Vaaja

A dark Nordic fantasy where technocrats and forest clans divide a collapsed near-future Finland - and vampires and the ancient gods of Finnish myth awaken. Book one of the Vaaja trilogy.

When the old world fell, something older awoke.

Finland, the 2080s. Decades after the Great Distress, when technology rendered human labour worthless and the global economy collapsed, society survives in fractured form. In Helsinki, technocrats - the all-reaching corporation Virrax and a ruthless procurator - hold power through technology and secrets older than the city itself. In the forests beyond, clans such as Wolf's Tooth live by the old ways, worshipping Ukko and Akka and bound by their own laws, beliefs and rituals.

Elias is a night owl, an amateur electronic musician and a technical assistant on a stem-cell research project in Helsinki. When a package of stolen samples from a remote northern facility reaches his laboratory, a single disaster turns his life upside down - and awakens in him a hunger no human should feel.

Hunted by Virrax, feared by the clans and drawn ever deeper into a conflict he barely understands, Elias discovers that the fall of human society is only part of the story. The old gods, vampires and other beings still walk in a deeper reality, where Finnish mythology, forgotten truths and new destinies intertwine. When an ancient talisman - the Vaaja, forged by the High God Ukko and long ago broken into hidden shards - begins to resurface, the balance between the nine worlds starts to shift, and forces long thought dormant stir once more.

From the wilderness of Nuuksio to the catacombs beneath Helsinki and the snowbound Sámi lands of the far North, Elias must face a truth that shatters both his understanding of reality and his own humanity. His path may already have been laid out for him. But friendship and love may be the only powers capable of standing against bottomless darkness and bloodlust.

For readers of dark fantasy and vampire fiction, and for anyone drawn to mythic worlds where the old gods never truly left - Vaaja: Wolf's Tooth is a novel of myth, survival and what endures.