War of the Gods

Classic Poul! This book is proof that even when the man was near his death, he was still sparking with a passion for his writings!

Apparently, Poul Anderson is a prolific sci-fi and fantasy writer, and has been writing for a long time, too. I haven't read anything else of his, but based on this book, I am considering picking something else of his up. This wasn't one of the greatest books I've ever read, but it held my interest because of its use of Norse mythology and the supernatural. The narrative starts out relating the strife between Odin's Aesir and the Vanir, threatening to separate the gods forever, and perhaps have cataclysmic effects on the whole universe. It then focuses on Hadding for the rest of the book, who struggles to establish a stable kingdom, facing dangers both earthly and otherworldly. His role in bringing peace to the war between the gods may not be clear until the end, unless you're a lot more cunning than me. Following the interrelationships between the characters and geographies sometimes became a daunting task and confuses the narrative, but once I got past those things, the story became very engrossing. I'm not usually into fantasy, but I'm not sure this is entirely fantasy - its pseudo-historical/myth/fantasy/horror. The supernatural and pseudo-historic elements (some of which Anderson admits are inaccurate in a brief Afterword) don't really get in the way, though at times, as I said, the focus on detailed interrelationships and geographies can be a problem. The characterization is also a little weak; although there is some, I don't feel any of the characters were very fully developed, not even Hadding. There are flashes of some of the characters that reveal something profound about their personalities, but ultimately the narrative isn't very character-driven. Instead, the emphasis is more on describing action-packed battle scenes and the history of the characters and land. Still, as I said, the story became intriguing to me, and those few passages of characterization got me to care enough for the people that I wanted to know what happened to them. And eventually I did come to sympathize with Hadding as the text showed him as a leader of people, though something a bit more than human; fair and compassionate, yet stern and brazen; strong and courageous, yet rash and vulnerable. Also, fortunately, the action scenes weren't glorified or clichéd, but instead driven by metaphor and original description. For example, "Like two storm waves, a greater and a lesser, the hosts crashed together. Blood-foam spattered into the wind. The tides churned, swirled in among each other, became a seething that howled." The pages are filled with the typical fantasy fare: warriors, kings, princesses, sorcerers, witches, trolls, elves (though these are the scary kind), as well as some uncommon creatures such as jotuns (giants), drows, and land wights. And of course gods and goddesses. Recommended if you're into Norse mythology, or think you would enjoy a good, dark mythologically and pseudo-historically based fantasy.

While not on the level with Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga, I still found this novel enjoyable. It successfully evokes the same mood as many of the Icelandic sagas...dark, melancholy, its meaning murky. There is not too much available these days in Viking fiction. If you are a fan of the genre, read it.

The text begins interestingly enough, albeit somewhat ponderously, as Poul Anderson, one of the greats of Science Fiction & Fantasy, essays once more to travel the mist-shrouded roads of Faery. Writing at least since the fifties (I enjoyed his stuff going back to the sixties), Anderson's "voice" seems to have mellowed and subtly altered with the passing of the years. Never one of the most moving or most profound of tale spinners, he was always, nevertheless, the consummate storyteller. Still this present tale lacks the energy and vitality of his earlier saga-like excursions. While The Broken Sword leaped with life and blood and darkness and Hrolf Kraki's Saga (basically a translation of a legendary Danish-Norse tale, with some additions by the author to make it more contemporary) charged onward from episode to episode until crashing mightily on the rocks of it's own climactic shore, this new tale seems oddly stilted and self-conscious. The language does not pour forth, carrying the reader over the unsure ground of fantasy, as Anderson was wont to do in former days, and the characters he has given us here seem paler than in the past -- and not nearly as interesting as their predecessors were. The protagonist, Hadding the Dane-King, for instance, moves sluggishly from one odd episode to another, always winning his battles and defeating his foes, never seeming to be in any serious danger at all, a circumstance which ultimately seems to tell on him as much as it does on us. And the people around him, as well as his enemies, never seem to be quite worthy of the attention he lavishes on them. Fostered by giants of old Norse legend and lover to his own foster mother (or sister) who adopts human form to be with him, guided by a mysterious one-eyed "wanderer", Hadding ought to be more multi-faceted than the invincible, noble hero we are given. Through much of this tale only the relatively easy-read prose (despite the incorporation of archaic words and forms to set the mood) and the intrinsically promising subject-matter (for those of us who like the Norse thing) keeps you reading. Written stolidly and with far more description than one is likely to find in the real Icelandic and Norse stuff, the tale yet retains the sleepy, dream-like presentation of events and images which is so characteristic of this material in its original form -- a form in which giants are never quite giants as we understand them (for they seem larger or smaller depending on their surroundings) and gods walk about like magicians. Nevertheless, Anderson has here created a tale which, surprisingly and for all its apparent faults, does stand up -- and admirably so, in the end. It is a story of sadness and, finally, understanding -- sketched against a backdrop of adventure and fighting and killing. The last part of the book redeems the slowness and awkward-seeming "forced" prose that went before as the truth of the tale is relentlessly brought home -- how a single life may be more th