Newton Thornburg is one of the great writers of the late twentieth century and should be better known and more read than he is. Many of his novels explore themes of rootlessness and disconnectedness. Often, his characters are at wit's ends, unemployed, puttering about, getting into trouble. His novels, especially his crime novels, are not your typical shoot-em-up stuff, but are multi-layered journeys into complex characters.

Valhalla is more of a dystopian future novel than a crime novel, although many of the same elements found in Thornburgh's crime novels are found here, including the moral quandaries, the rootlessness, the jealousies, the lusts, the wanting to prove oneself over and over again. Valhalla is about a world that has fallen apart. The economy has collapsed to the point that money is worthless except to start a fire. Violent, lawless, ruthless inner-city gangs have taken over the cities and are now roaming the countryside preying on the few communities of survivors.

The main character of the story is Stone, who has managed to develop a few survival skills, which are put to a test when he meets a trio of elite, wealthy persons who have crashed in a private plane. The interdependence and jealousies that develop between this small group are intense and explode when they sort of join a larger community.

There are many dystopian novels that have been out for decades of such bleak future worlds such as Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. More recently, many of us have watched The Walking Dead. There is a lot to understand about human nature when faced with survival and desperation and what we are made of and what it does to us and our character. Thus, even though this is a setting that has been explored by many, it is certainly worth exploring again in Valhalla and few have ever written about such a bleak future as well as Thornburgh has done here.

On the way, the novel looks into such ideas as morality, guilt, capital punishment, racism, jealousy, and leadership. Every one of the characters in this book seems to develop over time and become more complex. It is without question an absolutely outstanding book and well worth reading. ( )