Heroes of the Valley: A quick, enjoyable, often funny YA read

Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud

In the long ago history of Jonathan Stroud’s YA fantasy Heroes of the Valley, the great hero Svein gathered the other 11 heroes of the Valley to fight the Battle of the Rock against the ravening inhuman Trows who had long terrorized the Valley residents, snatching babies and killing women and children at night — the only time the Trow came out. At the end of the battle, the heroes were all dead but the Trow were driven utterly out of the valley and into the heights. Since then, the Twelve Houses of the Heroes have buried their dead in cairns lining the boundary of the Valley, each body holding a sword to keep the Trow out while none of the Valley residents go past the cairns. Also, the houses have given up violence, instead solving problem through arbitration, and the leaders of each house are Arbiters, their wives the Lawgivers.

Halli Sveinsson is the second son of the Svein family House. From birth he stands out — strangely short and dark and as he grows up he becomes a mischief-maker, falls in love with the old heroic stories told by his black sheep of the family Uncle (though Halli is never told what horrible thing his uncle did), and just never seems to fit in.

Partly due to Halli’s actions, a killing takes place and Halli is determined to ignore the Valley’s long-standing cultural rules and take his own vengeance. As he journeys to kill his target, he travels through the Valley for the first time, gets a sense of his House’s place in the big picture, and a sense of who he really is. He  begins to question the founding tales of the heroes, the existence of the Trow, and the prohibition against leaving the Valley. He’s joined at times by Aud, a young girl his own age who has her own reasons for wishing to defy the rules.

The coming-of-age element in Heroes of the Valley  is strong and realistic. The plot moves along somewhat slowly at the start as Halli’s character is built and the society explained, then moves more quickly once he leaves his House, and then speeds up quite a bit in the last quarter of the book. The plot bends and twists in unexpected ways, including a major plot twist which could have been more fully presented. But overall it’s a pleasing, pleasant plot — not terribly tense or exciting, except for in a few places, but wholly enjoyable throughout. Some might think the near-ending too out-of-nowhere and the very end a bit abrupt, but I liked both.

The plot is buttressed by the humor that runs throughout the book. The humor is effective and varied — sometimes broad, sometimes subtle, sometimes based in dialogue, other times in understated irony between word and action.
Each chapter begins with a Svein story. These are enjoyable in their own right, but also change over the course of the book in subtle but important ways — don’t assume they’re disconnected from the plot.

The characterization of Halli is strong, mostly in his change over the course of the book, but other characters don’t fare so well and many of them are a bit stock or flat — Aud the chipper: resourceful gender-breaking girl accomplice; Halli’s brother: dismissive and bullying and weak at decisive moments; his mother: stern and unforgiving; etc. They are realistic characters, just not fully three-dimensional.

Heroes of the Valley isn’t as magnificent an achievement as Stroud’s Bartimeus trilogy, but the intent is different here and that’s also a pretty high standard to set. After a somewhat slow start, Heroes of the Valley is a quick, enjoyable, often funny read that raises lots of thoughtful questions and keeps the reader on his/her toes.