What do you do when everything about your life is lived for the glory of the State? How do you find yourself when you can’t know yourself beyond what the government tells you? For Shea Tristan, she’s never actually had to think about these things. Born and raised as a privileged Statesman, it’s clear that she’s never known hunger, never known want and that she’s bought into the Party Assembly’s line completely.

It only takes one action to make an illusion crumble, though, and Valkyrie is the story of that fall from grace.

This book…wasn’t the journey I expected it to be. When I selected it, I expected a bog standard space opera that would be entertaining and light, but nothing too different from my usual fare. In a lot of ways, it was just that.

However, I didn’t expect the author to play with themes of sexuality and transgender issues in such a subtle yet intriguing way that played into the larger arc at hand. It made the central relationship conflicts all the more interesting, particularly with regards to how Shea viewed the people of the Anchor and Victoria herself while creating a caricature of religious fervour and moral strictures in a highly stratified society.

The themes of the book were a bit heavy handed at times, but it was clear that Ludwa put a lot of thought into building the rules and laws that govern Odin Prime and how they would converge to create the situation that spirals out of these pages. That thought is what elevates the book from standard science fiction into something that stands out for how it hands questions of morality and whether or not the world is black and white.

If science fiction is about pushing new boundaries and exploring new worlds, Ludwa takes that to heart. One doesn’t need to go far in her Odin Prime to enter a new space and the boundaries are only as much as our characters place on themselves.

If you like your soap opera full of politics and philosophical questions that don’t bog down the narrative, then this is the book for you. If anything, Valkyrie is a taste of what can be done with a few ideas well done and I, for one, hope for more in the sequel.