around him) oscillates between sympathy and antipathy. He spends his time dissolving what little stable identity he has left in all sorts of drugs (there’s even Hyena, a military “sympathy” drug, to induce unreasoning team loyalty). Against the stereotypes that have been deployed in the book’s promotion, YMIR is not at all a modern reprise of BEOWULF according to the canons of science fiction. Our “hero” (quite unsympathetic, as we said, but we quickly learn why) Yorick arrives on the planet Ymir believing that he is living yet another (the twelfth) iteration of his personal saga of hunting “ grendels ” (note the plural ), but he finds himself rapidly embarked on a series of detours that take on more importance than the destined line he thought was all traced, and slowly his putative memories and his supposed motivations are undone, deconstructed. The reader at the beginning of this story may believe with Yorick that he is living, in a more than human saga, the eternal return of his heroic quest for revenge and his predestined outcome, but there are from the beginning clues that make us doubt the veracity of this first impression. The protagonist is not called Beowulf but “Yorick”, whose famous skull features in our stereotypical memento mori. Yorick, in HAMLET, is not a hero of life but a dead jester. His skull is a symbol of mortality, but also of futility. We pass from epic to tragicomedy. The monster to be slain is not Grendel, a fateful adversary with his own name and individuality, but “a” grendel, an anonymous scourge among the many grendels left as guardians by the “Ancients” (aliens of vastly superior technology, who disappeared in the distant past). Yorick has already killed eleven grendels. Thus, we have gone from the singular saga to the plural ballad, but there still remains a feeling of inevitability. Yorick must learn to make room for others in his personal myth, to put himself into perspective: “he realizes it was never his ballad. He was never fated to be here”. YMIR, despite its naive appearances, is a meta-saga that imitates a saga at the beginning, but only to deconstruct this simplistic form at the same time as it deconstructs the illusions of the “protagonist” (whom we have just seen is not one). He understands that his life does not follow invisible tracks towards a fixed and inevitable destiny. Through this disillusionment and decentering Yorick experiences a positive disorientation: “The sudden lack of invisible rails is dizzying. Quantum branches are spreading out in all directions, shifting and melding and splitting like the shapes in the ansible’s electric sea”. Note: “the ansible” is a Big Dumb Object, an enigmatic monolith, left on the planet Ymir by the vanished Ancients. In conclusion, YMIR is a post-cyberpunk planet opera (I haven’t said anything about the evil “algorithm” that subjugates all the natives (who are themselves quite unsympathetic) to exploit the planet’s mineral resources). I chose to spoil without spoilers, hence my somewhat abstract remarks – but the novel is not at all abstract: the characters, especially Yorick, brawl, sweat, stink, get drunk, overdose on multiple drugs, betray, cry, curse, and above all rebel and revolt. For the revolution rumbles under the “Reconciliation”, the regime of exploitation imposed by the algorithm which ensures the hegemony of the Company. We meet our (anti-)hero, the aptly named Yorick, in the first chapter, in a state of artificial death, “torpor”, induced for interstellar travel. He is clinically dead, but not legally a corpse: “Bodies churn in a slow current around the reactor, tangling and untangling, a drifting mass of frosty flesh. They are skeletal, emaciated from the long haul, and their skins are coated a slick milky white by the stasis fluid. They are clinically dead, but not legally corpses”. In short, a kind of technological sub-zombie. In this state he inspires disgust, but with his prosthesis he is at least visually bearable, except for the missing part of his face: “He’s small, pallid-skinned and dark-haired. He has no lower jaw: between the blue curve of his upper lip and the rippled flesh of his throat there is nothing but medical membrane”. Yorick wanders, drunk, stoned and disoriented, on a planet whose “Cut” (the name given by the natives to Reconciliation) mirrors his own cut, the gaping hole in his face no less than in his soul, blindly believing in a destiny that is constantly thwarted by increasingly unpredictable accidents and reversals. His revenge “saga” turns out to be a mess. We will end up finding him sympathetic (a little).

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Ymir Kindle Edition

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