PositiveStrange HorizonsVilhjálmsson’s creation is a vibrant mix of urban fantasy, New Weird, and Icelandic folklore ... From the beginning of the story, we sense the energy and urgency of a revolutionary sentiment that will ultimately erupt in what can only be called a scene of cosmic horror ... It takes seventy-five pages (unfortunately) for us to learn that the huldufólk are not despised just because they are different, but because their race used to use dimensional portals to lure people across realities in order to suck out their memories ... Confusing moments aside, Vilhjálmsson successfully switches back and forth between Sæmundur and Garún as they embark upon their respective dangerous projects ... In one of the novel’s most horrific and brilliantly written scenes, Sæmundur worms his way into his old university and takes over not one but two minds, in order to get his hands on a secret document that holds incredible power. Scenes like this don’t occur enough in Shadows; indeed, if the university scene and the cosmic-horror scene near the end of the book were multiplied and spread throughout the text, I’d be tempted to compare Shadows to China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station (2000). And that, my friends, is high praise indeed ... The last fifty pages of this 473-page novel are deliciously dark and riotously nightmarish ... ilhjálmsson virtuosically weaves together Icelandic folklore and fantasy/cosmic horror in order to create a unique reading experience that fuels the Anglophone world’s growing appreciation of international speculative fiction. Like fellow Icelandic speculative fiction authors Sjón and Andri Snaer Magnason, Vilhjálmsson offers us a fascinating window onto another literary tradition and tantalizes us with its evolution into the twenty-first century.
G. Willow Wilson
PositiveLos Angeles Review of Books\"A metatextual bildungsroman about religion, war, and love, The Bird King enriches the genre of historical fantasy. And yet, as with many novels that are rich in ideas and allusions, it raises more issues than it has time to address. Its many tantalizing questions...are neglected in favor of thrilling escapes and other adventure elements ... Nonetheless, Wilson has given us much to think about and invited us to refresh our knowledge of medieval Spain at a crucial moment in world history. This is what good fantasy should do, after all: offer us alternative worlds that, no matter how fantastic, turn the mirror back on ourselves.\
