Scan barcode
rebeccajane's review against another edition
3.0
I was sceptical going into this, but I quite liked it. It followed the stories of the original sagas nicely and the mythology was all there, so I was impressed with its accuracy.
I didn't mind how slow the story was because the sagas can be quite slow and plodding, so it didn't ruin my enjoyment. I may pick up the other books in the future.
I didn't mind how slow the story was because the sagas can be quite slow and plodding, so it didn't ruin my enjoyment. I may pick up the other books in the future.
sanya986's review against another edition
4.0
Characters in this book are so interesting and complex although you meet each and every one of them just for a short number of pages. You can't get attached to them, but I didn't mind it. The story isn't told in details, it's fast paced and dynamic. There's a lot of religious parts and legends and myths, but the biggest part of it is the way of life of those people in the northern lands. Although I read some bad critics for this story, I found it very satisfying, if you know what to expect that is.
rowena_m_andrews's review against another edition
2.0
Unfortunately, this one did not get the balance between research/details and narrative/action correct, and to some extent it felt as though it was leaning far too hard into the other and forgetting that it was supposed to be fiction. As a result it was rather dry, slow-paced and just didn’t hold my attention. Added onto a lack of character development and interaction – especially dialogue – and it was hard to grasp hold of any of them, let alone be invested in them or the narrative and it felt very much like a ‘telling’ – which can work when used well, but which fell flat in this case.
This one had potential but didn’t quite live up to it, and I won’t be reading anymore from this series.
This one had potential but didn’t quite live up to it, and I won’t be reading anymore from this series.
brynhammond's review against another edition
4.0
“...this might be what Odinn was intending -- that I should be an honest chronicler of the Old Ways and the truth about the far-flung world of the Norsemen.”
Authentic is the word that springs to mind. It’s stitched together from sagas, as he tells us in his author’s note, and from the story set-up, with Odinn the Wanderer, the acquirer of knowledge, as his chosen god and patron, you can see the above is the aim: a universal look at the Norse world. I appreciate how trustworthy he is on the history, and when he uses the genuine saga-stuff as he does, there’s going to be enough tale. It goes from episode to episode, as he travels, which I enjoy – always new things on the horizon.
Want to mention a couple of things:
There’s a large uncanny content. Of our main, Thorgils, Erik the Red's Saga tells, “... there seemed to be something uncanny about him his whole life.” He has to do with seidr (as a true Odinn’s child), and besides that, there’s a lot of fun with things that go bump in the night. In a group this year I read [b:The Saga of Grettir the Strong|629993|The Saga of Grettir the Strong|Anonymous|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1311645413s/629993.jpg|616321] – luckily, as Grettir features in #2, and I went Grettir-crazy in the saga – and that had as much fetch or ghost activity as Severin includes. So, genuine to the mind of the times, and like I said, fun.
Great women. I’m tempted to attribute these to his faithfulness to the sagas too, since Grettir’s Saga had great women. The majority of Severin’s seem to be large-framed, ‘formidable’ and not necessarily presented as attractive; perhaps he has reason to think Norse women were built on this model (I wouldn’t put it past him to have measured the skeletons); at any rate, they were fully involved in the story in a way that… they aren’t always.
And real. He may not go into great depths with the characters, but I thought them often unusual and not the stock cast; there were several I liked or who interested me.
I look forward to the next, and not only for Grettir.
Authentic is the word that springs to mind. It’s stitched together from sagas, as he tells us in his author’s note, and from the story set-up, with Odinn the Wanderer, the acquirer of knowledge, as his chosen god and patron, you can see the above is the aim: a universal look at the Norse world. I appreciate how trustworthy he is on the history, and when he uses the genuine saga-stuff as he does, there’s going to be enough tale. It goes from episode to episode, as he travels, which I enjoy – always new things on the horizon.
Want to mention a couple of things:
There’s a large uncanny content. Of our main, Thorgils, Erik the Red's Saga tells, “... there seemed to be something uncanny about him his whole life.” He has to do with seidr (as a true Odinn’s child), and besides that, there’s a lot of fun with things that go bump in the night. In a group this year I read [b:The Saga of Grettir the Strong|629993|The Saga of Grettir the Strong|Anonymous|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1311645413s/629993.jpg|616321] – luckily, as Grettir features in #2, and I went Grettir-crazy in the saga – and that had as much fetch or ghost activity as Severin includes. So, genuine to the mind of the times, and like I said, fun.
Great women. I’m tempted to attribute these to his faithfulness to the sagas too, since Grettir’s Saga had great women. The majority of Severin’s seem to be large-framed, ‘formidable’ and not necessarily presented as attractive; perhaps he has reason to think Norse women were built on this model (I wouldn’t put it past him to have measured the skeletons); at any rate, they were fully involved in the story in a way that… they aren’t always.
And real. He may not go into great depths with the characters, but I thought them often unusual and not the stock cast; there were several I liked or who interested me.
I look forward to the next, and not only for Grettir.
More...